CMB Travel sees 7 million-euro turnover

Tourism operator CMB Travel, one of the main players on the Romanian market, estimates turnover in excess of 7 million euros this year, up 28% on last year”s figure.

The company saw its business grow 12% in 2005, half the level estimated early in the year.

“Last year”s growth was achieved by two of our departments – corporate and international (package-holidays) travel, with the latter posting 526% growth on the previous year,” Cristian Balcescu, president of CMB Travel told ZIARUL FINANCIAR.

The company saw a 30% growth on the segment of domestic and foreign business travel. According to Balcescu, the surge posted on the holiday segment was due to the increase in the number of destinations reachable by chartered flights, to four. “This does look like impressive growth, but, in the case of package-holidays, big gains come with the high numbers of packages sold. This is a field with a very sensitive critical point – no profits if you fail to buy enough packages at the beginning of the season and potential losses if you buy too many,” Balcescu explains.

Last year, the most popular package-holiday destinations were Turkey, Greece and Spain, due to the lower prices, within the reach of average-income tourists.

The company”s results last year were also influenced by the euro”s depreciation, as the prices for international travel packages are calculated in the single European currency.

Business travel accounted for about 47% of CMB Travel”s turnover last year (without taking into account the issue of flight tickets), with this segment”s share to go up to 55% of total sales this year, Balcescu stated.

CMB had package-holiday offers for Crete, Spain (two locations) and Turkey. Balcescu says that, this year, Turkey may be removed from the company”s offer, because of avian flu. Moreover, Balcescu is considering Rimini (Italy) as a package destination, after having considered and then abandoned this idea last year. “We made significant investments in package-holidays at the beginning of the season. We bought packages worth 280,000 euros more than in previous years. Even if we had seen no profits, we would still have had to pay up,” Balcescu added.

Given the upcoming European Union accession, which is certain to increase the number of multinationals present in Romania, many travel operators have been focusing on business travel in the past few years.

andreea.groenendijk@zf.ro