Introduction:

Travelling in 21 century is one of the widely spread activities in the world. Tourism is the action,
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which includes people traveling from one place to another, whether for business or leisure
purposes. The development of the touristic sector, over the years, is influenced by numerous
industries, including travel services, education, accommodation, price of services and political
stability. The share of tourism in Bulgarian economy is fluctuating every year and has an impact
on the county’s GDP and the employment.
Bulgaria is one of the most ancient countries not only on The Balkan Peninsula, but in the whole
Europe. It is located on favourable and key geographic area and possesses moderate climate,
therefore, Bulgarian has all four seasons, including hot summer and freezing winter. Bulgaria is a
country with breath-taking nature, and offers its visitors mountain and sea resorts, and cultural
experience, including introduction to the Bulgarian folk traditions and heritage in the forms of
museums, monuments, monasteries, castles, etc. Another type of tourism is balneology, spa
and wellness, which is more popular in spring days. Alternative tourism represents activities that
are not traditional and well known for people. For example, these are extreme sports, food and
wine tasting, and rural tourism.
Furthermore, this essay is going to compare the winter and summer tourism in Bulgaria, their
advantages and disadvantages, also the favourable sea capital of the country – Varna, which is
not just an ordinary city, but a key summer destination near lots of resorts.
Historical background of the evolution of the touristic sector:
Tourism is dating from hundreds of years and between contemporary and past tourism, deter
many distinctive characteristics, and its evolution in present days is closely related with the
development of high-tech technology and the world’s political situation. The first key factor of
the birth of touristic industry is transportation. Currently, the variety of means of transport is
essential, because it is easier for visitors to travel, whether by land, sea or air. In contrast, in the
past travelling was a slow process, since the rail transport was just being developed. The main
and only way of transportation was by train in the middle of 18 century and after that in 1825
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new canals were opened for sailing, also travelling by cruise become popular. Last the air
transportation was invented in 1903 and in 1919 was the first airplane, which carried
passengers from London to Paris (Sahu, 2013).
Secondly, accommodation is a fundamental factor for the advancement of the touristic sector.
These days it is effortless to find a place fitting a person’s requirement, because this process
could happen even from home, there are also variety of recent and exotic destinations and
numerous of budget and luxury hotels all over the world. Whereas people in the past had no
opportunity to reserve their accommodation in advance and actually, travellers had to find a
place to stay only after arriving to the destination and there was not such wide choice of hotels
compared to present days.
Moreover, modern tourism has changed a lot since the price of the services has become
cheaper and affordable almost for everyone, compared to old days, when only wealthy
individuals could manage to pay for a trip. Another evolution factor is the educational tourism,
which dates from 18 century and derives from Britain, which was the richest country in the
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world, and many wealthy people used to send their children to study there or somewhere in
Europe in order to experience new culture. This type of tourism was called grand tour (Channey,
1998). As the time passed the grand tour become an affordable service, as a result of the fast
and inexpensive means of transport, also the educational tourism become widely spread and
appears in plentiful bizarre destinations. Lastly, the political situation goes hand in hand with
tourism, according to journal article by Malek Murison, who said that: “You may not think it, but
tourism and politics have an incredibly close relationship.” (Murison, 2016).
Presently, there is a huge amount of politically stable countries, therefore, more available
destinations exist. In retrospect, hundreds of years ago there were plenty of wars all over the
word, and in 20 century people were embarrassed to cross country’s borders. For instance,
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during communism in Bulgaria it was extremely hard to travel and there was a strictly guarded
border, which no one could cross legally. Finally, the future trends of the advancement of the
touristic industry tend to move upward as well as, rapid communication, developed
transportation and modernized path to any part of this sector.