Romanian Seaside Suffers Drop in Tourist Numbers

About 95,000 tourists were officially registered in Romanian seaside resorts during the last weekend in July, which was a record for this year’s holiday season so far.

But the numbers of visitors are lower compared to the same weekend in 2013, when around 165,000 tourists were registered.

“Poor weather… is the reason why the number of tourists so far this season has been so low,” says Corina Martin, who works for a local tourism association. “At least, we expect their numbers to increase in the coming months,” Martin added.

Estimates put the number of vacationers heading to Romania’s beaches at around 1 million people for the May-September period, down by 20 per cent compared to last year.

Romanians continue to prefer Greece for their summer holidays. Indeed, Greece surpassed Turkey for the first time this year as Romanian tourists’ choice, according to travel agencies.

“Greece has a greater variety of hotels, ranging from one to five stars, and the prices have kept dropping. Romanians prefer lower prices in Greece to the all-inclusive facilities in Turkey,” Alin Burcea, manager of a tourist company, said.

Burcea added that, on average, a tourist will pay some 500 euro for a week in Greece, including accommodation and flight, while a package in Turkey costs around 700 euro.

Experts meanwhile say that Romania still has to do more in order to boost its own tourism industry.

“Romanians with good salaries prefer to travel abroad during the summer," Marti observed. "Many others are poorer than they were a few years ago, are not keen to spend too much, and would go to the Romanian seaside - but they expect an improved quality of services, which is not still the case,” Martin added.

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