Rural and Agrarian Tourism - an Important Direction for the Influence of CAP on the Social and Economic Development of Rural Regions

The aim of the article is to study the influence of the SAPARD programme pre-accession funds for Bulgaria on the social and economic development of the rural regions through supporting rural tourism as an important direction for diversification of the activities in rural regions as well as through supporting by some measures directed to solving other important problems that are important prerequisites for economic development, including the development of rural tourism as a business. The set tasks are related to: definition of the meaning of diversification of the activities in rural regions through rural tourism and evaluation of the possibilities and the basic groups of resources necessary for its development; investigation of the planned and utilized resources from the SAPARD programme that have a direct or indirect effect on the development of rural tourism; investigation of the influence of the way of applying of the measures for rural tourism or creating favourable prerequisites for its development; analysis of the characteristics of the approbated and realized projects (number, size of the investments, geographic location) and their influence on the social and economic development of rural regions. For performing the set tasks information from a survey conducted by the IAE among entrepreneurs in rural tourism has been used as well as information from the intermediate evaluation reports of the SAPARD programme in Bulgaria. There have been ascertained some weaknesses in the procedure and application of SAPARD that lead to disproportions in the geographic location of the approbated and realized projects for rural tourism and necessitate a change in the scope of the municipalities that are supported by the direction of "Rural tourism", as well as some characteristics of the programme itself that have contributed to supporting bigger entrepreneurs and not the typical agricultural producers. Some of the directions for change have been successfully reflected in the Programme for rural development. Regardless of the weaknesses pointed out, it has been found that there exists considerable positive influence of the SAPARD programme regarding the improvement of the social and economic development of the rural regions in Bulgaria through diversification of the activities under the direction of "Rural tourism" and through the influence of some measures directed to improving the infrastructure and appearance of the settlements in rural regions.