108 urn:lsid:arphahub.com:pub:ee3d5236-fccc-5ca1-bc10-ed5cb324dde0 Journal of the Bulgarian Geographical Society JBGS 2738-8107 2738-8115 Bulgarian Geographical Society 10.3897/jbgs.e78719 78719 Research Article Ecosystem Services Interdisciplinary Studies Tourism Cultural ecosystem services for development of nature-based tourism in Bulgaria Nikolova Mariyana mknikolova@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4878-3051 1 Stoyanova Velimira https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6632-7514 2 Varadzhakova Desislava https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6072-464X 1 Ravnachka Aleksandra https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3502-7815 1 National Institute of Geophysics, Geodesy and Geography - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria National Institute of Geophysics, Geodesy and Geography - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Sofia Bulgaria National Institute of Geophysics, Geodesy, and Geography - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria National Institute of Geophysics, Geodesy, and Geography - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Sofia Bulgaria

Corresponding author: Mariyana Nikolova (mknikolova@gmail.com).

Academic editor: Miglena Zhiyanski

 2021 29 12 2021 45 81 87 2F680E6F-F480-5547-9119-CAF9F128F5D3 30 09 2021 22 12 2021 Mariyana Nikolova, Velimira Stoyanova, Desislava Varadzhakova, Aleksandra Ravnachka This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

The rich and diverse Natural Heritage of Bulgaria is a prerequisite for the development of nature- based tourism (NBT) of a new type. The research is carried out by the implementation of the ecosystem approach. The results include an assessment of the natural heritage capacity to provide goods and services for the development of NBT in the Tourist Regions (TR) of Bulgaria. The results show the spatial distribution of the natural heritage sites in all nine TR in Bulgaria and their natural capacity for development of different types of NBT. There are only 37 municipalities out of 265 with not a one Natural Heritage (NH) site, and all the rest have natural resources to develop NBT. The results can be of use for the achievement of the goals for sustainable tourism by assessment of the capacity to provide recreation ecosystem services (RES).