When I was writing the analysis, I encountered very strange things in the Strategic Plan. They are not exactly negative, rather then unusual when compared with similar documents. They also deviate from world standards, categorizations, and established research and definitions. And while they can be considered negative by someone, my goal is to point out the peculiarity of the Strategic Plan, in order to explain why the mistakes were committed, not only to criticize. The “Unusual” is also an introduction to my conclusions.
The reverse timing
As I mentioned, the Strategic Plan was prepared in the period between 2007 and 2009. Three years. Six months AFTER its first public announcement, Bulgaria commissioned a market research. Normally, the market research should be before elaborating any strategy. Strange timing, isn’t it?
The Structure of the Strategic Plan
The Plan starts with the role of the cultural tourism for the development of Bulgaria, which is followed by overview of the European cultural tourism, and the importance of the industry.
Smacked in the middle of the Strategic Plan for Cultural Tourism Development of Bulgaria there are three sections about “The need of reconstruction and “valorization” (Marxist term for adding value) of ancient cities”, “The Need for City Project” and the “Archaeological parks”. They are introduced under section 4: The system of territorial and natural resources: strategic directions”. The introduction to this chapter states that “the reclassification, reconstruction and valorization of the historical and cultural heritage, and the natural resources cannot be done the traditional ways (?) because of the great diversity of these resources in Bulgaria, but it has to take in account the local territorial complexity and the local identity. The strategy determines the basic principles to follow in the reconstruction and improvement of the cities, the city centers, the historical and archeological monuments” The intro continues with “This is a strategic choice, specially in the case of Bulgaria, with so vast array of values and diversities, pertinent to the heritage, which acquire peculiar social and economic significance related to the European and global cultural heritage”. No, the translation is not clunky. The problem is that the sentence doesn’t make any sense from logical or strategic point of view. The entire goal for a strategy is, after evaluating as much as possible diverse assets, to create a streamlined system for development of these assets. As a continuation, the “strategic direction continues with the 3 territorial types of historic heritage”. Not clear why all this is in the middle of the Strategic Plan or what does that have to do with the price of tea in China. After this section is the section is “Analysis of the sites” Go figure.
The need for Strategy for the Bulgarian Cultural Tourism, is addressed in the end of the document, not in the beginning, as most similar documents do. Then, it is followed by action plans expressed in the table, without any clarifications. In the end, it is a management system recommendation for policy makers with created with instructions how to spend the EU money for improving the Bulgarian cultural tourism.
The research methodology
Related with the “reverse timing” is the issue of the proprietary research conducted for the purposes of the Strategic Plan. Interviews with policy makers and tour operators were conducted to identify the main problems of the Bulgarian cultural tourism. No research was conducted with tourists, potential tourists from the main markets or any research about the image of Bulgaria as cultural destination among people who didn’t visit the country.
The missing people
Cultural anthropologists, cultural macro-economists and, or course, futurologists and cultural tourism macro-strategists are missing. The results from not consulting with people with the above profile is visible – the lack of macro-strategy which will guide the cultural tourism development in Bulgaria, accordingly to the specifics of the cultural anthropology of the country and the overall economic development in the future.
The data
There is no data whatsoever about the cultural tourists. Who is visiting the museums, who is visiting the historic sites – in general or by LoCuS-es, What are the motivations to choose Bulgaria as cultural tourism destination, if any? How many tourists from the leisure tourists visit cultural heritage sites, events, etc? No data. None. Zip. In the same time, there is plenty of data about the international tourism to Bulgaria in general and some generic data about the European cultural tourism, which, in some instances, is outdated or wrong.
The cultural tourism sub-categories
Here they are (translated from Bulgarian, and believe me, the translation is correct)
- Heritage tourism (ok, that exist, but here is used as “cultural heritage tourism”, not as “heritage tourism”, which is a totally different subcategory)
- Art tourism – isn’t art part of cultural heritage? As per the Cultural heritage Act of 2002 it is. Nevertheless, I can live with this sub-category. Down in the list there is a bigger absurdity, so this subcategory is fine, for the moment.
- Creative tourism – this time they got it right, although in many cases the creative tourism is considered as a separate category of tourism. I define it as the next stage of cultural tourism, not as a sub-category.
- City cultural tourism – this and the following two are very unusual, since they change the methodology of categorization from motivation-based type to geographical based type.
- Rural cultural tourism – up to now, the categories were based on activities, now they switched to geographies
- Local cultural tourism - see the remark above
- Contemporary cultural tourism – somebody know what that means? Contemporary arts and events?
Funny, isn’t it? Leave alone that as per the definition of cultural tourism, the leading factor is the “need”, i.e. MOTIVATION, and this motivation should define the sub-categories of cultural tourism. I will write on sub-categories of cultural tourism later on this blog.
The European Cultural tourist profile
Here is something so absurd, that it resembles a joke: as per the Strategic Plan, the “European cultural tourists are mostly women in the age between 39 and 59, with high-socio-economical status, high level of education, enough free time and mostly working in the cultural industry field”. Well, the European report (you can download it here), which I analyzed few months back (see the full article) totally contradicts the elitist picture that the Strategy Plan is painting for the European Cultural traveler. As it happens, 41% of all International and 39% of domestic travelers in the EU are cultural tourists.
The lack of transparency
Up to date, except for the 30-50 people directly involved in the project, there is not a full length Strategic Plan for the Cultural Tourism Development in Bulgaria available online. The only available document is the 49 pages Executive Summary and in Bulgarian. This is in direct contradiction to the European policies for transparency and information distribution. I still cannot explain how both the Italian and the Bulgarian Governments got away with this.
Keep reading – the last part – conclusions…
