Pensioners and trade unionists have invaded the Romanian seacoast

This year, retired people and trade unionists have invaded the Romanian seaside, due to the discounts they benefited from, which made year 2000 one of the poorest years in returns, Dragos Raducanu, executive manager of Tourism Industry Federation (FPT), told Mediafax news agency.

Raducanu states that many of the tourists having visited the seaside over this period were pensioners who bought low-priced tickets on the basis of the discounts granted by the Labour and Social Protection Ministry, but also members of various trade unions, who in their turn benefited from half-priced tickets.

Thus, the seaside suddenly got crowded with tourists, which generated the artificial image of a successful season.

“This has been the busiest year since 1990 up to the present,” Ion Radoi, chairman of the Free Subway Trade Union Federation, which manages Dunarea Hotel of Eforie Nord, told Ziarul Financiar. Radoi also said that the accommodation rate was rather low until July 15, but after this date it reached 100 percent.

“We sold 400 tickets over the past three weeks,” Radoi added. According to Raducanu, this tendency may be explained by the fact that pupils’ summer holidays were shortened starting this year, to which were added high school and university entrance examinations that pushed the season’s peak towards late July – early August.

“The seashore was crowded, but only for a very short period of time, of about one week,” Dragos Raducanu said. The FPT official believes that the decision whether to spend the summer holiday in one of the resorts on the Romanian shore of the Black Sea was not necessarily based on tariff levels, which are below the ones applied for holidays in Turkey or Greece.

“The raise in seaside prices was below the inflation rate, therefore this year’s tickets are cheaper than last year,” Raducanu added.

FPT executive manager pointed that travel agencies’ sales followed a descending trend over this period, while some of the seashore resorts, such as Venus, were almost empty.

Starting August 25, some hotels will be shut down, while the others will continue their activity until mid-September, depending on their contractual bonds.

“A peak has already been reached as to tourists’ presence on the seacoast, and I believe that the events organised by several companies on the seaside, as well as the involvement of television stations had an important contribution,” Dragos Raducanu added.

Neptun-Olimp resort did not see spectacular increases in the number of tourists this summer as compared to the previous year, head of accommodation center Elena Atanasiu stated.

By July 31, the number of tourists was 10 percent lower than the one registered in 1999.