Romanians spent more than 8 billion euros on vacations abroad. The vice president of ANAT, Adrian Voican, claims that the amount is 4 times higher than what Romanians spend in the country, and proposes a strategy to bring 10 million foreign tourists to the country.
Adi Voican claims that Romania does not have a country tourism brand. PHOTO: Ovidiu Oprea
An analysis by researchers from Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB) shows that in June Romanians spent 758 million euros abroad, and foreigners only 322 million euros in Romania.
BNR Governor Mugur Isărescu claimed that last year, Romanian tourists spent over 8 billion euros abroad. Tourism contributes almost 20% to the current account deficit, a significant percentage considering that it is only about one sector of the economy.
“Adevărul” discussed with Adrian Voican – the vice-president of ANAT and the owner of Bibi Touring, one of the largest domestic tour operators in Romania, about how Romania can attract 10 million foreign tourists.
Voican claims that Romanian tourists spend around 2 billion euros in the country. This means that abroad, Romanians spend 4 times more.
truth: What can be done to attract more foreign tourists to Romania?
Adrian Voican: Let’s make some public policies to attract foreigners. Look, we have an incoming tourism project (branch of national tourism that deals with bringing foreign tourists to the country, by organizing and selling tourist packages in Romania for foreign tourists-no) through which 40 euros are offered for each tourist on which agencies bring him to the country for at least four nights.
Considering that the average number of nights of accommodation in Romania for foreigners is somewhere around two nights, they thought that if you manage to make him stay four nights, i.e. double, you, as an agency, deserve to receive 40 euros per tourist .
Theoretically, the project is ok, but in practice it doesn’t work. For the year 2023, very little money was given, about 5%. The agencies have applied for €500,000 for 2023 and have yet to receive the money. For 2024, we have no valid scheme at the moment, and for 2025 and subsequent years – vague promises.
For 2023, the files have been submitted, we have been waiting for the money for a very long time and it has not arrived, even if it is not a large amount. This shows that the Government is not serious. I’m not saying we don’t have hope. And today I spoke with Radu Oprea, the Minister of Economy and Tourism, on this topic and he argued that a government ordinance must be issued and the money could come from the Government’s reserve fund or be found in other budget positions.
8 billion euros for Romanian tourism
What would 8 billion euros mean for Romanian tourism?
If we think that Romania’s GDP is somewhere around 320 billion euros, 8 billion means about 2.5% of GDP, money that goes to develop tourism in some countries, which maybe don’t need it that much of them, some even want to reduce the number of tourists. This money could help local communities in Romania, transport, accommodation, construction, food, etc.
How much does the Romanian tourist consume in Romania now?
I can do some rough calculations, but we can’t rely on them as if they were from an official source. From the data I have, a Romanian spends 200 euros on vacation in Romania. So he spends 4-500 euros with his wife and child. 200 euros multiplied by 10 million arrivals in Romania is about 2 billion euros.
So Romanians do not spend, at home, more than 2 billion euros, but when they go abroad they spend 8 billion, four times more.
Romania has wonderful places and we also have hotels/guesthouses, ok tourist infrastructure. On the one hand, the private investor is trying to make Romania more attractive, but the Romanian Government, if it wants not to lose the 8 billion euros, must take some measures.
How much does the average foreign tourist spend in Romania?
The foreigner who comes to Romania, a country without a strong tourist brand, where he feels that he is taking a risk if he comes, that he does not know much about it, he wants to spend 500 euros for the whole week. Let the stay cost him 1,000 euros, of which only 500 should be left here. Instead of living with 500 euros a day, he wants to live with 500 euros for a week. What services can he access? At very cheap services. Not that he doesn’t necessarily have money at home, but he expects cheap service.
“We don’t have any country brand”
So the country tourism brand is centered on the fact that Romania is a cheap destination?
Unfortunately, we have no country brand, “no name” country brand. The Turks, for example, chose as their country tree “five stars all inclusive” of everything they could sell there, Cappadocia, history, Greeks, empires, etc. They chose “five stars all inclusive” as this is where the most money is.
What brand could Romania have?
Know that in Romania it is not about a tourist product. We (tour operator Bibi Touring led by Voican-nr) make over 100 different catalogs for Romania. So we have over 100 products that we export.
That’s not what it’s about. If you only had the pyramids and brought 30 million people from abroad to see the pyramids that would be great. Our problem is not that we don’t have enough tourist product, but that we don’t have distribution and we don’t have promotion.
