Abstract:

Bulgaria’s accession into the EU in 2007 created conditions for gradual positive change of the country’s image and vision in developing cultural tourism. Regarding Christian cultural heritage, opportunities are made to use its potential for promoting of places and historical areas and turning them into symbols of cultural memory and a resource for stimulating economic relations and inter-cultural exchange through trans-border cooperation. The aim of this paper is to present and comment on significant good practices of municipalities in Bulgaria on EU trans-border projects and initiatives of the Council of Europe and the EU in South-eastern Europe placing an emphasis on the partnership mechanisms with non-government organizations and particular results achieved. The relevance of the topic is determined by the insufficient awareness of local traditions and good practices for protecting and promoting of Christian monuments as part of the national cultural heritage. Nationwide, this type of heritage stands out in scientific literature as a vital spiritual and cultural value, religious tourism is analyzed mainly as a notion and a concept, emphasizing its huge potential, but no specific analyses are at hand, there are no systematized databases of realized good practices in this thematic area. Methodology. In this research methods of analysis and systematization, comparative and problem method, descriptive qualitative method, selective review of documents, scientific literature and information sources according to given thematic criteria have been used. The paper presents the results of the project “Creating a Model for Safeguarding, Socialization and Promotion of Christian Monuments in Bulgaria”, supported by the Bulgarian Science Fund at the Ministry of Education and Science. The achieved results can be used in the development of awareness and training programs to increase the capacity of local communities in the field of cultural tourism. The presented results show that the “constant” negative image of the Balkans can be reformulated to some extent thanks to the cultural and historical heritage, which can be considered a high value cultural capital, so common projects in this area would make a great contribution to the future shaping and maintaining of the positive image of the region in the cultural sphere.

Keywords:

Christian cultural heritage, municipalities, religious tourism, good practices.