Hotel Service Quality in Bulgaria Grows for the Second Consecutive Year in 2024, Study Shows

The HotScore Index, which measures guest satisfaction with hotels in Bulgaria, rose by 0.9 points to 72.4. While this increase is slightly lower than last year’s growth of 1.5 points, it still outlines a stable positive trend in service quality.

This growth is encouraging, as it clearly demonstrates that despite numerous challenges faced by the sector—such as rising prices of essential goods and services, labor shortages, political instability, and other negative factors—hotel service quality continues to improve.

The study, conducted by the Hotel & Tourism Investment Forum, covers the period from December 2023 to December 2024. It uses algorithms to analyze and rank over 1,000 hotels in the country that meet specific criteria: having 20 or more rooms (thus excluding apartments and guesthouses), being classified as three-, four-, or five-star establishments, and receiving at least 50 user reviews across various booking platforms.

Analysis Based on Performance in Major International Booking Platforms

The hotel industry is one of the few sectors where the quality of service can be precisely measured. An objective criterion for this is the ratings and reviews left by hotel guests on various booking platforms, such as Booking.com, Google, Tripadvisor, and others.

These reviews are used to calculate a user satisfaction index for each hotel in the country, known as its HotScore™ (Hotel Score). The algorithm, enhanced with artificial intelligence, considers several factors, including:

Hotel category – Guests have different expectations for three-star and five-star hotels.
Number of reviews – It is more challenging for a hotel with 1,500 reviews to achieve and maintain a high HotScore compared to one with only 200 reviews.
Other factors – Ensuring maximum objectivity in the calculations.

There is no jury or public voting on social media—only the hotel guests can objectively evaluate a hotel’s quality.

It’s important to note that to ensure transparency and objectivity, both the calculation of the HotScore Index and the subsequent inclusion of the top 100 hotels in the TOP 100 Best Hotels in Bulgaria 2024 ranking are entirely free for the hotels.

In 2024, the project for calculating and monitoring hotel rankings in Bulgaria was approved and co-funded by the European Union under the Operational Program “Innovation and Competitiveness,” highlighting its significance as a genuine measure of the quality of hotel products in the country.

Interesting Facts

All hotels included in the study have a combined capacity of over 100,000 rooms, averaging about 95 rooms per hotel in the three-, four-, and five-star categories in Bulgaria. Slightly under half of all studied hotels are seaside establishments, 27% are city hotels, 10% are spa hotels, 10% are mountain hotels, and 7% are “other vacation” hotels near natural or historical landmarks.

Among the top 100 hotels in the country:

40 are seaside hotels,
29 are city hotels,
18 are spa hotels,
7 are mountain hotels,
6 fall into the “other leisure” category.

Within the top 100, the ratio of four-star to five-star hotels is 50:50. The cities with the highest representation in the ranking are:

Plovdiv (12),
Sofia (11),
Sunny Beach (9),
Golden Sands (8),
Nessebar (5),
Bansko (5),
Burgas (4),
Velingrad (4),
Obzor (4), and more.

TOP 100 Best Hotels in Bulgaria 2024 Ranking

The 100 hotels that achieved the highest HotScore index during the year will be included in the TOP 100 Best Hotels in Bulgaria 2024 ranking and will be honored at a special gala ceremony on January 23, 2025, at the Central Military Club in Sofia.

Simultaneously, owners and managers of hotels across different categories will receive certificates for their outstanding performance during the year, including: