Annually, several thousand Romanians choose to go on a cruise for their holiday, with prices starting from several hundred euros, and reaching as much as 45,000 euros, the price of the most expensive cruise sold by a local agency. Although in their country of origin, the USA, cruises are very popular, in Romania specialised companies say sales are 10% of what they could be.
Nicolae Demetriade, president of World Travel – which represents
cruise companies Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara in
Romania, and airline company Emirates Airlines, says this winter
season around 600 Romanians have travelled with Royal Caribbean and
Celebrity Cruises. The average price of a cruise ranges between 100
and 150 euros per day for a cabin for two, with the amount
including accommodation in four and five-star cabins, meals, as
well as other facilities such as access to bars, restaurants,
discos, skating rink, casino, fitness studios and swimming pools,
according to Demetriade, who adds the average duration of a cruise
is seven days.
Ioan Bășea, who has been operating on the Romanian cruise market
with croaziere.net agency since 2005, when this market was
practically non-existent on the Romanian market, says he is in
advanced talks with a cruise line to make Constanța into an
embark/debark port once a week. At present Costanța is an
intermediate port, with no one boarding or leaving the ship. 2010
was not a very good year for Ioan Bășea, and, although he sold more
than 2,000 cruises on all 18 cruise lines, he says “we sold only
10% of our potential.”