20,000 Bulgarians visit Edirne on weekends

EDİRNE

The northwestern province of Edirne hopes to welcome more than 3 million visitors from Bulgaria this year thanks to visa-free travel granted to the citizens of the neighboring country.

The number of Bulgarians who travel to the province on the common border, mostly for shopping on weekends, increased to 20,000, giving a strong boost to the local economy, said Recep Zıpkınkurt, the chair of the Edirne Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The influx of visitors from the neighboring country intensified after Türkiye removed the visa requirement for Bulgarian citizens last month, according to Zıpkınkurt.

“Before the visa-free travel, some 12,000 to 16,000 people from Bulgaria would visit the city on weekends. Now, we have 20,000 visitors.”

Bulgarians are flocking to the city via buses or their cars for shopping, heading back to their country on the same day or after spending the entire weekend filling their bags.

Each visitor from Bulgaria spends around 100-150 euros on average for shopping on their visit to Edirne.

Zıpkınkurt expects more visits from the Bulgarian side in the coming days. “The border crossing is busy these days as Turkish expats are either returning home to European countries or arriving for a summer vacation in Türkiye. Once this traffic eases at the border, more people from Bulgaria will travel to Edirne,” he said.

Hotels are full in the city with expats and visitors from Bulgaria, he added.

In the past, mostly Bulgarians living close to the border would travel to the city, but after the visa requirement was scrapped on July 28, residents in farther cities, as far as 400 kilometers from the border, started to visit Edirne, according to Zıpkınkurt.

He predicts the number of visitors from Bulgaria will exceed 3 million this year.

More and more Bulgarians have been arriving in Edirne over the past two to three weeks since it is much easier for them to travel only with an ID card, said Mehmet Demir, a local business owner. He also voiced optimism that visits from Bulgaria will increase once the traffic at the border eases.

Bulgarians are buying more as their currency, lev, gained value against the Turkish Lira, Demir said.

Goods are cheaper and their quality is high in Edirne, said Aysel Dursun, who traveled from Bulgaria with her family. “I changed 100 levs and spent 10,000 liras,” she said.

In the first seven months of 2022, 1.4 million Bulgarians visited Türkiye, constituting the fourth largest group of foreign visitors after Germans, Russians and Britons.

In the same period of last year, Türkiye hosted only 453,000 Bulgarian travelers.

Greek nationals are also traveling to Edirne for shopping.

From January to July, Edirne received a total of 2.5 million foreign visitors, accounting for 11 percent of all tourist arrivals.

In the first half of this year, nearly 1.2 million foreigners visited Türkiye only for shopping.