FINALIST 2015 DESTINATION AWARD Located on the Gulf of Burgas, Sozopol Sozopol is the oldest town on Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast. Once known as Appolonia, Bulgaria it was an important trading port in the time of Ancient Greece. Today there Preserving a town’s heritage while ensuring it are still buildings and ruins stretching meets the demands of the present, is always back to the fourth century, along with a wonderfully intact old town of cobbled a challenge. Doing it when your town’s history streets and medieval stone and wood stretches back to 611 B.C. is even harder. houses. That the Bulgarian seaside town of Sozopol In 2002 the Sozopol Foundation was has done all this while ensuring the highest established to ensure the town’s sustainability as it grew in popularity levels of inclusive access is what makes it a with tourists. At that time the coastline finalist for the Destination Award. was dirty, strewn with waste and there were constant leaks from the sewers. Today not only has the town been restored using local labour and the most authentic building materials available, it has been done so as to make it accessible to as many people designed to connect Sozopol with as possible too - so much so that other similarly accessible cities in the Sozopol is one of just six members of region. Eventually nine fully accessible the League of Historical and Accessible tourist routes through Italy, Spain Cities. and Bulgaria will be developed into complete tourist packages. With such The foundation has also created an inclusive and thought out efforts, initiative called STRING (Smart Tourist Sozopol is putting Bulgaria’s ancient Routes for Inclusive Groups) that is heritage firmly back on the map. To learn more about Sozopol and the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards please visit: http://www.wttc.org/tourism-for-tomorrow-awards/.