SARS affects travel agencies

Romanian tourism agencies may incur some heavy losses, because of the atypical pneumonia or SARS (the severe acute respiratory syndrome), since Romanians would rather not travel to countries plagued by this disease.

Although Asian countries were not very popular among Romanian tourists, the agencies will undergo financial losses, as the value of tourist packages was substantial.

“Around 10,000 – 15,000 tourists used to travel to Southeastern Asia every year. The costs of a tourist programme exceed $1,000, as the price of airplane tickets alone revolves around $800,” the president of the National Association of Romanian Tourism Agencies (ANAT) Cornel G in told Ziarul Financiar.

“Places affected by this disease such as China, Hong Kong or Thailand are not appealing to anyone at this particular moment,” he added.

Consequently, Romanian agencies could lose at least $10 million if the SARS crisis is not halted soon. On the other hand, Romanian tourism could benefit from the foreigners’ new preferences for European countries, Paralela 45 tourism agency chairman Alin Burcea thinks.

Burcea says “it’s obvious that no one is travelling to threatened countries any more,” but estimates that the number of tourists only dropped 3,000. But the Paralela 45 official did not include in his estimates the number of businessmen that travel to China or Hong Kong.

“I talked to businessmen that are in contact with Chinese firms and gave up travelling there,” the head of the Grantour agency in Bra ov Attila Albu states. “As a matter of fact, China was not a very popular destination for leisure travelling as the tourist programme is rather expensive mainly because of the transportation, but popular destinations such as Thailand are no longer requested” Albu added.
bogdan.neagu@zf.ro