Eastern Europe Travel
With your tour guide,
Anne P. Mitchell
| Summary: Eastern Europe travel is experiencing a real boom. Increasing numbers of visitors from both the East and the West are considering Eastern Europe travel not only as an alternative, but as the itinerary of first choice. |
Eastern Europe travel is on the rise, and in a big way. In a mere sixteen years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Eastern Europe is now attracting foreign visitors on an ever-increasing scale. Tourist industry representatives from many of these countries are reporting annual increases in tourist visits of three to four percent to their respective countries over the past three years. And with the slow but steady inclusion of former Eastern European countries into the European Union, further increases are expected.
At first glance, the development of tourism in “the East” presents a bit of a patchy image. Several Eastern European countries are still reeling under the enormous changes thrust upon them after the fall of The Wall. But others have directly benefited due to their traditional ties to the West. Most fortunate, of course, are the countries that have entered or are at the head of the line for entry into the EU like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Other strong contenders also include Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia as well as Lithuania and Latvia.
The Czech Republic, for instance, is a beautiful land of castles, fascinating architecture, mountains and famous hot springs. The medieval capital city of Prague was a bit of well-kept secret before 1989 but has since then experienced a virtual renaissance. It has attracted countless young artists and avant-garde bohemians to its well-known cobble-stoned streets and has established itself as a trendy, cultural mecca for visitors, expatriates and Czechs alike. Yet strangely, the rest of the Czech Republic has yet to open itself completely to tourism and remains virtually untouched.
Bulgaria, on the other hand, is developing tourism on a grand scale. Visits to its famous Black Sea resorts are picking up again after a decade-long slump, and it is now setting its sights on the more affluent western clientele. Foreign visits to Bulgaria have seen double-digit growth over the past two years. Once a favourite holiday spot for communist-era Eastern workers, Bulgaria is now attracting wealthy visitors from both East and West; Russians top the list of visitors at the moment. The hotel prices here now rival those of nearby Turkey, but restaurant, bar and nightclub prices are still much lower.
Croatia is another success story. A well-known and long appreciated tourist destination for decades, Croatia’s beautiful Adriatic coast is now drawing in greater and wealthier waves of tourists than ever before. The terrible images of the country’s war of independence from the former Yugoslavia seem to be long-forgotten here now. The slow trickle of visitors which began in the late nineties has turned into a veritable flood. Croatia has even begun to exert a certain draw upon the droves of visitors to Italy, just a few kilometers away.
Eastern Europe is certainly no longer a mere cultural or historical curiosity. Its rapidly developing tourism industries are attracting growing numbers of visitors from both East and West of the “divide”. It has become the new frontier of European travel.
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