RomTelecom switches to tourism

A yellow star, labelled “new”, turning upside down on RomTelecom’s webpage, announces that the national telecommunications operator is now approaching the Romanian tourism market with its own agency, called, as one could only expect, RomTel Turism.

Whereas it has had only a tourism service destined to handle the holidays of its employees so far, RomTelecom is now announcing it “is originating and developing a new activity: producing, providing and selling integrated tourist service packages.”

RomTel Turism agency has a central office in Bucharest and two branches, both of them located in Hunedoara County, namely in Deva and in Vata de Jos resort for the time being. The latter can be explained by the fact that RomTelecom owns a resort in the area, comprised of three hotels, one of them a four-star hotel, 18 kilometres away from Brad, to be precise.

RomTel Turism has bold plans: its service offer covers almost everything there is, from the all-too-familiar “active holidays in the mountains and at the seaside,” to “stays and circuits in European, Asian and African countries”; from ticket reservations for the flights of every air carrier, to touristic assistance, translation, hostess or tourist visas handling services.

Only three offers are currently shaped: France (Cote d’Azur included), Turkey and Greece, of course.

RomTelecom is trying to use the experience it has gained while planning the holidays of its employees for offering “incentive” programmes, as well. Such programmes consist in free holidays offered by financially sound companies to the best people of their teams, usually selected based on the previous year’s results.

Tour operators say it is usually difficult to manage “incentive” packages because the selection of the employees is a very harsh process, which in its turn makes the beneficiaries extremely hard to please.

Of course there are some questions, too: how much is RomTelecom making from tour operator activities, what are its investment plans for this sector, who are the exact shareholders of RomTel Turism.

The national telecommunications operator, whose management team has recently been replaced, requested some time to come up with answers.

One thing is certain, though: the lucky winner of the tender planned by the Communications Ministry in order to sell at least another thirty percent in RomTelecom will automatically find itself dealing in tourism.