The Romanian tourism industry will post one of the highest growth rates among all the Central and Eastern European countries this year, reads a survey by the World Travel and Tourism Council- WTTC.
Demand for tourism services, namely the revenues generated by all the companies operating in this field, is set to grow 9.3% in 2004. The only countries that will exceed Romania's growth pace are Slovenia and Croatia. Bulgaria, Poland, the Czech Republic and Greece, on the other hand, will post a slower growth pace. Total demand for tourism services will go up to about 4.7 billion dollars in 2004.
Greece, on the other hand, is estimated to derive revenues ten times higher than Romania this year ($39 billion). At the same time, Romania's tourism industry is still lagging behind the CEE countries, although most of these states have smaller populations.
Direct revenues to be generated by tourism activities this year will amount to $822.7 million, accounting for 1.4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Still, the total revenues generated by tourism will be higher, considering that this industry impacts on all economic sectors. Thus, total revenues, both direct and indirect, will revolve around $3.5 billion, the WTTC survey also shows, accounting for 6% of GDP.
A comparison between all the CEE countries shows that Romania will perform very well in business travel and currency revenues generated by incoming tourists. Thus, business travel will increase by 11.7% this year in Romania, while the Central European average will merely amount to 10.2%, according to statistical data released by WTTC.
Ten-year forecasts show that leisure travel will grow at a more alert pace than the business travel. Industry representatives say, however, that the former will witness solid growth as of 2006. The average annual growth rate will be 5.4%, higher than the rates posted by Poland, Bulgaria or Greece. This will prompt demand for travel services in Romania to double by 2014.
"Many neighbouring countries have already reached their travel growth peak, and therefore future investments will largely go to other states, including Romania," says Cristian Mihai Balcescu, chairman of the Bucharest-based CMB Travel agency.
georgiana.stavarache@zf.ro
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