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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.

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In the last week in Berlin the key business word was "tourism". More than 10 000 tourist state agencies and private companies from 179 countries around the world presented the most precious, in their view, coins of the globe with only one goal in mind - to attract as many as possible tourists during the ongoing 2001. The 35th edition of the International Tourism Exchange (ITB) in the capital of Germany (3-7 March) was visited by more than 130 000 travel agents and common people from 190 countries. Everyone is expecting that the 2001 and the years to come will be even more successful than 2000, which has been marked by an astonishing 698 million tourist arrivals and $476 billion of tourist earnings*.

The figures look very nice indeed but far more important for the tourist industry leaders are the trends. The one who may catch the future markets that are still in a process of development will lead the business for years to come.

On the ITB there were two dominant ideas on how to push far ahead the tourist industry - via the new technologies or by expanding the industry in new fields such as cultural tourism. The first idea was connected with the new technologies - internet exchange of information, online vacation booking etc. that were born in the recent years. The slogan of the supporters of this trend is "Everything goes online" so the tourist industry has to follow suit. The strong supporters of this trend are small tourist agents and markets, left behind by the huge industry leaders. Their only choice to succeed is by bypassing the existing information structure and providing direct access to the potential clients.

Some of the existing industry leaders such as Germans' TUI or Neckermann will fight for their right to be monopoly middlemen between the most attractive destinations and the major European markets of affluent clients. They too are benefiting from the new technologies because they save them big money on advertising the new destinations. Now this advertising might be made by internet. But when it comes to the real bargains these middlemen are trying to influence the clients playing on their conservative cords: "The country you are going to visit may look very beautiful, but are you sure you will feel comfortable enough without our professional services. You are going there to relax and not to take part in an action, so trust us as usual and you won't be disappointed".

Instead of putting stress on the new technologies the old and established tourist leaders are trying to bring in more tourists with new kind of attraction - culture. You are told that you may visit the birthplace of Picasso in Malaga, to discover the ancient ruins in Malta or to follow the steps of Van Gogh in French town of Auvers-sur-Oise.

For the first time a separate hall of the ITB was dedicated entirely to the cultural tourism with exhibitions from several countries such as Spain, Ireland, Greece and Malta. The other major cause of stressing on cultural tourism for the big companies is the fact that these destinations require more complex services. Instead of just bringing the clients from point A to point B (to the sea or mountains resorts) you have constantly to move them between several attractions. In other words this more sophisticated plan requires more sophisticated organization. If you are going to visit several cultural places within a limited amount of time and you don't have a local guide that you may trust, it is almost certain that you will turn to an established tourist organization that will take care of you.

* - Provisional figures by the World Trade Organization.

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