Bulgaria calls contest for new tourism logo
Bulgaria’s Tourism Ministry said on February 5 that it launched an open competition to choose a new tourism logo for the country.
The contest is open to all entrants, with submissions due by April 4. In the first stage, an eight-member jury drawn from the National Academy of Arts and the Union of Bulgarian Painters will shortlist the best designs, which would then be presented to the wider public over a period of one week.
A larger jury of 15, which will include representatives of the tourism industry, advertising and public relations agencies and media outlets, would pick the winner of the contest by the end of April, the ministry said.
The contest “aims to develop Bulgaria’s brand strategy and accomplish the necessary stability in carrying out the European project for a brand strategy for Bulgaria, which was concluded in 2013,” according to the ministry statement.
That project included also a tourism logo, which failed to gain public support and has not been used in Bulgaria’s tourism promotion campaigns, although all other elements of the strategy have been adopted, the ministry said.
Over the past decade, Bulgaria has called several competitions to pick a new tourism logo, but each one ended by sparking criticism either inside the industry or the public at large.
(The logo used by Bulgaria for nearly a decade, bottom left, was meant to be replaced by a new one, right, which failed to win sufficient public support. Photo: Bulgarian National Radio.)
