en-detail eventS:itb, ttr , etravel conference

Globetrotter on the Silk road- dr. PetrebalaŞ

trendS in national medical touriSm market

market Profile: Switzerland

No. 17/ 2013/ B2B Travel Magazine www.advisortravel.ro

Voice of Romanian Travel

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"e best way to predict the future is to invent it", computer expertAlan Kay once said. Nothing more true but what do you do if the future takesyou by surprise as it seems to happen sometimes in the modern travel market?How well can you adjust yourself to the new demands of your customers to re-main a successful travel agent?

e world is changing faster and faster, and a bit of history is necessaryto understand the context in order to anticipate the trends. We should rathergo back in time 20 years ago when travel agent used to work on confidentialcommissions, well preserved secrets between the service provider and travelagents. Here and there the situation is maintained in Romania because secrecycontinues to be trendy. However, the landscape changes slowly. Internet and on-line software enable new generations of customers to book directly from sup-pliers saving time and money. e method allows a greater control andcustomization unavailable on traditional channels. A journey does not meananymore a chain of destinations but the depth of discovering destination X orY, while the boundary between business travel and leisure increasingly blurs. So-cial media and the free exchange of information change the unidirectional trans-action type, and the agency becoms an aggregator of information and a facilitatorof relationships.

Hence, the travel agent - customer balance changes: the interaction isinfluenced by cooperation which makes both of them partners to a successfullexperience. e scenario that the travel agent could become a little robot withheadphones on - concurrently taking dozens of online calls, dealing with faceto face meetings and fiercely typing correspondence - already passed away.Today's customer needs empathy and experience from its travel consultant,rather than cold and formal efficiency.

How would a Gen Y or Z customer choose his travel agent in the fu-ture? Selection, trust and expertise!

What could the travel agent do in response ? To specialize in terms oftourism and technology, to identify new segments of customers or insufficientlycovered segments (e.g. women, youth, single) and to create for them appealingloyalty programs. If he will succeed to enrich their travel experience by identi-fying the familiar and the genuine, he will remain on the market and will be atthe top. To keep his customers will not require more financial or human effortbut the innovation and communication. Like it or not, the future will belongto the creative and daring!

Anne-Mary NechitaOwner & CEO ANIMACTION HUB

the future of the travel aGent beGinS... todaY!

Anne-Mary Nechita

“How would a Gen

Y or Z customer

choose his travel

agent in the

future? Selection,

trust and

expertise!”

EDITORIAL 3

omanian tourism is defined by strongseasonality and domination of businesstourism over inbound. In other words,we can say that Romanian tourism is

dominated by business flows. Naturally, this find-ing draws attention on tourism business as a sub-sector where foreign customers act, and wherestrategic intervention could bring positive resultsin the short run.

Question is whether this area is properly capital-ized in Romania, in the main destinations cov-ered by this type of tourism (urban centers witheconomic development and foreign investments:Bucharest, Timisoara, Cluj and so on). Statisticsseem to say „No”.

Indeed, variance of foreign tourists’ flow in themain economic centers of the country seem to fitalmost perfectly with changes in the dynamics ofeconomic and foreign direct investment. Businesstravelers - the bulk of foreign tourists, as I said -come when the economic climate is favorableand leave as soon as difficulties arise. It's an ab-solutely free process where strategic inaction isfelt by lack of countercyclical measures. Often itis claimed that two broad categories of measurescould be taken:

1.Foundation of a/some bodies / institutions ofDestination Management in the main businesstravel destinations of the country

2.Developement of MICE products and theirpromotion either through DMO-s websites ortailored and flexible voluntary structures/ associ-ations.

We will detail in a few words the two possiblemeasures. e first one is the most important inthe current situation of Bucharest and aims tocreate a Convention Bureau.

MICE (Meetings, Incentive, Conferencing, Ex-hibitions) tourism is the most able to grow andsustain business tourism flows. It capitalizes ex-

isting economic dynamics and creates around ita tourism offer of professional meetings, incen-tives, conferences and fairs which slowly self-sup-port and create an audience less addicted tofluctuations of the local economy.

