Eximtur expects first stagnation after five years of consistent growth

The Morariu family in Cluj, who owns Eximtur travel agency, the third largest player on the travel market in terms of 2008 turnover estimates, is expecting a stagnation of its sales in 2009, after over five years of continuous business growth. Eximtur is bracing for its first difficult year since 2000, after the company managed to go from 14.2 million-euro turnover and 56 employees in 2004 to a 40 million-euro turnover and 134 employees in 2008. The agency is neither planning to hire new staff this year, nor to open new agencies, but it is pondering several strategies that would help it secure a turnover similar to that recorded in 2008, amid expectations that the travel market will be affected by the international crisis. It expects turnover in 2009 to be the same as in 2008, 40 million euros, explains Radu Morariu, general manager of Eximtur. Radu Morariu, 52, holds 25% of the travel agency set up in 1993 in Cluj-Napoca and became general manager of the company in 2007, when his wife, Lucia Morariu (who holds 10% of Eximtur’s shares), was appointed Secretary of State within the Ministry for SMEs, Trade, Tourism and Liberal Professions.