Data gathered by the Bulgarian State Agency for Tourism (SAT) indicated that three to four hotels on the Black Sea coast were filing for bankruptcy every week. The information has been provided by bank-financed investors and hotel owners unable to pay back their debts, Anelia Kroushkova, the head of SAT, said as quoted by Trud daily.
Kroushkova has said that a number of hotels have been put up for sale, but no buyers have expressed interest so far. In such cases, Kroushkova explained, those hotels would switch ownership and fall under the ownership of the financial institutions that granted the credit in the first place. However, SATs chairperson has expressed a doubt that they would succeed with the hotels' re-sale considering the failure of their current owners.
Contacted by The Sofia Echo, Kroushkova was not available for comment.
The statistics show that only for the first part of 2008 there were 820 hotels built along the Black Sea coast. That eventually led to a higher supply against diminished demand, because many hotels remained half-empty and their owners could not meet their financial obligations, Kroushkova has said.
According to her, Bulgaria would soon share Spains fate where the state began buying out all bankrupt hotels, demolished them and created green areas and parks instead. The Spanish real estate market followed a curve of stagnation and chaotically hit a rock bottom. It would be hard to predict whether the same future awaited Bulgaria, Kroushkova has been quoted as saying.
