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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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World Tourism Statistics In Dollars And EurosThe World Tourism Organization decided to start financial statistics also in Euro alongside the US dollar, said during a press conference Mr. Francesco Frangialli, the secretary-general of the organization. He was commenting the final statistics on the industry trends for 2001, which turned to be better than the preliminary experts' expectations. The main reason why WTO has decided to do statistics in both currencies has been the fact that the half of the global industry is situated in countries that take part of the Euro zone (like France, Spain and Italy) or are considered to become its members in a near future (like the United Kingdom). Tourism once again has shown how resilient industry is, said Mr. Frangialli. Compared to the preliminary estimates of his organization issued in January, the new and updated data demonstrates that the tourism in Europe and around the globe has experienced less than expected reduction in 2001. According to the latest information, the industry receipts have decrease in dollar terms by 2.5% compared to 2000, while the arrivals have been cut by 0.6% both at the continent and in the world in general. In Euro terms in 2001 there was an unexpected increase in the receipts by 0.5% due to the depreciation of the Euro against the dollar during that year. Even if these statistics are better than expected, the data for 2001 is worse than for any year since 1982 when the second oil crisis, the aftermath of the martial law in Poland, the Falkland war between the United Kingdom and Argentina, and also the war between Israel and Lebanon in the Middle East aggravated the situation in the industry. Europe, already the biggest tourist market in the world, demonstrated results among the best in the industry in 2001 with a decrease of only 0.6% compared to 2000. The picture at the continent looked like an innocent Christmas tale compared to the sharp drop in some other tourist regions - South Asia (6%), Americas (6%), Middle East (3%*). Half of the European share (25% of whole global market in terms of arrivals and 20% in receipts) has been kept by four countries in the continent - France, Spain, Italy and UK. In 2001 together they welcomed almost 190 million foreign tourists, the same figure as in 2000. 9 out of 15 most frequent tourist destinations in the world are either European Union counties or are states that hope to become EU members by 2004. Western and Southern Europe hold for the most of the successes of the European tourist industry. These two regions represent 30-35% of the global tourism industry both in terms of receipts and international arrivals. The recent appreciation of the Euro against the US dollar is considered to be a hurdle for the sharp increase of the American tourists in Europe. Anyway this summer the European tourism agencies are expecting for much better market situation than a year ago. And of course they cross fingers to prevent another terrorist attacks that knock downed the industry in 2001.
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