Dominated by hotels built before 1989, with an accommodation capacity three times lower than the Bulgarians', the Romanian seaside is struggling during this season to attract over one million tourists, with prices that are not competing, though, with those displayed by Bulgarians, Greeks and Turks.
At the start of the season, Romanian seaside tourism does not have any precise figures. All the figures, irrespective of whether they refer to the number of Romanian or foreign tourists, the number of hotels or operators' revenues, are estimative ones and moreover, they differ from one institution to another.
Additionally, different estimates are also offered with regard to the number of seaside rooms sold through travel agencies. While FPTR (The Romanian Tourism Business Owners' Federation) representatives consider almost 60% of accommodation units in hotels are filled through travel agencies, ANAT (The National Association of Travel Agencies) says this level amounts to over 80%.
Thus, tourists coming without a reservation during peak months risk finding no spare room or paying as much as 30% more per night.
Traian Badulescu, spokesman with ANAT, says this intermediation by travel agencies is necessary as the seaside holds 40% of countrywide accommodation capacity.
The overall accommodation capacity on the entire Romanian seaside, including Constanta city, points to a number of 122,000 accommodation units, according to ANAT data.
The total number of Romanian seaside hotels is not precisely known, with ANAT estimates pointing to around 300 hotels, of which only five are five-star ones. Moreover, on the entire Romanian seaside only 10-20 hotels are built from scratch after 1989, most of them being renovated and modernised.
Travel operators have divergent opinions about the number of seaside tourists this year, from forecasts indicating a traffic decline, to upbeat estimates showing a 10-15% increase. ANAT officials see a 10-15% increase this year from 2008, when a number of 1.3 million tourists through travel agencies was registered, according to its own estimates.
However, new direct flights operated by airlines are launched in a bid to boost the number of foreign tourists on the Romanian seaside.
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