Reurbanisation and regeneration of tourism activity in the Vratsa region, Bulgaria

Abstract

This research has studied the region of the city of Vratsa to determine what the current state of it in terms of demographics and economics is. Based on the primary and secondary information gathered and analysed, it was determined that despite that the economy has been in a bad condition for the past few decades, things are slowly improving. However, it seems that the demographic crisis is still an ongoing factor in the area. Although, most of the young people who leave the area, usually would love to return should there be any better conditions. And despite the negative note received from some of the interviewees, it seems like the conditions are about to change for the better soon with the ongoing improvement of infrastructure.

A key objective of the essay was to evaluate the potential for the region to become a tourism destination. For this reason, an intensive research was conducted to understand the level of competitiveness of the region in the tourism sector. In the research was included also comparison with cities worldwide that share the same post-industrial past, but through tourism activities managed achieve urban regeneration. Unfortunately, the findings have shown that the tourism in the region is very underdeveloped and there are multiple issues preventing Vratsa from reaching its potential as a tourism hub. The main problems mentioned were corruption, lack of government support and poor infrastructure. However, the more evident ones were lack of lack of vision and strategy, research and innovation insufficiency, little to none marketing and communication. Although the biggest problem of all is that the region does not have much of a developed product to sell to the tourists apart from the geographic objects in the area. This is due to the fragmented way that businesses operate between each other and the municipality. Such a model cannot produce anything, but disagreements and lack of a single direction movement towards common development.

To add more, since most of the cities used for examples had been hosts of the European Capital of Culture (ECOC) event, a special consideration was given on the potential chances of Vratsa to become an ECOC city in the near future. The research results have shown that the city of Vratsa is not ready for such an exposure. Despite that the ECOC event brings further development and cultural activities, both things that the city desperately needs, the region needs to establish itself as a tourism destination first, and then to compete to host an event of such magnitude.