The new version of the national tourism portal of the Bulgarian government www.bulgariatravel.org is said to be ready in a month.

According to the Bulgarian Ministry of Economy, Energy, and Tourism, as cited by Dnevnik, the new site will be up and running in September.

The site is developed by a consortium entitled "Bulgaria Travel 2010" including three firms – Media Planning Group, CNsys, and Screen Brothers – which won the tender for it in competition with 13 other entities at the end of 2010, and got to prepare the Bulgarian tourism portal for the price of BGN 1.46 M before the VAT.

The new tourism site of the Bulgarian government will feature information in 9 languages (as opposed to 4 at present), plus a multimedia catalog for 400 tourist sites, over 4 000 photos and 50 videos, interactive tourist maps and tourism calendars, a business travel and blogging section, as well as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace profiles.

The creation of Bulgaria's new national tourism portal is funded under the EU Regional Development Program. The initial tender in 2009 was canceled over a projected price of BGN 1.9 M before VAT. The current price to be paid for the new website, which is not much lower, has spurred an outrage in Bulgarian Internet forums, with users massively criticizing it as a too high even for a very sophisticated website.