1500 of them will be given to Bulgarian tourists, and the remaining 4500 – to foreigners. The budget of the National agency for tourism plans 1,5 million leva for that initiative. The cards will be handed out to tour operator firms that first made reservations for a minimum of 6-day tourist packages in the period January 15th – February 1st 2009 and in March.

The foreign firms must bring tourist with charter flights. It isn’t clear yet what the requirements are for Bulgarian tour operators. According to the boss of the agency Anelia Krushkova, this is one of the steps to fight the financial crisis that will inevitably affect tourism. “The winter season this year is critical, because many of the beds will be taken at the last moment”, explained she. According to her, 4500 of the cards are already given to English and Russian tour operators, including “Solvex”, TUI, “Tompson”, partners of “Alma tour”, etc. They will hand them out to their clients however they wish.