Vote of condemnation by USR local councilors against a project aimed at attracting foreign tourists to Sibiu. Apostoiu: “There is no strategy!”

The City Hall of Sibiu will allocate one million lei to a project developed in partnership with the County Council and the County Tourism Association, a project that aims to attract foreign tourists both in the city and in the county. The project was put to a vote by the councilors, but it was not supported by all the local elected officials. The USR group abstained from the vote because “there is no clear strategy” to attract tourists.

Sibiu will be promoted internationally, the aim being to attract more tourists both to the city on Cibin and to the region, in all seasons. Sibiu City Hall and the County Council have joined hands to take care of the financing, while the County Tourism Association will take care of implementing the program. The program to be implemented aims to increase the flow of foreign tourists in Sibiu, through campaigns to promote the destination on new international markets, reduce the seasonality of tourism, by highlighting the tourist offer in all seasons and achieving sustainable tourism in the region, by creating a strong development policy. In order to achieve these objectives, the estimated necessary budget is 2 million lei, of which one million lei represents the City Hall’s share.

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The project regarding the approval of the partnership and this amount was put to the vote during the regular meeting of the City Council on March 27. It was adopted, but with four abstentions, by the councilors of the USR. They clarified that they agree with the implementation of a project to attract foreign tourists to Sibiu, but the program, in its current form, does not include a clear strategy to achieve this objective. “There is a motivation (no: for granting an “abstain”) vote, namely the fact that in that protocol there is no clear strategy for attracting tourists and tourism to Sibiu. This was one of the reasons why we tried to consult with the tourism operators in the city and try to understand what is the perspective of such a strategy. Unfortunately, there was no such strategy. The need is there, it is certain, we want to attract tourists and I would not want it to be understood that the group of USR councilors is against this. Moreover, I would have been happy to see there in that strategy, the attraction of some operators, including air operators. Sibiu Airport to attract flights from countries from which tourists can come, which have been dedicated to Sibiu for years. This was the main reason why we abstained from this project”, said the local councilor Raul Apostoiu.