Bulgaria fails to achieve Good Placement in Sustainable Tourism Ranking

Bulgaria Meaningful Tourism Index 2023

The newly published MEANINGFUL TOURISM INDEX 2023 ranks the sustainability of the 88 most important countries for international tourism. Bulgaria misses to make it to a ranking in the top 15 of any of the seven main categories. The best ranking is just in the middle of upper half at position 21, while the worst ranking is just shy of the bottom 10 at position 74. Overall, Bulgaria reaches in the ranking the 53rd rank, with only 37 out of 100 possible points. The best - or least bad - result the country achieved is based on the benefits and satisfaction of the host community.

The Index is published by the Meaningful Tourism Center, based in Hamburg, and is freely available in English as a download using the link: https://meaningful-tourism.com/meaningful-tourism-index/. It uses 72 indicators to cover seven different categories: The basic situation of the national tourism industry and infrastructure and the sustainability of the situation of the six main stakeholders in terms of quality, benefits, and satisfaction. The six stakeholders are the travellers, the host community, the employees in tourism companies, the tourism service providers, the governments and finally the environment.

The overall winners of the Meaningful Tourism Index 2023 are Aruba, Iceland, and Switzerland. They are also the only three countries reaching more than 50% of the possible points, showing that there is still a long way to go to reach a sustainable form of international tourism.

At the bottom of the list are Lebanon, Nigeria, and Iraq.

At least Bulgaria can enjoy a quantum of solace by the fact that some of the neighboring countries covered by the Index, Serbia and Türkiye, are...