When you have a king who says “Transylvania is a corner of heaven”, you have to use that to promote tourism in Romania

Dragoș Anastasiu spoke about the strategies that the Romanian authorities could adopt to attract more foreign tourists. He stated that he had seen the campaigns of the Ministry of Tourism on buses in Paris and that “somehow they are timidly trying to attract foreign tourists, but we don’t see the results.”

When you have a king (not King Charles) who says that Transylvania is a corner of heaven – by the way, the best-known king and best friend of Romania and you don’t even use that, that if we look on various websites this doesn’t exist this statement. It’s a common problem. I stopped blaming, it’s very easy to say that the Ministry of Tourism is to blame for not doing it. Not. Together we have to do it – both the industry and the Ministry of Tourism (…)

We operators and those from abroad and those from Romania are here to run the flows, but somehow the flow must be generated by the authorities. Tour operators from abroad are not destination makers, they are destination sellers. This process of creating destinations is our responsibility, the Romanians. And here, I repeat, the industry together with the ministry must do much more. We wonder how this could happen. Well, look at Romania’s promotion budget. Last year it was about 2 million, this year it is 3 million euros. Before I made the exit to a large German tour operator, I had a bigger budget. I, as a company promoting Romania (…) That’s why I say. We are in a vicious circle. When the national budget is made, we have two crumbs left for tourism, or with crumbs we cannot do the job, we have to decide. Is tourism really a strategic element for Romania? If so, we, the industry, together with the authorities must sit down and find the necessary resources”, Dragoș Anastasiu explained to Digi 24ș