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Plan of anti-crisis measures for tourism

The steering committee of the National Association of Tourist Agencies (ANAT) suggests a three-item plan of measures as an anti-crisis solution to Romanian tourism: the approval of the law on holiday vouchers, a project meant to promote Romanian tourism worth five million euros (January-May 2009) and an ANAT-Early Booking hotel owners private partnership (a national campaign between February 1 and March 31, 2009).

ANAT finds that Romania has started a stage of slowing down the economic growth pace and is expecting a period of economic contraction, which will affect both Europe and the USA, Dragos Atanasiu, president of the ANAT employers' association, told a news conference on Wednesday.

ANAT says that both pleasure and business tourism decreased, the occupancy rate of the flights is under the one last year and the international prospect for 2009 is a reserved one, considering the lower demand, following a poor labour market and the low capital flow from corporations to travel industry.

According to the data supplied by ANAT, the gross domestic product at over Europe will go down by about 0.6 percent. Under these circumstances, as a consequence of the decreases in the hospitality industry and air transport, the tourist agencies will have to cope with some acute crisis situations.

The draft law on holiday vouchers was drawn up in cooperation with the representatives of the trade unions and the relevant ministry and was submitted to Parliament. ANAT thinks that this law should go on being lobbied for both in Romania's Parliament and with the decision making factors in the ministries that are involved in the project mentioned before.

ANAT thinks that Romania's Government, namely the representative for tourism, must urgently draw up and carry out promotion programmes. The source of the promotion funds must be the budget of the relevant ministry, a budget that has to be planned again and given other dimensions.

The third anti-crisis measure refers to signing early contracts for holidays. This implies giving important discounts to tourists (20-30 percent) for buying holidays a long time before the season starts. The suggestion is valid between February 1 and March 31, 2009. The vouchers cannot be given back and cannot be used by someone else. The period of the stay can be chosen anytime the tourist wants, the changes of the name or other services will be fined with the equivalent value of the reduction and in case of giving it up the fine is 100 precent. No reservations are permitted after March 31.

 

Sursa: http://www.rompress.ro

Tags: crisis tourism air

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