30m euros spent on end-year packages

The Romanians spent more than 30 million euros for New Year”s Eve travel packages, of which 24 million for packages in the domestic resorts, the Federation of Romanian Tourism Employers (FPTR) data show. A number of 11,500 tourists chose Romanian resorts as destinations for the New Year”s Eve party in 2006, an increase of 13% on last year. The resorts in highest demand were those in the Prahova Valley, where occupancy reached 97%, but demand was also high in other mountain resorts, with take-up in this case reaching 85%. Another segment in high demand was that of big cities, where 30,000 tourists, 20% more than last year booked seats in hotels and restaurants for the New Year”s Eve party. The number of tourists officially registered that requested agritourism packages was 10,000 with at least as many preferring equally expensive solutions without going to travel agencies, though. New Year”s Eve travel packages to destinations in the Danube Delta were not available this time compared with 2004. There are also another approximately 25,000 tourists that spent Christmas in various resorts. The expenses for travel services abroad amounted to more than 6.2 million euros. At the same time 12% of the total number of tourists preferred to go abroad. The destinations in highest demand were Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Austria, France and Malta. Compared with last year, the number of tourists increased during the winter holidays. The figures do not include individual tourists that did not use travel agencies or visited with relatives. ZF