| Summary: | The issue of sustainable tourism development is discussed in numerous academic publications
and official documents. Nevertheless practical implications of this concept are very rare in tourist
destinations in Bulgaria. Sustainable tourism development can be shortly described as a development
where the resulting economic and social changes lead to a decrease in the need for environmental
protection. Quite a few publications try to identify the factors for destinations’ sustainable tourism
development. The present research is an attempt to view sustainability as a result of various impacts
tourism exerts on the destinations. It can be accepted that positive tourism impacts enhance sustainable
tourism development while negative ones can be blamed for the unsustainability of tourist destinations.
In their turn tourism impacts are subject to numerous regional and local factors making their
monitoring and evaluation extremely difficult but nevertheless indispensable. The present study focuses
on three main factors for tourism impacts in destinations in Bulgaria. The three factors investigated are:
level of tourism development, stage of tourism development life cycle and prevailing tourism type. But
how do we measure tourism impacts and how do me compare them? The impacts in those destinations
are evaluated by the local population. This is a way in which all impacts can be compared since they are
measured by one and the same indicator – the values they receive from the local population. 5 000
questionnaires are distributed and 4 397 are processed. One of the most interesting findings shows that
the least sustainability can be expected in highly seasonal destinations no matter of the level or the stage
of their tourism development It was found out that all three investigated factors are of great importance
for the differentiation of local residents’ attitude towards tourism, for their perception of tourism
impacts and for overall tourism sustainability in general.
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