Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova announced that about 300,000 Bulgarians had made travel reservations abroad for the period March 13 - June 1. The numbers clearly show that the crisis caused by Covid-19 has mainly affected tour operators specialized in outbound tourism and organizing excursions for Bulgarians abroad.
According to polls by tourism organizations, half of the tour operators have placed their employees on unpaid or paid leave. Others plan to lay off employees if the crisis continued much longer. Only about 10% have retained a large part of their employees, said the Minister of Tourism and reiterated her hope that Bulgaria would still have a late summer tourist season this year.
