Bulgarian ski resort, Pamporovo, is the happy recipient of the €255m Perelik Project, encompassing new pistes, ski lifts, artificial snow equipment, hotels, car parking places, a possible golf course and 100km of new highway connections

Perelik, planned for completion late 2007, is predicted to boost tourist arrivals by a mammoth 40 percent for the next ski season.

Having applied for EU membership over 11 years ago in December 1995, the first Bulgarian MEPs were welcomed to the 2007 opening session of European Parliament surrounded by an air of optimism for the road ahead.

Overseas property buyers are positively falling over each other to snap up off-plan Black Sea booty, Sofia is soaring and the quartet of Bulgarian ski resorts, Bansko, Borovets, Vitosha and Pamporovo are now firmly in the second home spotlight.

Pamporovo provides an affordable alternative to the Alpine A-listers and is attracting tourists and property investors in their thousands. Despite suffering from a lack of snow, a problem shared by most European ski resorts because of an unusually mild autumn, Pamporovo was fully booked hotel-wise for Christmas and New Year 2006. Demand is outstripping supply in peak season and so buoyant is the property market that experts reported 20 percent price rises in Pamporovo from January 2006 to January 2007. Encouragingly, alongside the tourists and house hunters comes investment in infrastructure ' Pamporovo has been singled out for large scale regional development.