Tourism Workshop

This past Friday I was in Sofia, the capital, for a Tourism Workshop to meet with people in the industry and other volunteers that have insights to offer. Most useful for me I think was the session on making tourism maps. We dont have any for the municipality and I am currently working on a prototype to show people here of just Avren. The sites, restaurants, places that rent rooms, cafes and gas station in the village will be marked and I hope to get it on the website and then make one for Kamchia, where the beach is, and the other villages in the municipality. We, according to municipal publications, have a monastery somewhere, old burial mounds, a fortress from the middle ages, and two nature preserves, BUT no one who wanted to visit these things would be able to find them. Hence the map.

Nichole and the Woman from the Bulgarian Association for Alternative Tourism

Tomo and the women from the Bulgarian Tourism Channel

We also had a meet and greet with tourism organizations in Bulgaria. There were several that focused on rural tourism which was nice to see since that would be a strong point here. Varna is a largely developed tourist destination, so is Sunny Beach. One is to the north and the other to the south so something different would stand out rather then be lost. That's my idea at least. We'll see if I can get a partnership with some of these places going.

Saturday we went to Pazardzhik to celebrate the birthday of a fellow Pavolche member and hang out. We got delivery pizza. It was awesome to be able to do that. Call someone and have food show up at the door. I never used to do it that often, but you miss it when you can't.