Opening Romania for Business Tourism

Romania becomes increasingly attractive for business-tourism, having the advantage of both low prices and low security risks. There are needed, however, important investments for growing the number of hotel beds and the number of conference centers in the hospitality industry here.

One of the main attractions of Bucharest as location for hosting business conferences is the low level of prices, when compared to other capital cities. "Internationally, the average cost per conference participant was 418 euros, while in Romania it was around 150 euros," said Radu Cimponeriu, president of the Romanian Conventions Bureau (RCB). The services provided by translators and interpreters come also cheaper, sometimes five or six times lower than those in other European states. While management fees for companies organizing the events are half of those in Western Europe.

Last year, the conventions market in Romania fared some 30 million euros; this year a 12% to 15% raise is expected, according to Paul Marasoiu, honorary president of the RCB. The business of business tourism brings in important revenues not only for the organizers of conventions, but also for the hotels, restaurants, banks, shops, and transportation and catering companies. It is also a lucrative deal for the state too, which gets revenues by way of taxation and VAT. "There are whole cities in the world which make a living out of the business tourism as, for instance, Maastricht. Spain too started to promote aggressively the business tourism," said Cimponeriu.

Bucharest has high potential, but still undeveloped infrastructure for this type of business: too few hotel beds and too few reception and conference halls. Only a handful of the hotels rated above three stars comply with the ICCA standards (the international association regulating the field). Of all conference halls, Sala Palatului is the only one able to host meetings of up to 4,000 people. Some 2,000 high standard accommodation places are available, but the demand would be for some 9,000.

Other capital cities, like Prague, Warsaw or Sofia are providing better opportunities than Bucharest does, having more hotel beds and much lower prices. Other Romanian cities that could develop successfully the hospitality industry with a view to catering to conference goers are Cluj, Timisoara, Craiova, Suceava and Targu Mures. "Growing investments in the infrastructure needed for hosting these events should go hand in hand with training the personnel. For the time being we lack the qualified human resources for the conference centers in the hotels," said representatives of the RCB.

Recently Romania improved its image as an appropriate location for conferences. The World Postal Union organized its Congress here, between 15 September and 6 October. Some 2,500 delegates from 204 countries took part in the event, which was organized for 18 months in advance. Our country outran Brussels in the bid for organizing the congress, which brought some 18 to 20 million euros in income to the organizers.