Romanian, foreign travel offensives toe the line at Romexpo Tourism Fair

11 percent more foreign tourists visiting Romania in 2014. 

Romanian Tourism Fair opened its gate on Thursday, luring visitors with tempting holiday offers for the next four days. Over 200 touristic operators from Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Republic of Moldova, Palestine (for the first time at the Romanian Tourism Fair), Romania, Russian Federation, Turkey and Hungary are exhibiting their countries’ attractions within a 7,600 square meters area.

As for Romania, it has big plans for promoting the national tourism from now on. Florin Jianu, delegate minister for small and medium-sized businesses, Business Environment and Tourism said at the fair’s opening ceremony that Romanian tourism has good prospects, as an 11 percent rise in the number of foreign tourists registered this year. According to him, the number of tourists visiting Sibiu, ex-European capital, has increased up to 12 percent from the beginning this year until September. Sibiu is going to be promoted as a touristic destination at Wienna and Stuttgart tourism fairs next year.

Jianu also said Romania is targeting to reach a 80 percent absorption rate of the European funds granted for tourism by 2015. The delegate minister for Tourism promised to lobby for extending a nine percent VAT to all touristic services and for applying a new state aid incoming scheme.

The authorities are also pledging to support “Romania start-up” program encouraging youngsters to invest in tourism businesses, to go on promoting inland tourism at Expo Milano 2015 and to set up to 100 touristic information centers all over Romania. As a matter of fact, on Thursday opening, first ten localities have received the financing contracts allowing them to set up these information centers- Târgul Jiu, Horezu, Caracal, Z?rne?ti, Târgovi?te, Zal?u, Or?ova, Seini, Sângiorgiu de P?dure ?i Breaza.

Bucharest, spa and eco tourism-Romania’s visiting cards

Therefore, Romanian jump-off plans to start with promoting Bucharest sights, spas and rural destinations. “Weekend in Bucharest” program will be released during the Romexpo fair, which aims at encouraging Romanians to rediscover their Capital city.

The Association of the National Rural, Ecological and Cultural Tourism (ANTREC) invites tourists to get back to tradition, luring them with contests, tastings, handicrafts and folk dance shows. ANTREC is also bringing hot offers for the winter holiday, starting from RON 100 a night stay for person in rural lodges. According to ANTREC founder, Maria Stoian, there are a lot of requests for Christmas and New Year stays in Apuseni Mountains, especially in Albac and Arie?eni regions. Many tourists are choosing to spend their winter vacation in Maramure?, but also in Bukovina, Ruc?r-Bran-Moieciu area, Balvanyos resort in Covasna and Ceahl?u -Dur?u-Târgu Neam? region.

Spas represent the eternal challenge of the Romanian tourism, as there is a good natural infrastructure for this, but it is not made the most of it. President of the Spa Employers organization in Romania, Nicu R?dulescu told an interview to Agerpres that the total amount of investments in the spa tourism in the past years exceeds EUR 150 M, but the field is facing the specialized medical staff migration abroad, lured by more attractive payment.

The newly appointed chief of the National Authority for Tourism, Simona Man underlined the spa sector needs to be fostered for it has a lot of potential for attracting more tourists in Romania. Yet, she admitted the services represent the Romanian’ tourism blind spot, but the country is advantaged by its geography.

The foreign onset

Thirteen foreign countries are represented at Romexpo, with embassies, travel agencies and airlines promoting their countries and travel destinations.

The Tourism ministers of Bulgaria, Palestine and Macedonia attended the opening ceremony. The Bulgarian Tourism minister, Nikolina Angelkova said that Romania is a key target and a key partner for Romania. The Bulgarian minister and her Romanian counterpart Florin Jianu agreed on the two countries developing joint touristic projects to attract more tourists from China, Japan and India, Angelkova adding the projects will focus on the Danube region promotion. According to the Bulgarian official, 940,000 Romanian tourists visited Bulgaria in 2013 out of almost 7 million foreign tourists. Yet, according to the Bulgarian Statistics Institute, the number of Romanian tourists visiting Bulgaria decreased to 750,000 this year.

The surprise exhibitor country this year is Palestine. Palestinian officials of the Tourism ministry told ‘The Romania Journal’ they came to promote ‘the unique cultural and historic inheritance’ of Palestine, famous travel destinations already included among the world heritage sites such as Jericho, Bethlehem, Betir and part of the Dead Sea. Palestinian tourism officials are also tabling trips to religious sights in their land.