Travel in Romania

Positive performance for travel in Romania but outbound expenditure outweighs inbound receipts

Travel in Romania continued to record a positive performance in 2019, supported by stronger growth in inbound arrivals and steady demand for domestic leisure trips. The reduced rate of VAT to 5% down from 9% which was implemented in November 2018 for most travel-related services aimed to reduce tax evasion, support domestic travel companies and to encourage tourism.

Online travel sales continue to gain ground on offline operators

Online travel sales to Romanians continued to record double-digit current value growth in 2019, due to the ongoing rapid rise in internet penetration in the country. Busy consumers are increasingly looking for the most convenient way to complete travel bookings, with this being largely supported by the rapid rise in the number of people accessing the internet through their mobile phones.

Low cost carriers continue to dominate airlines but package tours support strong performance by charter flights

Low cost carriers continued to dominate airlines in both number of passengers and in current value sales terms in 2019, as Hungarian low cost carrier Wizz Air strengthened its leadership overall as its offers Romanians competitive deals and is popular for city breaks, followed at some distance by local player Blue Air and Ryanair, with the latter two losing ground as a number of smaller players entered the category. Despite Ryanair’s weak performance towards the end of the review period due to reduced activity, the Irish carrier has announced its intention to expand within Eastern and Central Europe and intends to launch a new Bucharest to Edinburgh route by November 2019 with a three times weekly service, as part of its extended Bucharest Winter 2019 schedule.

Romanians continue to take advantage of employee benefits

Domestic trips continued to record steady growth in 2019 in addition to accounting for the highest number of trips taken by Romanians compared to outbound departures. This trend is greatly supported by various schemes and vouchers offered by both the government for public employees (up to the value of RON1,450) and private companies offering their employees the Sodexo Turist Pass holiday cards and vouchers.

Positive but slower performance for travel in Romania

Overall travel in Romania is predicted to record a positive performance over the forecast period, despite slower growth compared with the review period due to a general global trend for travel and tourism. However, opportunities for growth are available for most types of operators due to favourable taxation, improving regulations and industry services, instilling a greater sense of trust amongst consumers.

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