Dental tourists flock to Bulgaria

Bulgaria has become a haven for tourists who come here to enjoy the beautiful seaside and the wonderful climate, but also to get relatively cheap and excellent quality dental care. Radio Bulgaria’s Veneta Nikolova has the details.

It turns out in recent years dental care tourism has flourished. Alongside the many souvenir shops, the taverns, restaurants and night clubs, foreign tourists come across the Dentist sign written in block letters, as if in front of the latest tourist attraction. From early morning till late evening the line of tourists heading for dentist practices and smaller clinics never wears out. They sit comfortably in well-lit and spacious lounges waiting patiently for their turn in the care of amiable receptionists. Most often these people have traveled the long distance to get to Bulgaria for a therapeutic or esthetic procedure. They are drawn like a magnet by the relatively low prices of dentists’ and dental technicians’ service and are desperate to get high quality implants, non-metal dental substitutes, and ceramic facets for a flashy white smile and the latest in esthetic dentistry.

Although the Black Sea shore is the most common destination for this type of services, the country’s major cities are also assuming some of the dental care tourism burden. This has become a steady business and some of the big world tour operators have included a regular several-day package for therapy or embellishment in Bulgarian dental clinics.

A very positive trend is the attraction of foreign investment in the sector. Thus, in the autumn of 2006 in one of the Black Sea resorts near the city of Varna, a state-of-the-art implantology and esthetic dentistry clinic opened doors for the first time. It is the property of a Swiss joint stock company. Its main clientele comes from Western European states in an expectation of European quality service, and a good value for money. According to Franz Grenzebach, representing the Swiss investor, before choosing the location, the owners had carried out an extensive market research covering the entire region of South East Europe and have come to the conclusion that Bulgaria and in particular the Bulgarian Black sea coast offered the best prospects for the development of dental care tourism.

And it’s not surprising with the wonderful tourism infrastructure, the relatively big number of well-trained dentists and dental technicians, and last but not least the competitive prices of the procedures. Fact is the average pricing of an implant in Bulgaria with the concomitant procedures for its treatment, the jawbone preparation and construction, is half the average in the European Union. Says Mr. Grenzebach.

“Our impression is that the bigger part of the patients who come to our clinic seek dental treatment and the respective procedures that we offer in a 7-14 day package. Nearly 80% of the customers are tourists from Western Europe. They visit the practices, where they get the treatment or esthetic procedure they need. Of course, this is coupled with a wonderful opportunity to relax and spend a nice summer holiday in the resort or in the city. And one very interesting phenomenon is that the inflow of dental care tourists does not end in the winter months.”

The clinic’s owners are planning to build a second one in the foreseeable future. In their words dental care tourism is becoming a lucrative business attracting not only tourists whose expenditure goes to the state budget, but also considerable foreign investment.

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Tags bulgaria, health, tourism

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