Romanians spent half a billion euros on holidays abroad during this year's summer season that lasted between May and September. The destination that registered the fastest growth rate was Turkey, together with the already established holiday destinations of Greece and Bulgaria. However, next year industry operators believe more exotic destinations will prove popular, such as Thailand, Cuba, Dubai and Kenya.
"This season, around 700,000 Romanian tourists chose to spend their holidays abroad. Of these, 200,000 went to Greece, 200,000 to Bulgaria, 80,000 to Turkey, 35,000 to Spain and 20,000 to Tunisia. The rest opted for destinations such as France or Italy, but these are more difficult to assess because they were cultural travel packages," stated Traian Badulescu, spokesman of the National Association of Travel Agencies in Romania (ANAT).
According to NBR data, Romanians spent 109m euros on holidays abroad in July, up 24% against the same period last year. Under the circumstances, the overall sums Romanians spent during this year's five-month summer season amounts to approximately 500m euros. The figure does not include the sums Romanians spent in the countries they visited.
On average, a Romanian tourist's budget revolves around 500 euros, but there are several cases when it exceeds 3,000 euros.
Although part of Romanian tourists' usual destinations remained unchanged, this year also brought some novelties in terms of consumer behaviour, which will generate more exotic holiday destinations next year.
Amid rising wages and implicitly higher purchasing power, Romanian tourists are expected to consider destinations such as Tahiti, Seychelles, Kenya, Thailand or the Caribbean.
According to travel agencies' representatives, demand for the various promoted travel packages surged by around 20%, which will be reflected in turnovers at yearend.
Domestically, in terms of requests travel agencies receive from foreign tourists, a series of differences were apparent this year: "(...) demand for health and balneal (spa-resort) tourism saw a slight decline, while cultural tourism boasted significant growth," stated Aurel Pavel, J'Info Tours general manager.
In addition, since the beginning of this year, foreign tourists have spent 472m euros on holidays in Romania, down 4% on last year.
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