Touristic parks designed after industrial ones

Transports, constructions and tourism minister Miron Mitrea on Tuesday expressed his intention to promote a law draft on the establishment of touristic parks in areas with a high touristic potential, though not highly developed. Mitrea said that these touristic parks would follow the model of industrial parks, explaining that the State would allocate funds for infrastructure -water and sewage, while private investors would develop these areas by building hotels and houses. Romanian Tourism Minister provided three examples of locations where such parks could be set up, such as Arieseni in the Apuseni Mountains, Valea Lotrului and Sulina, rejecting the idea of Dracula Park being a touristic park. He also said that the Department of Tourism, resulted from the elimination of the Tourism Ministry, would be turned into the Tourism Authority, which would be subordinated to the ministry he ran. Mitrea specified that he supported this project since it was requested by trade unions and employers associations in the tourism industry, “which wanted to strengthen their presence in this domain”. Romanian hotel owners said early this month that the tourism sector was going through an unprecedented crisis, following the elimination of the Tourism Ministry and considered that the lack of a consistent strategy in this domain could be dealt with by setting up a National Tourism Authority. ZF