That is, Romania must be technologically linked to foreign countries in order to sell itself. Or at the moment there is no money for such a thing. Although we talk about digitization, we talk like that, in theory, but it doesn’t happen in reality. I can’t find a leu to digitize myself now and connect the Romanian tourism product with the outside world. I have no real solution.
Digitization would mean building software to link our systems with international reservation systems. They are dedicated software. The Ministry of Tourism should put some programs on the market for me to access, and, on top of that, we are not talking about fabulous amounts. We don’t need billions of euros, like for highways. We need tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of euros for these softwares.
What should the authorities do to attract more foreign tourists? What is Hungary doing, for example?
They are probably much more pragmatic and the few things they have, because they don’t have as much tourist wealth as we do, they know how to sell them much better. We created an autarchic tourism economy: “Romania for Romanians”, that’s how we think, that’s how it was made.
But to bring foreigners here, the Ministry of Tourism should do three tenders, get a branding firm, get a marketing and advertising firm and a PR firm that knows international markets.
These three together should define Romania’s brand, to see with the eyes of foreigners. I mean, we can make 100 videos about Romania, they are embarrassing. Charlie Ottley comes and makes videos with a British eye, aimed at the British, with British connotations, with British values, with British consumption habits. We can’t from here, we need a native Briton.
We try to do the branding from the inside, with officials from the ministry, who are constrained by procedures, budgets, etc.
Why don’t travel agencies from abroad sell Romania
Let’s say we convinced the tourists and they came. How do we win them over so that they tell their friends and tourism increases?
It’s not about tourists. Business is not done primarily with tourists and travel companies. They must see that they make a profit by selling Romania. These companies need to see that the product is viable, that it is good, that it can be sold, because he is risking his own money to promote and sell it. You have to print millions of catalogs, you have to do millions of promotions in the digital area.
Agencies don’t put in money, if the product is not good and they don’t make a profit with it. Only after that, the tourist he brings must also be satisfied and happy.
We have to find the market, the tourist who fits that vein, that niche, and someone to risk promoting and selling this thing to him. So we don’t have promotion and distribution. We have products.
Give us an example of a Romanian tourist product that would be salable?
The first product you can buy in Romania is a tour to see the country for yourself. What do you do when you go to a new destination? You want to see as much of that country as possible. The first thing is a general circuit in Romania. Or maybe before that, a city break in Bucharest, let’s say.
Why is this product not put on the market by agencies in Germany, France, Spain?
Because they are too busy with other destinations that are in demand, that are known, they have invested many years in them and it gives them the opportunity to make a lot of money, that all the money guides the activity. Romania is somewhere around 50 out of 200 countries in the world.
How to make Romania attractive
How do we convince them to sell Romania too?
Romania, if it makes a brand, promotes itself, creates some desire of the consumer from that country to come to Romania, then you have also encouraged the holiday shop from that country to invest in that product, arrange it and carry it in his market, to sell it and make money on it.
So it’s also here as a kind of, I don’t know, fashion. I mean, if the world will demand Romania, the agencies will also beat Romania and we will increase the prices, and we will have more tourists and more profit and tourism will develop.
If there is no desire and demand, you have to sell it cheap. If there is no desire and demand. We return to branding, which gives you added value. It’s like those Chinese sneakers you buy for 100 lei or 500 lei, if a brand is written on them, but the product is the same. The difference of 400 lei is the brand.
If we solve all these problems, the foreign tourist will come. How do we get them to come back?
We do not have this problem in Romania. People are amazed that Romania is so beautiful and they keep saying that, but we don’t have a critical mass.
The fact that five people came and told 10 people at home that it was nice in Romania does not create a critical mass for mass tourism.
Now how many foreigners come to Romania?
I know that the most interesting number was in 2018-2019, when about 2.7 million foreign tourists came. We don’t necessarily know that they are tourists, we know that they are foreigners who stayed in hotels. They could be business tourists, they could be health tourists, they could have come to visit relatives. We know that they are foreign nationals who came to the hotel and stayed. We do not necessarily think that all of them were really leisure tourists.
How many should come to create critical mass?
10 million foreign tourists should come. It’s a figure that I checked with the former Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization, Taleb Rifai, because I always give this example that we have countries in Europe that have more tourists than their population. France, Spain, Italy. Well, even then, if Romania theoretically has 20 million inhabitants with 10 million tourists, it would not be an unreasonably high figure.
That is, we are not Malta or Cyprus, which have more foreign tourists than their population. We would like to reach at least 10 million tourists and it would not be a big problem. It would not be difficult to achieve this thing. Just to have some consistent policies.
