For about a quarter
\nof Romanians, going on holiday is a treat they almost always cannot afford for
\nthemselves. However, there are other Romanians who, all throughout the year,
\ncan have a holiday combination of at least a four-night stay and a mini-holiday,
\naccording to specialist surveys that are published periodically. The main
\nreasons why people go on holiday are the need for them to have some recreation,
\nto cut themselves off from the stress of daily life, to have fun, but also to
\nreward themselves for the work throughout the year. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The summer of 2023
\nhas come to an end. Reason enough for us to outline the profile of the Romanian
\ntourist. Who is he ? What are his favorite destinations? How much money are they willing to spend? We have the perfect opportunity to look into that,
\nsince the World Tourism Day is celebrated on September 27!<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Our guide through the
\nhabits of Romanian tourists is Cristina Popa. For quite a few years now,
\nCristina has been an entrepreneur in the area. Since 1996, when she graduated from
\nthe Tourism Faculty, Cristina has been organizing trips, city-breaks, safaris or
\nexotic getaways. Many of the groups of tourists are accompanied by Cristina
\nherself. Reason enough for us to describe Cristina as someone who has become very
\nfamiliar with the habits of the Romanian tourist. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Romanian
\ntourist’s perspective, that has changed a little bit!. He began to travel to further
\ndestination more, as the fees there are not very high as compared to what
\nEurope can offer, what with the expenses there, a lot smaller than in Europe. In
\nthe past years France and Spain were extremely sought-after, just as they are
\nnow, they started to head for Kenya or for Mauritius or for the Maldives very
\noften. Now
\nZanzibar has become quite trendy for a couple of years now. There are offers where
\nthey have the chance to buy affordable flight tickets, the value for money is very,
\nvery good for those destinations. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We also asked
\nCristina Popa if the Romanians, as tourists, are picky.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some people are picky. I had
\na group in Zanzibar and those people there wanted to have everything at their
\nfingertips straight away, as they were used to that, at home, not being able to
\ntake into account they were on another continent where people moved differently.
\nThere they say pol\u00e9 pol\u00e9, take your time, take your time, and if you
\nwanted to have the waiter fetch your beer at the table, having ordered it, it
\ntook them half an hour for that, while getting the food brought at the table,
\nthat lasted for about three hours. They move differently. If you, as a tourist,
\ncan accept the fact that you are at another destination, in another zone, on
\nanother continent, where things are different as compared to Romania or Europe,
\nthen you should have no problem. We can make things more difficult for ourselves
\nbecause we cannot accept those who are different from us and with whom we have not
\ngrown accustomed to. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In recent years, the rather unpleasant
\nsituations for us all, as a society, have grown on us, we had the Covid, while as we
\nspeak, we have the war at the border with Ukraine, there also was the energy
\ncrisis and rampant inflation, so less money, for some…How has all that influenced
\nRomanians’ holiday habits? Cristina Popa once again. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The clients I
\nhave in my portfolio were not necessarily influenced by that. The Covid, that
\nof course slowed us all down a little bit since travel regulations at that time
\nwere different. If you had the vaccine or the test, there were not unpleasant
\nsituations. Our clients continued to travel…
\n<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
…And spend…But how much they spent,
\nhere is Cristina Popa once again, telling all that.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are fees from
\n500-600 Euro per person per stay, in Bulgaria and Greece, there are also fees ranging
\nfrom 900 to about 2,000 Euros per person for other destinations. I’ve just had
\na group in the Maldives, they paid around 2,000 Euros per person so they were
\nwilling to pay more, I could see they wanted so much to travel to areas they
\nhad never been to before, and to me, that is magic because, well, that is what we are left with, eventually, with what we get to see. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Apart from the holidays we might
\ncall classic, our guide, apart from being faithful to Romanians’ tourism
\npreferences, organizes another kind of tourism as well. For children and
\nteenagers aged 10 to 14, Cristina Popa offers that sort of tourism where
\npersonal development blends into leisure. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I
\nhave begun, for three years now, to offer that kind of tourism too, for
\nchildren and teenagers, those personal development camps. We go to guesthouses
\nthat have been authorized to stage such camps, but which are different, they do
\nnot give you that feeling you’re on a school camp, as we do not want that. We
\nwant the children to discover themselves and realize the abilities they have been
\nendowed with, and do whatever pleases them. So, for instance, this year I staged
\nan intuition workshop so they can see how they can listen to their intuition
\nthemselves. We stage creativity, painting, drawing workshops, all sorts of
\nself-confidence workshops, so they can discover themselves. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Summer has come to an
\nend, children have returned to school, their parents have exhausted their
\nsummer holidays. However, for Cristina Popa or for her colleagues we can hardly
\nspeak about relaxing. And that, because the Romanians keep going on holiday,
\nirrespective of the season.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In October
\nI go the Island of Egina with a group, in November I’ll be off to Cuba, for
\nFebruary I stage a trip to Sri Lanka for the families with children. So we no
\nlonger have that time of the year we all know, when September or October come and we relax! As we speak, we can’t complain, we have an uninterrupted inflow of tourists, provided the social and world circumstances allow that. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romanian tourists and their travelling habits<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":286866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42997],"tags":[36480,30409,32515,44272,43350],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-623852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-today","tag-expenses","tag-holiday","tag-school","tag-stay","tag-workshop"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n