The Embassy of Pakistan in Bulgaria, in collabora-tion with Pakistan Tourism Development Corpora-tion (PTDC) and Association of Bulgarian Tour Operators Travel Agents (ABTTA), organized an online webinar on introducing ‘Pakistan as a Tourist Destination’ for the tour operators and travel agents in Bulgaria.
Representatives from Ministry of Tour-ism of Bulgaria and Pakistan Association of Tour Operators (PATO) also participated in the event.
While giving her opening remarks, Ms. Mariam Aftab, Ambassador of Pakistan to Bulgaria, thanked the PTDC and ABTTA for organizing this important event with the Embassy.
She highlighted that Paki-stan carried a lot of tourism potential for Bulgarian people because of its rich diversity, history, culture and landscape.
She stressed that international tour-ism in Pakistan was booming due to active policies of the incumbent government and PTDC was play-ing an important role in that regard.
She urged the Bulgarian tour operators to establish linkages with their counterpart companies in Pakistan in order to introduce this fascinating new destination to the Bulgarian people.
Ms. DimitrinaGoranova, President of the ABTTA, while speaking on the occasion, said that that Bul-garian people and tour operators were looking for new destinations due to closure of traditional ones as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.
She reiterated that Pakistan carried immense potential in this re-gard and, therefore, organization of this webinar would help the tour operators in Bulgaria to dis-cover this amazing tourist destination.
She urged the Bulgarian tour operators to take full advantage of this opportunity and assured full support of ABTTA for establishing active linkages between them and their Pakistani counterparts.
Mr. Aftab-ur-RehmanRana, Managing Director of PTDC, gave a detailed presentation to ABTTA and the participating nineteen (19) tour operators from Bulgaria on the tourism potential of all provinces of Pakistan.
He informed that, unlike several other countries, tourism in Pakistan was active in all four seasons owing to great diversity and availability of attractions all over Pakistan.
He also highlighted the recent initiative of the government of Pakistan to promote tourism in Pakistan including by formation of Pakistan Tourism Coordination Board, introduc-tion of e-visa facility to 191 countries, formulation of National Tourism Strategy 2020-21 and opening of Skardu airport for international flights.