Business tourism also has two very important fea-tures with a leverage on tourism, in general, andon economy of a destination, in particular: busi-ness tourist expenditure budget is generally a gen-erous one, while business trip leads to thediscovery of a destination and the return withfamily for holiday (leisure).

Moreover, MICE tourism allows young and localprofessionals to be acquainted with currenttrends in various fields and contact with top pro-fessionals in the field. MICE also represents animportant lever for developing human resourcesof a destination. But these features must be acti-vated by proper management.

A Convention Bureau is an associative structuremost suited to Romanian case by its neutrality.A Convention Bureau could be part of a publicauthority (department), a private association ofprivate actors in the tourism industry, a public-private partnership. But which are the main ar-guments for a Convention Bureau? Here are afew:

• MICE customers prefer interaction with an"one stop shop"• Represents the entire destination, not just thespecific interests of companies or parts of indus-try• Supports the effort to market the MICE prod-ucts of the destination (bids and supports partic-ipation in tenders for MICE events)•Is a privileged interlocutor with local, nationaland international key public and private actorsinterested or involved in MICE• Performs research, analysis and statistics on theimpact of promotion and event attendance ontourism.

In studies conducted abroad for a number ofDestination Management Organizations, ourcompany:

o used an IT tool that compiles, structures andanalyzes real-time data on flight bookings to Ro-mania made through GDS (Global DistributionSystems) by 190,000 worldwide online or offlinetravel agents. Qualitative analysis of raw distributions allowsnot only ex-post evaluation of events impact (in-cluding MICE) on attending a tourism destina-tion, but also ex-ante analysis with correctiveactions.

o tracked the progress of perception of destina-tion in real-time with appropriate tools such ase-reputation. Detente Consultants perform detailed analysisbased on business intelligence software that col-lects and structures in cyberspace exchanges ofopinions on a destination. Generated statistics allow extremely useful con-clusions about the perception of MICE destina-tions and allow the development of highlyeffective and efficient strategies, marketing ac-tions and tourism promotion.

e second step is in fact an extension of the firstone. It covers the activity of the Convention Bu-reau. In this framework specific products could be cre-ated (e.g. trainings for IT-like fields, car confer-ences, etc in Bucharest), and strategies to targetsource markets according to segmentation andlocal assets (infrastructure, equipments, capacity,prices, etc.) could be adopted.

It is easy to see that Romanian business traveldestinations lack the institutional participationto ensure not only power but also economic rel-evance of measures to promote MICE products.is is a sine qua non requirement for the devel-opment and stabilization of business tourism inRomania.

romanian touriSm Should bet onm.i.c.e.by Jamil Benabdallah

Director Dentente – East Europe

R

M.I.C.E. 4

Credit photo: DepositPhotos.com/ © дмитрий эрслер

CONTENTS

Medical Tourism with Andrei Răzvan Nacea

2013, Year of Portugal

TTR 2013... with goods& bads eTravel conference report

Mystery Shopper 17

Page 32

Page 14

Page 10

Page 28

Page 20

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

Credit photo: DepositPhotos.com/ © haveseen

First Romanian winner at Sony World Photography Awards 2013e World Photography Organisation (WPO) has recently announced the winners of "SonyWorld Photography Awards", in „Youth”, „Open” and „3D” categories. Romania was the firsttime one of the three winners in the "Youth" category due to Alecsandra Drăgoi - author of awining photo in "Culture" section. Open to photographers until age 19, „Youth” competitionseeks to discover the next generation of talented photographers rewarding the effort of three ofthem each edition. e young photographer of the year will be selected among them and willbe announced at "Sony World Photography Awards" Gala in London.

