The Future of Pamporovo is Dubious, Although Probably Bright
27.03.2007The tale of tourist development is an old one. This is how a typical plot evolves, according to Roumen Draganov, director of the Institute of Analyses and Assessments of Tourism: An explorer discovers a place. Pioneer couples start going there. Soon there are followers. Then the first investors arrive. As construction begins, foreign investors follow suit. When the number of investors grows, earnings begin to shrink. Tourists are many and pay little. Property changes hands frequently, then owners abandon it. ‘Dead zones’ form. Tourism sees its demise. Society matures, restores ecological balance and builds eco-hotels surrounded by parks and nature.
Pamporovo, a ski resort in the heart of the Rhodope mountains, is still at the stage of amorous couples and local investors, Draganov says. At this early point of development, possible plot lines diverge, quite predictably, into one professing success and one foreseeing different degrees of failure. Let’s follow both.
A Tale of Riches
The Super Perelik project, planning to connect Pamporovo proper to the Perelik peak in the Smolyan municipality and Mechi Chal in the Chepelare municipality (Pamporovo is administered by both) can bring crucial livelihood to the heart of a region relying only on tourism and wood production. It also envisions creating 3370 new jobs. Who dares argue with that?
Save for environmental organizations – whose concerns you can read about in Construction at large ski resorts worries environmentalists on page 16 – almost no one. Super Perelik is dear to many state people, partly because it has been 30 years in the making. A military presence on Mechi Chal and the Perelik peak hindered development thus far.
The visionary tale speaks of a road connecting the Smolyan region town of Roudozem to the Greek town of Xanthi at a hopefully reasonable point in the future; of a state promise to fund the Plovdiv-Smolyan stretch; and even of a future airport close to Smolyan. “Today – an airport close to Smolyan. Tomorrow – a cosmodrome near Bansko and a plot for submarines near the St. Constantine resort,” a blogger commented. Point well taken – the plan is quixotic.
Still, if the construction of a new airport is questionable, the road to Greece isn’t. Once completed, it will allow tourists to choose between landing in Sofia, Plovdiv, Kavala or Thessaloniki, Draganov says.
Sewerage, water supply, waste and electricity issues can also be resolved. So says Draganov, and Smolyan lawyer Vassil Vassilev agrees. The state will double the water supply to Pamporovo before the 2008-2009 season, and the village of Mougla will donate the rest. Although Mougla residents protest, they will not be able to prevent that from happening, Vassilev told PropertyWise. In addition, a couple of extra electric posts will be propped up, and the Chepelare municipality is slowly making progress on waste issues. Representatives from the Smolyan municipality were not available to comment on the municipality’s waste plans.
Moreover, two months ago, the Smolyan municipality finally took measures against unrestrained building and limited the height of future construction sites. It also ordered that construction activities stop during the three months of the active ski season. In Vassilev’s opinion, limiting the height of construction sites was a belated reaction because nature in Pamporovo proper is already damaged. Still, the above steps also appear to be an intelligent move.
Finally, Pamprovo with Super Perelik can make E 200 million a year, Draganov says. If the region gets investment worth E 1 billion, E 100 million will be left with the state and feed a better infrastructure, he says. The state is an abstract concept, you say? Not more so than in Italy, the Independent would counter, and still advise you to invest.
A Tale of Rags
If Super Perelik is to avoid repeating the amorous couples-to-dead-zones cycle, investors and authorities will have to take care of certain matters. Foremost is the question of road infrastructure. The arteries pumping the heart of the region may dangerously clot while allowing tourists access to the 30 000 beds that Super Perelik envisions to have together with surrounding villages.
If the resort manages to attract this impressive number of tourists, at certain weekends, traffic to Pamporovo would dawdle at 20 km an hour because the tourist capacity will be four times the capacity of existing roads, Draganov said. The thin and winding Plovdiv-Smolyan stretch may then take victims and this may be just what the state needs to quickly start widening the existing road, he adds.
Four thousand cars go through Chepelare each day at the moment, and the season has not yet started. With 30 per cent more tourists expected to visit Pamporovo this season, weekends will certainly trouble the roads, even if the resort now has a 11 000- to 15 000-person capacity. Terrains for parking lots were not allocated, and 20 per cent of tourists are expected to come to Pamporovo with their own cars, said Georgi Georgiev, president of Pamporovo 21 Century, an association of hotels and restaurants in the region on Oct. 18 in Smolyan.
Another problem is that the capacity of ski facilities of Pamporovo with Perelik will exceed the capacity of beds by about 10 000. Also, if the current 11 000- to 15 000-person capacity of Pamporovo proper is filled with tourists, about 6000 of them will be left without water because of inadequate supply, Vassilev says, quoting specialists.
