CHALLENGES FACING BULGARIAN CONGRESS TOURISM

Tourism sector has proved its role for the GDP of Bulgaria and its indicators are permanantly traced out. Nowadays however global challenges are not missing that turn to be quite influential for the sector and practically threaten large part of businesses. There’s dire need of radical changes in models of work and management, marketing and collaboration on the tourist market. The current paper reveals some potential directions that can turn congress tourism into a more effective specialized form of tourism in the country. Some challenges are outlined that concern: new principles of working out successful hotel congress product; image repositioning of Bulgaria on the congress tourism map; retargeting of potential tourist flows both in low- and high category hotels; bringing forward privately owned local accommodation places on the congress tourism map; using the potential of affirmed regional sites for the needs of congress tourism; cooperation between tourist entities in the region.