"e long road to the Merry Cemetery" brings Săpânţa into focusA European funded project - "e long road to Merry Cemetery" - attracts more visitors atSăpânţa and recalls village traditions. It is managed by Peter Hurley, an Irishman fond of ruralRomania. Hurley advises tourists to go to Sighetu Marmației by rail since this is "the mostbeautiful train ride in Europe". e idea to promote Săpânţa came soon after the projectmakershad noted that although the Merry Cemetery is one of the most visited places in Romania(about 20,000 people come here every year), tourists spend an average of 45 minutes in the vil-lage. On August 15, a festival will be organized in Săpânţa to celebrate the Assumption of theVirgin Mary. On this occasion, Irish and Romanian musicians will perform an informal showto last about three hours. e festival will be interactive, the audience will connect with arti-sans and peasants from Săpânţa, will visit a sheep cot, and eat with shepherds.

Successful Romanian on the global art marketAdrian Ghenie, a Romanian painter age 36, has seen remarkable success in an auction organ-ized by Sotheby's in London. He sold his "Dr. Mangele2 " painting for Euro 140,747, a fourtimes more than the estimation of experts (Euro 35,000 – 46,000 ). e previous record of theyoung artist is the sale for Euro 52,764 of his painting "Study for beating the pies", sold by Ta-jani from Paris, in a charity auction. In 2011, two works by Ghenie were traded by major auc-tion houses in London: "Station outside time" sold by Sotheby's for Euro 14,578, and "Pool"sold by Phillips de Pury for Euro 12,868.e artist was born in 1977 in Baia Mare. He graduated from the University of Arts in Clujand founded with Mihai Pop, in 2005, Gallery Plan B extended to Berlin. Plan B had organizedthe Romanian Hall at the Venice Biennale in 2007, and opened a permanent exhibition spacein Berlin in 2008. It was an unique event for a Romanian gallery abroad.

A Romanian age 18 - computer geniusIonuţ Alexandru Budişteanu age 18, from Râmnicu Vâlcea, Romania, is a computer genius. Hestunned the whole world, won hundreds of awards and managed to impress everyone. He is cur-rently a student at Oltchim Technology High School, but recently attended the Taiwan Interna-tional Science Fair where was ranked the third, and Intel Eco-Ukraine where was the second.Since he has received a USD 40,000 grant from the IEEE, he will study at a university in theUnited States after completion of the 12th grade. Ionuţ qualified also for the International Sus-tainable World (Engineering, Energy & Environment) Project Olympiad in Houston, Texas, andthe Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, Arizona, both in May 2013. eproject based on artificial intelligence that helps blind people "to see" using their tongue, and theautonomous car (selfdriving car) are some works of the young genius.

A Romanian contributed to the discovery of "God particle"Dr. Sorina Popescu manages one of the teams that discovered "God particle", the most importantsuccess of science in recent years. She workes for 12 years at the particles accelerator in Genevawhere CMS experiment is carried out. is experiment allowed the discovery of Higgs boson.e Higgs boson named after Scottish physicist Peter Higgs and also called „God particle” is ahypothetical elementary particle from bosons family included in the mechanism that gives massto other elementary particles. e Universe would have had nothing tangible without it. Searchfor a proof of its existence began in 1960 and lasted more than 50 years.

6 ROMANIA

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Mobile: 0040722. 910. 574

Contributors: Prof. Univ. Dr. Gabriela Ţigu, Dr. Mircea

Drăghici, Alex Hampu, Cristian Pitulice, Dan Anghelescu,

Paula Sichim

Photos: Simion Buia, Adrian Tărăcilă, Dreamstime,

Depositphoto

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PUBliSHEr:

a n i m a c t i o n h u b

EDitorS trAvEl ADviSor MAGAZiNE

Anne-Mary NechitaSenior Editor

Animaction HUB

Dr. Petre BalaşSenior Editor Peter Express

thiS iS mY countrY!

Diversity and peace.

Chance or opportunity made for me to travel to three different des-tinations from the same family of Salam aleikum, in the first partof this year.

e same world surrounds us, but how much diversity of nature,pace of life and development of society! In early January, Hurghadafrom the Red Sea longed for peace, quiet ... and tourists, as well asLuxor, and Egypt in general. e endless unrests in the area removedalso Tunisia from the tours, a tourism awarded destination in thelast years.

