Unita Turism, one of the largest hotel owners in the country posted Q1 revenue “growth higher than expected”, albeit the industry saw a serious recoil in the first two months of the year, as highlighted by National Statistics Institute (INS) data. “We had a surprising 31.3% growth in ROL  for all Unita Turism’s hotels in the first three months. The turnover went up from some 32bn ROL in Q1 last year to nearly 43bn ROL ($1.3 million) in Q1, 2003,” marketing manager Marius Pintilie told Ziarul Financiar. If looking at the approximately 17% inflation (March 2002 – March 2003), the actual growth posted by Unita Turism hotels was of about 14%. “We were expecting smaller growth due to the war in Iraq, which did impact on Unita Turism’s business in March,” Pintilie said. Unita Turism logged $10 million consolidated turnover in 2002 and estimates to post a 20% higher turnover in 2003. ZF