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Tourism: Prince Charles brought several Asian, South-American and African tourists to Romania
The tourists from North and South America, Asia and Africa were more by 30% than last year to Romania, but the Europeans occupy 92% of the total. Bucharest and the big cities being the main attractions, while the seaside gets only 1.6% of the foreign tourists, and the Delta gets only 0.7%.
Last year, 8,4 million tourists got accommodated in Romania, by 6.6% more than last year. The number of foreign tourists increased by 11.5% up to 1.9 million and that of the Romanians by 5.3% at 6.5 million.
‘The growths on the foreign market are explained through the promotion campaigns made by Romania on the international markets. It was an international campaign on the Travel Channel channel, where Prince Charles appears who contributed significantly to the growth of the number of foreign tourists to Romania, even for South American or Africa. Not only due to him was the growth as there were other campaigns but the prince is known in the whole world and his image drew tourists’Simona Man, the chairman of the National Authority for Tourism (ANT) said.
As in each year after 1990, Romania draws most Romanians who continue to go in huge numbers to domestic destinations.
With the 8,4 million tourists, Romania is far from being considered a success destination. In a ranking of the World Organisation of Tourism, the most visited country in the world is France, with over 80 million tourists in 2013 followed by the US (70 million tourists), Spain (60 million tourists), China (55 million tourists), Italy (47 million tourists), Turkey (37 million tourists), Germany (31 million), the UK (31 million ), Russia (28 million) and Thailand (26 million).
Romania is even worse than Greece (18 million tourists), Hungary (over 10 million tourists),the Czech Republic (9 million tourists), Croatia (10 million)or Poland (15 million) but it is over Bulgaria who recorded around 7 million tourists.
The average duration of the travel in 2014 was 2.5 days for Romanian tourists and foreign tourists had 2 days.Even so, Romania would have a reason for optimism, as last year, there came to Romania by 24.6% more Americans and Canadians (131,600 tourists) by 35.5% more Asians (225,400) by 30% more South-Americans (15,600) and by 34% more Africans (18,500).
According to Simion Alb, the head of the Tourism Office of Romania in North America, the growth of last year is, among others, the result of the fact that there were several cruise ships coming on the Danube with American and Canadian tourists and the trouble in Ukraine determined the cruising companies to give up on visiting the Ialta, Odessa and/or Sevastopol harbours and stop to Constanta and Varna.
He says that on an average term the increase of the number of tourists will be hindered by the problems of access and infrastructure and Romania will have to amplify the efforts of marketing which directly address potential tourists.
Out of the 1.9 million foreign tourists who reached Romania last year, the majority (1.48 million) went to Bucharest and in the cities county capitals, to the mountains went 132,014 while to the seaside were only 31,325 tourists (1.6% of the total) and in the Danube Delta only 13,482 (07%).
Why don’t get the foreign tourists to the Delta, while those who led tourism over the last years were happy to show off with this destination and declare it unique in Europe ?
‘Because we don’t promote it. Delta is not promoted at all, not even on the national channel. But if we keep it like this for 10 years, the hell with us, those who invested tens of millions of euro in this area. It’s a pity for the Delta, as nobody looked after the Delta and it is not promoted’ Mihai Puflene who spent over 12 million of euro to open a tourist unit in the Delta over two years ago.
The Romanian seaside is not a magnent for foreigners, drawing last year only 1.6% of the number of those who crossed the border and were accommodated in hotels. There were only 5,155 Germans, 4,229 Americans, 2,516 French, 2,180 Poles, 1,442 Italians and 1,244 Russians. The Israeli charter on the seaside, last year brought only 895 tourists of this country, even if the heads of the authorities in tourism hope a small invasion, taking into consideration the promotion made for the resorts at the Black Sea.
‘The Romanian seaside, as it is now, is depersonalised and lost the competition with Greece, Turkey or the North of Africa, as we don’t know how to make a counteroffer for the international market. On the seaside, outside the clubs in Mamaia and where you could go with your children, you can’t do much, as there is no entertainment. They were all hurrying to steal or to buy hotels, but the common space was left without any care’ Gheorghe Fodoreanu, the director of the agency Invitation Romania.
Romania does not manage to draw foreigners not even to the ‘spas’ taking into consideration that last year there were to the spas only 33,562 tourists from abroad. This figure was raised, by the tourists from the Republic of Moldova (10,282) not renowned for big sums spent during the holidays. They came to Romania following a sum of factors –the elimination of the visas, preferential tariffs, and intensification of Romania’s promotion in this country.
Fodoreanu thinks that the results would be better if they invested more in the promotion of the country abroad. He added that there were years when promotion was not well-thought and the authorities took several measures, measures which pulled tourism back.
‘We suffer the effects of the last 5-8 years, when they closed down the offices of touristic promotion for Romania abroad. There should be offices everywhere in the world, in the whole of Europe, in Asia, in Latin America..There should be 40 – 50 tourism offices, not only 10-11 as there are now’ he said.
Most foreigners got here from Germany (234,451),Italy (184,514), Israel (139,425), France (123.779), the US (113.420),the UK (110.601), the UK (106.481), Spain (79.091), Poland (71.479) and Austria (60.907).By comparison, in 2009 there came to Romania 181,084 German tourists, 141.568 Italians, 100.330 French, 76.906 Hungarians, 75.971 Americans, 71.357 British, 58.401 Austrians, 53.649 Israeli, 53.067 Spaniards, 37.713 Dutch and 13.402 Russians.