In March, I flew to Central Asia to Uzbekistan following an impor-tant part of the famous Silk Road, on the tracks of Tamerlane atKhiva, Bukhara and Samarkand, the last also capital of the greatking. History marked not only his cruelty but also the multitude ofarchitectural and religious buildings he left to posterity. I’ve returnedto the area after 25 years. Beyond the persistence of certain sequelsfrom the past I saw and felt the new, the vigor, the highlight of pro-tected by UNESCO tourist attractions and the adequate infrastruc-ture. I intend to go back and I highly recommend the destination,since there are many things to see and to discover.

Finally, in early April I saw UAE, namely Dubai and Abu Dhabiemirate, at the annual ASTA meeting. ere the feeling was un-doubtedly overwhelming: you can see the future in front of youreyes! Of course, I can compare Dubai with the emirate I visitedseven and five years ago. Many investments with a cosmic aura an-nounced then are already a reality: tens and hundreds of mega build-ings – none of them the same, the 70 km – long highway with 6+6 lanes on each direction crossing the heart of the metropolis, andthe much admired subway. And how hard it is for other countriesto get these investments!

“e divine poet of Romanian people”.

I feel the need to read more and more some of Grigore Vieru’spoems, trully named e superlative poet beyond Prut River byAdrian Păunescu (Romanian poet).

is true Romanian unfairly left for the other world. I think it ishard to find another gigantic poet to paint so warmly and fragrantlythe mother's face.

Margaret atcher and the thatcher-ism.

It may seem incredible, but England of the 80s was anaesthetizedby a sort of own statist and claiming socialism. Well, Margaretatcher defeated the obstinacy and the misogyny of politiciansfrom her own party; took control of the government of one of thegreat powers of the world; and won the bet with liberalization ofthe economy changing fundamentally the British society.

She removed the currency exchange control on outbound; gave upthe monitoring of all prices; fought effectively with inflation; cuttaxes with the support of private sector; imposed outsourcing anddenationalization; involved and co-interested workers, a successfulstrategy afterwards.

She used successfully the media to implement new ideas.

She defeated the powerful unions and their intangible leaders withpatience and economic arguments.

Finally, she stunned the world by winning brilliantly the war withArgentina for Falkland Islands (Malvinas)!

She governed the England of the perfidious Albion for 11 years (!)!

I admit, I was and I still am a fan of Margaret!

6 ROMANIA

- No. 17/2013 -

by DR. PETRE BALAŞ

7

GLOBE TROTTERRotondaWhat I've seen,

What I’ve read, what I've heard,in my real and imaginary

travels...

8 TECHNOLOGY

amadeuS and iaG SiGnednew lonG-term contentaGreementAmadeus, a leading technology partner for the global travelindustry, has recently signed a new long-term content agree-ment with International Airlines Group (IAG), one of theworld’s largest airline groups.

e agreement, which covers British Airways, Iberia, andIberia Express, allows Amadeus subscribers to continue tobenefit from accessing the same level of fares, availability andfunctionality as previously.

“Reaching a new content agreement with IAG has beena clear commercial priority for Amadeus for some time,in order to ensure that our subscribers can continue toaccess British Airways, Iberia and Iberia Express flights,”said Holger Taubmann, Senior Vice President, Distribu-tion, Amadeus, adding that: “To this end we are de-lighted to have reached agreement with IAG and we lookforward to continuing what has been a long and success-ful relationship for many more years to come”.

According to Silvia Cairo, Head of Group CommercialPlanning and Policy, International Airlines Group, “Weare wholly committed to supporting the travel agencychannel and we are pleased to have reached a multi-yearagreement with Amadeus. We have a long standing rela-tionship with Amadeus and look forward to workingwith Amadeus subscribers ever more closely together inthe coming years”.

Amadeus plays a critical role in the distribution space en-suring global reach to travel agencies across the world.Today 80% of Amadeus bookings worldwide are madeon airlines with which Amadeus has a content agreement.

About IAG.

