Business tourism still up-and-coming

Although one may come to think that today’s businessman, armed with a mobile phone, e-mail and electronic commerce within his reach, feels that actually being there for a business meeting is less relevant for the success of negotiations, for concluding a contract and for defeating competition, it is still crucial that people could look each other in the eye.

Furthermore, business tourism is an industry in the developed countries, while technology is deemed as the starting point of a business relationship and businesspeople use the plane to go to work just as an average Romanian would ride the bus.

To the Romanian tourism market – comprised of 260 companies members of the National Association of Travel Agencies in Bucharest alone and 800 in the entire country, business tourism is an activity rather difficult to define.

According to Costina Gandac, outgoing operations manager with Marshal Tourism, there are only 8 or 10 agencies seriously dealing in this business at the moment. “The rest are just occasionally involved in such projects and organise one or two conferences a year,” she says.

Ranking first among the private tourism companies in Romania for several years now, Marshal Tourism regards itself as the first company to have dealt in business tourism here.

“Marshal Tourism has been dealing in business tourism ever since it was set up in ’92, at a time when no one else did. With a 25 year-tourism background, the founder or our agency, Ion Antonescu, knew that this kind of tourism was needed and knew exactly how to handle it.

It was a difficult start back then, as we would get 10 or 12 economic missions per month, but it is this start precisely that makes us feel we may see ourselves as the initiators of the business tourism in Romania,” Costina Gandac says.

Romania is chosen as a business tourism destination because of its emerging market, Costina Gandac thinks. Many foreign business people come here, either for specific events, or looking for new business opportunities.

“Everybody wonders why the prices in the hotels in Bucharest are as high as those in New York. The reason is that demand is extremely high while supply is low.

It is precisely the idea of promoting business tourism in Romania that made all the recently opened large hotels such as Marriott, Hilton, and Crowne Plaza come with conference rooms, business centres and all the facilities.”

Alina Tudoroiu, corporate travel manager with Paralela 45 thinks business tourism is very lucrative, both in terms of receipts and in terms of moral satisfactions.

“We have dealt in every tourism aspect ever since the establishment of the agency in 1990. We would organise business meetings, business lunches or cocktails from time to time even then, but our business tourism department was set up 5 or 6 years ago. This kind of tourism has come to account for more than 50% in the total activity of our company.”

Paralela 45 manager says business tourism abroad is in demand from powerful companies and may entail a simple trip, that is a minimal service package for one, as well as services for a delegation of 5-10 people.