Despite water problems, Smolyan municipality has somehow allowed grand-scale construction in the water-rich zone of the Smolyan lakes, Vassilev says. The zone has no sewerage and is susceptible to erosion. Construction there threatens to cut water supply to the town of Smolyan. Also, the zone is susceptible to landslides.
The infrastructure that would fix these issues may come years after the problems have appeared, specialists say.
To add more darkness to the tale, ecologists claim that companies like the Sport-Tourist Centre Perelik (STC Perelik) – the company executing the project, typically function under the false pretense of economic boon for all, but care only for the profit of future and current hotels; and damage nature. This has happened before and will happen again, they say.
The company’s manager Kiril Assenov, however, has told Bulgarian-language media that only a 26 per cent profit will remain within the company. The rest will rightfully spill to society.
Assenov is a respected businessman, so his reputation weighs in favour of the project’s success. He is not the only one in charge of the project, though. For one, its 2197 hectares are owned by state, municipalities and private parties. And, Assenov has some not-so-positive speculation attached to his name to boot. He is said to be the best man of Deputy Minister of Environment and Waters (MOEW) Lyubka Katchakova.
And this is where the article starts to tread on trouble: Pamporovo is said to follow in the footsteps of Bansko (if Bansko is the best in Bulgaria, Pamporovo will be the biggest in the Balkans!), but the environmentalists’ record says that Bansko’s zoning plan went darkly unheeded (it broke nine conventions and six laws) and so did EIA recommendations, and nobody did anything. Moreover, in June this year, Bansko was on the verge of being taken out of UNESCO’s world heritage list (at the behest of the very MOEW, no less, thus setting a precedent and allegations that this was done to allow further building bacchanalias).
Perelik’s zoning plan looks harmless to the environment. Guaranteeing that the zoning plan will be heeded and that no overbuilding will happen, however, is impossible with the current method and rate of giving away building permits, Draganov says. It costs between 10 000 and 20 000 leva to bribe a municipal official and get a building permit, the president of the association of small and medium enterprises in Bulgaria, Eleonora Alexova, said in spring this year. And the sanction for an illegal site is an absurd 300 to 500 leva. Companies assessing the legality and quality of building sites are of course part and parcel of potential trouble.
As a result of this conceptual and organisational crisis, the Pamporovo-Smolyan road collapsed because of illegal construction in June, and part of a piste collapsed in October because of a legal one. The eminent Dinev brothers, responsible for the latter, have promised to fix the problem by the start of the season. But skiers will now have to be stopped with a special net from skiing into the Dinevs’ complex, instead of enjoying nature. In addition, buyers in the Dinevs’ complex have already complained of poor construction materials, Vassilev said.
Back to the Present
At the moment, the looks and density of the resort are such that investors are already pulling out of Pamporovo proper and redirecting their interest to nearby villages, Vassilev said. With about 124 or more new construction sites underway and a current bed capacity of about 11 000, this is hardly a surprise.
The time it would take to return an investment in the future Super Perelik hinges on infrastructure development and the consolidation of Perelik and Chepelare lands that are currently of mixed ownership, which places legal delays on construction. Both deadlines are abstract.
Few property agencies are willing to comment beyond that, but it is clear that interest in nearby villages is currently growing somewhat at the expense of Pamporovo proper. In the village of Smilyan 10km south of Smolyan, for example, land sells pretty well and those who buy are mostly big investors, says Teodora Stoianova of Sprint Agency. However, sales in villages are not quite booming everywhere yet, she added.
This doesn’t prevent prices from rising: some houses in Pamporovo’s surroundings sell for as much as a house in the Alps already. Prices in Pamporovo proper and its surroundings cannot be expected to rise as fast as those in Bansko.
This is partly because the mountain is lower, it cannot host a ski season longer than three months, and Bulgaria’s property market is already entering the stages of normal development.
The region can increase the season with conference tourism, Draganov says. And owners can guarantee additional profit through time-sharing, or selling the hotel during the period of time they won’t use it. Rooms in Pamporovo can thus fare better than summer resort ones. In summer, the lifts can be turned into an attraction for a walk in nature, Draganov says.
In short, developers should do all they can to develop the “potential” of the region (a tricky word, unfortunately), while not whetting the appetite of investors. And caring for nature.
Balancing the developmental and environmental vision is a curious, almost impossible task. So everyone hopes Assenov can stand the moral test.
“Meanwhile, we have to be ready for the challenges coming with EU entry”, Draganov says.
“Competition is coming. At least five low-rate aviation companies are coming. This will sharply increase unorganized tourists coming for a week or for weekends. And increase not only winter ski-vacations, but summer vacations and outside season short-term travels related to cultural, village, and eco tourism as well.”
Are we ready for that?
“We are, but we don’t know it yet,” Draganov says.
