Hotel owners aching for authority

The hotel owners in Romania feel tourism is going through an unprecedented crisis, following a very slow season in seaside resorts and a decline in take-up in other regions of the country. How did this happen? As every time when things do not go well, the blame lies somewhere else. In the high taxation, the slowdown in Europe, the high prices, the lack of well-trained people and the disbandment of the Tourism Ministry. Those in the industry believe the disbandment of the Tourism Ministry has blocked all the promotion and control activities and request to have a National Tourism Authority established and devising a consistent strategy for this sector’s development. “We’re sounding the alarm at the end of the summer season, which turned out to be disastrous in 2003, adding up to the low occupancy rate of the hotels in the entire country, including Bucharest,” Marin Stancu, chairman of Romanian Hotel Industry Federation (FIHR) on Tuesday said. The recession in the EU along with an unadjusted price policy have led to a decline in the number of foreign tourists this year, while less and less Romanians are travelling throughout the country. On the other hand, a rebound in August could help adjust the balance of the Romanian hotels a bit. “We might see at the end of this season that things are not as serious as they seem and this year’s revenues and take-up are the same as last year, which was a very slow one, though. The point here is not that this year or the previous years were slow, but that there are no prospects for improvement in the future,” George Turna, FIHR first deputy chairman said. ZF