After Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan visited Bulgaria for shooting a film, the Eastern European nation is now using golf to lure Indian tourists to the country.
Bulgaria, which has no professional golfers, had hosted the 800,000 Euro World Match play in 2013. This week, the Bulgarian Tourism and a collection of golf courses in Cape Kaliakra region, invited one of India's leading golfers, Shiv Kapur, to play a Pro-Am, featuring amateurs from neighbouring Romania, Serbia, Sweden and even Germany among other countries.
The idea behind this is to lure Indian golf-playing tourists, said Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova at a press conference at Lighthouse Golf & SPA Resort in coastal Balchik.
She said, "India is within the plans of the Ministry of Tourism for perspective tourist market and I believe that in the coming five years Bulgaria will gradually enter that market."
She was speaking on the eve of the tournament, called Tournament of Champions at Lighthouse Golf & SPA Resort and Thracian Cliff Golf Resort in coastal Balchik. A third golf in the region is Blacksea Rama.
"The reason for this optimistic prognosis is that this summer Coastal Dobrudzha was visited by major movie stars of Bollywood (Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol), and now the Indian golf star Shiv Kapur will take part in the golf tournament," the Minister said.
Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, starring in Rohit Shetty's upcoming film 'Dilwale', shot good portions of the movie in Bulgaria. The crew stayed at the Lighthouse Golf and Spa Resort, which hosted the golf tournament inaugurated by Kapur.
"I had never been to Bulgarian before, but the food and hospitality here was great and I was pleasantly surprised by the golf courses," Kapur said.
"On the European Tour I had heard about Thracian, which hosted World Matchplay two years ago, but never realised it was so spectacular. It can easily compare with the Pebble Beach course or the stunning course in Macau," he said.
