Bargain Balkans: Head east for the slopes

It was a vintage year for Balkan skiing. In 2005, Serbia was back in the mainstream, featuring in the Thomson ski brochure thanks, in no small part, to Serbian-born Stevan Popovich, a 20-year veteran of the UK travel trade. In the same year, the other truly Balkan ski destination – in the sense that, like Serbia, it has slopes in the Balkan Mountains range – began once more to make inroads into the budget end of the UK market: as Andorra lost ground, Bulgaria gained it.

Not coincidentally, I skied in the two countries that year. And both trips were memorable, even if the skiing was not very stirring. The visit to Kopaonik, Serbia's main ski resort, and to the capital, Belgrade, was full of incident. In the "new frontier" economy after the fall of Milosevic's post-communist regime, the few were suddenly making money, the many were trying to follow suit, and only the senior apparatchiks were still playing by the rules. At Belgrade airport's petrol station, the forecourt attendant bizarrely tried to charge me more than the amount displayed on the pump; and a representative of the state tourism organisation – such a cowboy that it was amazing he didn't wear chaps – commandeered my hire car and proceeded to spin it twice on the snowy roads of Kopaonik, avoiding the parked cars only through extraordinarily good luck.

The skiing was pleasant and peaceful: the part of the slopes on which mines had been dropped by Nato aircraft during the Kosovo war was closed (as it still is, I believe). The central part of the resort, a purpose-built ski village modelled on the defensible monasteries of medieval Serbia, absolutely beggared belief. When I look back on the trip, during which I became hopelessly lost in a blizzard in Belgrade, it seems like a fantastical dream.

Bulgaria, later in the year, was a nightmare. I travelled on a long, potholed road to Bansko, whose up-to-date lifts and new apartments have changed the old face of Bulgarian skiing, represented by the hardy and perennial resorts of Pamporovo and Borovets. But as it turned out, Bansko was only 25 per cent ski resort; a further 35 per cent was a gloomy town of grinding poverty with "greeters" outside the bars and restaurants trying to pimp foreigners in; the remaining 40 per cent was a building site on which furnished studio apartments costing less than £35,000 were being built and sold by (among others) an estate agency called Bulgaria4Sale.

To say that I took against the place would be an understatement. The lifts were indeed new; but they were running at about half the normal speed to save electricity. The only thing that really impressed me was Bansko's brilliant marketing strategy of getting a five-star Kempinski hotel at the new lift base, to give the resort spurious credibility as an investment opportunity.

Bansko is no doubt more civilised now than when I was there; but knowing my fierce prejudice, Popovich didn't try to talk it up much. "Bulgaria has improved in recent years, but there hasn't been a revolution: it isn't Austria all of a sudden." Popovich, now senior product manager for Central/ Eastern Europe with the tour operator Inghams, did emphasise that Bulgaria has been consistently popular among his company's clients – so much so that, in the early 1990s, Borovets was Inghams' third best-selling resort. "I have a close relationship with the customers, and know how much repeat business there is to Bulgaria. Some go four or five times. Borovets and Pamporovo have doorstep skiing, and are ideal for beginners and lower intermediates. For more challenging terrain they go to Bansko."

To my surprise, Popovich says that the problem with Bulgaria is that it is now threatening to become too expensive. In preparation for joining the eurozone, its currency is now linked to the euro, and rising in value. At the same time the resorts (primarily Bansko), having installed new equipment, are looking for a payback on their investment: they want to increase prices. Which is problematic when UK skiers, who make up a significant proportion of Bulgaria's business, regard it as a "good value" destination.

Ask Popovich generally about Balkan skiing, on which he is a seasoned expert, and he becomes somewhat evasive. But that is for political reasons. The wars in the former Yugoslavia did great damage to Serbia's ski business (Kopaonik is right on the Kosovo border) and virtually killed off Bosnia-Herzegovina as an international destination, despite the Winter Olympics held in Sarajevo in 1984. They also made "Balkan" something of a dirty word. Although Popovich is clear that Romania and Slovenia are Balkan ski destinations – "They're both in the Balkan peninsula, aren't they?" – he understands why they don't emphasise the fact.

Serbia is obviously close to his heart, and it is a disappointment that Kopaonik no longer features in UK ski brochures. "When we reintroduced it with Thomson in 2004/5, it was good value and sold well. At first we used BA flights into Belgrade, which was not ideal: the transfer was too long. For the second season we had a charter into Nis, which was much closer. But Kopaonik's bed base proved a problem: accommodation is limited, and the National Park location hinders development."

A further difficulty was Serbia's visa regime, which made travelling abroad difficult. As a result, Kopaonik's prices were effectively set by the home market – at too high a level for budget skiers from the UK. The charter flights couldn't be filled, and after three years, Thomson dropped the programme.

Popovich also regrets that UK ski companies haven't been able to exploit Bosnia-Herzegovina's skiing, which he says is "probably the best in the Balkans, and potentially better value than other destinations". First Choice, he says, did consider a charter flight to Sarajevo; and more recently, BA's direct flights into the city sparked interest. But with BA pulling out this winter, that has come to nothing. And political difficulties caused by the location of Sarajevo's slopes – split between Serbian- and Bosnian-controlled territories – remain a serious obstacle to development.

The farther flung Balkan skiing destinations – Romania and Slovenia – also meet with Popovich's approval. He describes Slovenia as "phenomenal: it's a mini-Austria but very reasonably priced. Its good summer business makes continual investment possible, and the main skiing resort of Kranjska Gora constantly upgrades its lifts and hotels." And he rates Poiana Brasov in Romania, which also features in the Inghams brochure,even more highly.

The decline of sales to Romania is a puzzle to him. "I don't understand why more people don't go there. Poiana Brasov is a purpose-built resort set in a beautiful bowl; it is reasonably priced and has modern lifts, including a completely new cable-car this year. And the standard of skiing tuition is extremely high. In Romania, as in Bulgaria, skiing instructors have to get a university degree first, before doing their ski training, which helps to make Poiana Brasov an ideal learn-to-ski destination."

Getting there

Inghams (020-8780 4447; inghams.co.uk ) offers packages to Bansko, Borovets and Pamporovo in Bulgaria. A week at the four-star Hotel Lion in Bansko costs from £433 per person, half-board, including flights from Gatwick and transfers. Flights are also available at a supplement from Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and Heathrow. At the three-star Hotel Bradul in Poiana Brasov, Romania, a week costs from £423 per person, half-board, including BA flights from Heathrow and transfers.

Staying there

Kempinski Hotel Grand Arena, Bansko, Bulgaria (00 359 749 88 888; kempinski-bansko.com ).

More information

Kopaonik: eng.infokop.net

Bansko: banskoski.com

Pamporovo: pamporovo.net

Borovets: borovets-bg.com

Kranjska Gora: kranjska-gora.si

Poiana Brasov: poiana-brasov.com