Formed in January 2011, IAG is the parent company ofBritish Airways, Iberia and bmi. It is a Spanish registeredcompany with shares traded on the London Stock Ex-change and Spanish Stock Exchanges. e corporate headoffice for IAG is in London, UK.

International Airlines Group is one of the world's largestairline groups with 377 aircraft flying to 200 destinationsand carrying more than 54 million passengers each year.It is the third largest group in Europe and the sixth largestin the world, based on revenue.

china airlines Group – amadeus: a long-term content agreement

Recently, China Airlines Group and Amadeus have signed an extensive long-term contentagreement. It offers to Amadeus subscribers within Asia access to the same level of fares, avail-ability and functionality as any other travel agent content channel. Outside of Asia, ChinaAirlines and Mandarin Airlines have increased their content guarantee to Amadeus to thesame fares, availability and functionality as both airlines distribute through their own websites,call centres and other travel agency content access channels.

“Travel agencies are a key element of our sales strategy,” said Mr James Yu, Senior Vice Pres-ident, President Office, China Airlines Group. “It is extremely important for us to providethe travel agency channel with access to the full range of fares, schedules and inventory fromboth China Airlines and Mandarin Airlines. is agreement reflects our commitment to thisvery important distribution channel.”

Forecasted passenger volumes for both airlines in 2012 are 13.3m of which 11.1m correspondto China Airlines.

Amadeus plays a critical role in the distribution space ensuring true global coverage with a38.6% global market share of air travel agency sales. Today 80% of Amadeus bookings world-wide are made on airlines with which Amadeus has a content agreement. Furthermore, thisagreement will strengthen the Amadeus travel agency offering in Asia, providing them withan effective and technologically advanced distribution partner.

About China Airlines.

China Airlines (CAL) with its fleet size of 72 aircrafts is the largest carrier in Taiwan carryingapproximately 11 million passengers a year between its Taipei hub and 112 destinations in28 countries and regions. It became one of the members of the SkyTeam Alliance since 2010.

Credit photo: DepositPhotos.com/ © дмитрий эрслер

TECHNOLOGY 9

through amadeus, thalys expands distributionthrough the travel agency channel

amadeus : 2020 – an increase to over 1.36 billionpassengers on long-distance rail traffic in europe

According to a recent study from Amadeus, e Rail Journey to 2020, long-distance passenger traffic will increase by an estimated 21 % (2.2% annu-ally) to reach over 1.36 billion by 2020, 238 million up compared to 2011figures. e report focuses on the period 2011-2020, which will see thepassenger rail industry in Europe impacted by an unprecedented combina-tion of factors: some relating to structural change, others arising from op-portunities created by infrastructural investments and technology. ereport identifies that anticipated growth in passenger volume over the pe-riod 2011-2020 is driven by four key markets in particular: the UnitedKingdom, France, Switzerland and Germany.

e report is based on authoritative data and best practice modelling tech-niques from a dedicated research team at Amadeus. Over 100 sources fromrail companies, public and regulatory bodies were consulted and Amadeusbuilt predictive models based on correlations between long distance railshare of total traffic, national population densities, rail densities, rail indus-try structure across countries and geography.

„e Rail Journey to 2020” provides an overview of the European rail mar-ket today, and outlines six key trends that will shape the evolution of thepassenger rail industry, and its relationships with other modal providers inthe period to 2020. ese are: liberalisation; new market entrants; comple-tion of new high-speed lines; new hubs; air-rail & rail-rail cooperation; rail-ways’ costs.

e report also outlines a baseline scenario, built around these trends, tosize the business potential for passenger rail in 2020, and concludes withcomments on how passenger rail operators can take advantage of the trendstransforming the industry landscape.

