The Black Sea destinations of Burgas and Varna are feeling the effects of the Ukraine war indirectly, as booking numbers have plummeted. Obviously, many potential customers do not want to spend their holidays on a sea where a war is being waged at the other end.

The lack of demand does not have an impact on hotels and other tourist businesses locally, but also on airlines and tour operators, who have bet that the demand for cheap holidays in Varna and Burgas will increase sharply this year. Many potential holidaymakers in Bulgaria have chosen Turkey this year.

In Austria, all airlines that have Varna and/or Burgas in their route network have secretly reduced their frequencies. Due to a lack of demand, the European Air Charter flights planned from Graz to Burgas will not take place this year. The tour operators were not able to win enough customers for this destination, so the cancellation was made a few weeks before the summer holidays.

It is to be expected that one or the other travel provider could also cancel planned charter flights to the Bulgarian coast from Germany. From travel agency circles it can be heard that there is not at all any demand for holidays in Bulgaria this year and at most a small group of regular customers would like to fly to Burgas or Varna this year.