Promoting Romania on EU funds

Newsroom 11/06/2012 | 13:11

Valentin Oeru, president of the Infoturism Association, told BR about the problems firms are facing in accessing EU funds for tourism promotion and shared some details about his organization’s latest project in Transylvania.

Simona Bazavan

 

How hard is it to access EU funds for tourism promotion?

There are several steps  from coming up with an idea to registering the project. I don’t see it as an impossible process. What is harder to do, unless one gets specialized consulting  – we had to do that in the end – is implementing the project. Drafting a project just to get the financing is simpler to do. But drafting it is so that it can be easily implemented afterwards is more difficult. The greatest issue related to EU funding right now is the reimbursement of expenses. The hiring freeze in the public sector means that those responsible for checking the projects are understaffed and have a great volume of work. In relation to this, there is also the issue of a lack of specialists in various fields.

For instance, the public employees are very good at what they do but they know little about creating and managing a website, such as was ours. This means additional questions which makes the process of reimbursements even lengthier.

What were the value and the objectives of your most recent project to promote northern Transylvania?

The project promoted 63 tourist objectives in northern Transylvania and it is part of our plan to create a national website to promote Romanian destinations which are off the beaten track.  Its value amounted to about RON 860,000 (approximately EUR 195,000) and included online (www.transilvania-magica.ro) and offline (catalogues and brochures, attendance of fairs and dedicated events) promotion. This was done both locally and internationally.

What are the results?

We have met all of the objectives we set. The website promoting these destinations reports on average 40,000 – 50,000 visitors each month. Out of this figure, I estimate that some 70 percent are Romanians and the rest foreigners. Also, the number of tourists visiting the promoted sites has gone up by 15 percent against 2009.

simona.bazavan@business-review.ro

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