Tourism in Romania attracts more and more investors, but the lack of a coherent strategy and financing limits the exploitation of this potential. At the moment, projects worth 6 billion euros are underway, but the bureaucracy does not help to attract tourists, which could be in the number of 10 million per year.
In the context of international tensions, many tourists could choose to spend their holidays in Romania, but is our country ready for an influx of requests? From the relationship with the authorities to the necessary investments, domestic tourism has, more than once, been seen as an obstacle to priorities at the ministry or government level.
Adrian Voican, the vice-president of ANAT (National Agency of Tourism Agencies), explained to “Adevărul” what are the problems facing tourism in Romania, as well as the investments that Romanian entrepreneurs are making in 2026.
The tourism industry is going through an accelerated transformation, and Romania has the chance to attract more visitors. However, the lack of a coherent strategy and effective promotion mechanisms risks limiting this potential.
“The need for tourism and travel does not disappear, but transforms. They adapt, they reorient themselves, they are a real need, they are not a fad, a luxury. And as such, we will find Romanians on vacation, either in Romania or abroad, but in safer areas.
The moment the disturbances calm down, they disappear, people go back to their old habits of tourist consumption, because we have seen this in many types of crises“, says Voican.
Government strategy: between good intentions and modest results
At the institutional level, there is dialogue between the state and the private sector, but the implementation leaves much to be desired: “We need a much more flexible and much faster decision-making body”emphasizes the expert, drawing attention that “speed is not the current attribute of Romanian governance, at least in the field of tourism”.
Or precisely in an industry that is in constant change and that depends on a creative input from the state, it would be necessary for the authorities to study the international trend and adapt it internally.
Chronic problems include delayed or abandoned projects such as the Destination Management Organization (DMO).
“We have been talking about the national MDG for years and days. We have been talking about the incoming premium to attract foreign tourists for years. We need a much more flexible and much faster body in making decisions and projects for Romania’s participation in international fairs or other types of events in order to quickly catch these changes in trends, measures that have either stagnated or been suspended”. says the vice-president of ANAT.
Including internal incentives were reduced:
“Holiday vouchers are half off. So the stimulation of holidays in Romania does not work at the national level either. Ok, the optimists can safely say that they didn’t take it all out. Pessimists say yes, but the settlement is down 50%. The holiday vouchers stimulated consumption in Romania and investments in Romania and white tourism in Romania. And what do we put in place? That we didn’t put enough promotion money on the international level, nor other mechanisms to stimulate the consumption of vacations in Romania. Because these are the two major directions that the Ministry of Tourism in Romania must undertake and work for.”
Romanians are changing their holiday plans after the tensions in the Middle East. Destinations that win tourists
Without money there are no results
One of the biggest problems remains the lack of coherent funding for promotion:
“If we had 30 million euros for an effective promotion of Romania in a marketing mix, i.e. on several channels, not only at fairs, we also need digital, we need online, we also need infotrips for journalists and tourists, it’s hard to convince them to promote Romania if you don’t push them very hard. Or if we skate and discuss, but do not take concrete measures and decisions that produce effects, we waste time”.
In reality, Romania is losing ground due to bureaucracy:
“One of the biggest fairs in the world, in Berlin, saw us only once in five years after the pandemic, until we managed to be there again. Why? Because of bureaucracy. Until we get our approvals, until we meet some criteria. We have to adapt to the great world events. Not for them to adapt to the bureaucracy in Romania, when there are 160 countries present in Berlin and Romania was not. Let’s guess whose fault it is.“
The situation is aggravated by the late approval of the budgets:
“The budget was approved almost on April 1. What to do with a budget in the middle of the year, when we have the biggest fairs in the first part of the year, and Paris, and Berlin, which I told about at the beginning of March, and others, Madrid, very big fairs, we don’t have budgets.“
Private investment, the real engine of growth
Adrian Voican says that in contrast to the public sector, the private sector continues to invest massively, even if austerity measures and tax increases have also hit HoReCa:
“We have 2,000 ongoing projects. 6 billion euros is the value of investments in tourism at the moment. On the coast we have almost 60 all-inclusive hotels, which is an upgrade of services. 10 million foreign tourists is not an exaggerated figure, as some have said, because only Spain and France have around 2 foreign tourists per capita. Spain, with 47 million inhabitants, has 93.94 million foreign tourists“.
Horror holiday in Thailand: a couple of tourists woke up to the hissing of a cobra that crept into their bed. “The snake passed over my neck”
A simple solution: the tourist tax
For the financing of the promotion, the solution could be one already applied at the international level, without additional pressure on the state budget.
“Tthe tourist axis of 1 euro per night would generate 30 million euros. times 30 million nights in Romania, it would make the necessary 30 million euros and there would be no additional tax for businesses, there would be no budget allocation that the Romanian state is unable to find, it would be from the tourist visiting Romania, because when we go abroad we also paid up to 7-8% of the value of the night’s accommodation, for example recently in Berlin, they even collect money so that they can promote tourism can’t be done without money, we can talk for another 100 years, without money you can’t promote tourism.“
The lack of a coherent strategy, funding and speed of reaction at the governmental level risks turning Romania’s potential into a missed opportunity.
