Britons Give up Bulgarian Real Estates and Ski Runs

Britons have been tightening their belts for a year - banking crisis, increased fuel and food prices, stagnation at the real estates market and tangibly growing unemployment... The subjects to the Queen no longer consider buying a second home and more seldom fly abroad for a holiday. This summer the rainy but much cheaper British seaside resorts have seen a considerable influx of tourists - 20%, for the first time for decades.

The predictions for the winter are that many Britons will prefer staying in the UK, which is definitely bad news for the Bulgarian ski resorts where the British tourists comprise one of the biggest groups of foreign holidaymakers. Balkan Holidays, the company that provides about half of the British tourists to Pamporovo, Borovets and Bansko has already cancelled the charter flights to Plovdiv.

The Britons are no longer the leaders in another ranking - that of the most active buyers of Bulgarian real estates. This is just another bad sign that the financial winter in the UK will freeze the expectations for inflow of British money into Bulgaria.