Amadeus and alys, the international high-speed rail operator connectingParis and Brussels with Germany and the Netherlands, announce a part-nership agreement to distribute alys’ services through Amadeus’ globaldistribution system, starting in Germany. Users of Amadeus Selling Plat-form, Amadeus’ point of sale for travel agents, and Amadeus e-Travel Man-agement, the company self-booking tool for corporate users, will have accessto the full range of alys’ fares, including corporate negotiated fares, sched-ules and availability to effectively compare alys high speed rail serviceswith flights on specific routes. alys will be presented as a real alternativeto air travel, giving the railway better market exposure, and ensuring thattravellers have greater choice and transparency of options. alys will beavailable alongside airlines on selected routes in the Amadeus neutral book-ing display for travel agents and corporate bookers. Travellers will also ben-efit from additional advantages, such as the possibility of booking acomplete ticketless train travel experience using alys Ticketless (TKL) –that permits to travel without a paper ticket – or collecting Miles on alys'loyalty programme eCard. e addition of alys into the Amadeus booking flow will permit travelagents to benefit from a more simple and faster booking process as well asfrom increased productivity and efficiency, thanks to automatic integrationinto the Amadeus Passenger Name Record (PNR ) and IATA’s Billing andSettlement Plan (BSP). is agreement is a step forward in alys’ strategy to expand its interna-tional distribution reach, to grasp new market segments such as corpora-tions whilst improving distribution beyond traditional channels. Moreover,for the future it enables alys to develop interline agreements with airlines,allowing travel agents to combine a flight with a high-speed rail link on thesame ticket or to combine rail and air services with hotel & car. On this occassion, Scheherazade Zekri-Chevallet, Chief Commercial andMarketing Officer, alys, declared “We are glad to work with Amadeusas our distribution partner for travel agencies and corporations. is agree-ment will allow us to compete with short-haul air travel, facilitating travelagents’ access to our public and corporate fares, and schedules whilst givingalys access to new revenue opportunities.”omas Drexler, Director of Amadeus Rail, commented: “With the addi-tion of alys to Amadeus’ global distribution system, Amadeus continuesto build the most complete and relevant rail offering for the travel agencycommunity. We are proud to have the only multi-channel rail-dedicateddistribution platform that is helping railways to expand their internationaldistribution.”About alys.alys is the red high-speed train which connects Brussels with Paris in 1hour 22 minutes and Brussels with Cologne and Amsterdam in 1 hour 47minutes and 1 hour 53 minutes. As of 29 August 2011, alys has threenew German destinations: Düsseldorf, Duisburg and Essen. As of 30 Oc-tober 2011 there is a daily connection between Brussels Midi, Brussels in-ternational airport and Paris Nord. alys is a member of Railteam, acollaborative venture between the most important European high-speedoperators, CER (Community of European Railway and InfrastructureCompanies) and UIC (Union Internationale des Chemins de Fer).About Amadeus Rail. Amadeus Rail is the business unit dedicated to servingthe needs of railways around the world, connecting over 90 railways to amulti-channel sales network whilst also providing IT services. AmadeusRail employs over 250 rail experts in five competence centres (Nice, BadHomburg, Sydney, Toronto and Madrid).

10 MARKETING

etravel conference 2013 report@ A controversial study @ Online is growing and is in trends @ „Future is data!” @ „Online is not another market, but another method" @ And yet ... hoteliers can give up to travel agents

Howard Johnson Hotel Bucharest hosted recently the most expected e-travel conference in Romania, organized by Evensys. Travel Advisor maga-zine was one of the media partners. In terms of organization, the event wasa success: 300 specialists from travel & online, 30 speakers (three of theminvited from abroad), specialized press and tourism bloggers. e main goalof the conference was to introduce the best practices in travel industry set-ting online marketing strategies and online trade to improve sales and prof-its with minimal costs and efforts.

e first sessions of debates- "Trends and opportunities", "How to sell effec-tively on the Internet" - were opened for all the attendants, while the lastthree seminars ran in the same time - "Direct response marketing", "SocialMedia & Mobile" and "Hotel Distribution" - allowed the audience tochoose one of them according to different business interests. e event fo-cused, inter alia, on current aspects of internet marketing and online ad-vertising, search marketing, social media and online brand reputation.

