Business travel boosts Happy Tour revenues

The biggest player on the local specialised market saw turnover grow by almost 30% in 2005, to 31 million euros. The increase came against a background of the growth in traffic on the business segment and the development of event-planning activities for corporate customers, says Nicolae Demetriade, chairman of Happy Tour. “Business travel accounts for about 30% of our total activity. We are expecting this segment to exceed the 15% growth we are estimating for our activity as a whole in 2006”, explains Demetriade. According to him, Happy Tour anticipates to see turnover of 35.5 million euros this year. “We are even hoping to exceed the growth percentage of 2005, but I cannot budget such a sum from the beginning of the year.” A large number of tourism operators have concentrated on services dedicated to business people in the last two years, who have been coming to Romania in greater and greater numbers after international players from various economic fields entered the market. Many travel agencies have invested considerable amounts in this segment, while others even acquired or built 3-4 star hotels, targeting business people in particular. “Business traffic is permanent, the rest is seasonal,” says Demetriade. ZF