Hotel revenue in Sunny Beach is up about 15% on last year, early estimates from the tourism industry show. The season at Bulgaria's biggest seaside resort isn't over yet: at the end of September, 30% to 40% of hotels there are still taking guests.
June and July were weak and fell short of expectations, but August and especially September turned the season around and made up much of the lost ground.
Higher revenue doesn't mean higher profit, industry figures say. Costs are climbing across the board — labour, food, supplies and services — with some up more than 30%.
Prices at seaside businesses have risen by 15% to 20%. Industry representatives say this hasn't put Bulgarian tourists off, and fears from early summer that they would flock to Greece instead haven't played out on the scale people expected.
Bulgarians started coming back to the southern Black Sea coast last year, mostly in September, and the resort saw 15% to 20% more Bulgarian tourists. That trend has held this year too.
The turnaround came later than it did last year, and the season started roughly, with high prices and tension in the industry.
Sunny Beach's main foreign markets remain Germany, Britain, the Czech Republic and Poland.