SESSION 1@ A controversial study

e opening was made by Daedalus Millward Brown and the results of"How Romanians spend their holidays" Survey. ey researched the buyinghabits of Romanians who traveled in 2012 in the country or abroad. efigures were got in January 2013, following online interviews with a randomsample of 600 people, age 18 -55, from urban areas. Correlation analysisof the results showed the following:- 68% of Romanians traveled last year: 53% in Romania, 20% abroad;- among those 53%, mostly students, age 18-24, while among those 20%mostly people with high available income, falling in the category of 25 -34 years old;- those travelling in Romania bought – meals/ restaurant (83.7%), accom-modation (77.9%), tickets to museums/ concerts/ shows (59.8%), ticketsfor train and local public transportation (48.9 %), travel insurance (18.4%),plane tickets (14.2%), car rental services (8.8%), other services - ad hoclocal trips, pools/ spa access and rentals (42.9%)- those travelling abroad bought - meals/ restaurant (95%), accommodation(80.8%), tickets to museums/ concerts/ shows (73.3%), tickets for trainand local public transportation (60.8%), travel insurance (66.7%), planetickets (61.7%), car rental services (21.7%), other services - access to facil-ities included (sauna, fitness, massage), travel guides, local trips, boat/ shiptrips (45.8%)-those travelling in Romania purchased tickets – only directly fromproviders (71.3%), both directly and from a travel agency (18.7%), onlyfrom a travel agency (4.5%), have not used any of these services (5.4%)- those travelling abroad purchased tickets - both directly and from a travelagency (46.7%), only directly from providers (41.7%), only from a travelagency (10%) ave not used any of these services (1.7%)-those who buy holidays prefer to buy face 2 face (70.5% - Romania,69.8%, abroad), by phone (33.9% - Romania, 13.2% - abroad), online(29.2% - Romania, 50% - abroad)

-66% sought online for travel information: 31% of them read online travelguides before deciding where to go, 30% asked for advise on social networksand 55% searched comment on forums;-28% bought accommodation online; while 23% transport (14% planetickets, 13% public transport and 4% car rental services)-15% sought for promotions: 7% last minute, 7% early booking and 7%city break-13% bought tickets to museums/ concerts and other cultural events online;11% bought full travel packages online; 6% bought travel insurance on-line.(More information can be found in the graphs below)

Unfortunately, the study has raised many controversies from the special-ists, the first challenger being Razvan Antoni, general manager AmadeusRomania, who claimed that "the figures can not be verified. IATA is theonly one to tell you exactly the number of tickets sold in Romania (...) Ido not trust all statistics, not even the ones provided by airports."

@ Online is growing and is in trends

Razvan Antoni’s opinion was shared by most of speakers. Javier Garciadel Valle, Happy Tours’ leader, stressed that "figures are irrelevant. etrend is really important. Does the online market in Romania develop? Isthe Internet penetration increasing in the country? Are these increases ob-served in urban or in rural areas? (...) Beyond the numbers, we can say thatwe see a clear development of the online sales of services".

Alin Burcea, president of Paralela 45, - the most entertaining speakerwithout whose presence the debate would have probably be on the vergeof monotony - drew three conclusions: 1.We have to take Internet into account 2. Undoubtedly the number of online holiday buyers grows. Facebook does nothelp travel agencies to get more customers, but it is good as a reference3.e customers are better prepared and desperately seeking for promotions,while the early booking spreads tremendously

Dragoș Anastasiu, President of Eurolines & TUI Travel Center, dottedthe i’s by noting that "the whole equation lacks the customer’s feeling oftrust in travel agency, a feeling that has changed tremendously. Trust nolonger exists. (...) e trend of going directly to providers and buying ticketsfrom them is related to the feeling of confidence."

Since speakers slipped into self-promotion at a certain time slightly devi-ating from the announced theme, Editor of Travel Advisor has requestedtheir opinion on the usefulness of Daedalus study and statistics in general,an area of expertise where Romania had shortcomingsthe in the last 20years. Responses were many. Some of them were, unfortunately, parallel tothe question, but the most interesting came from Philipp Brinkmann,founder and CEO TravelPlanet24. According to Brinkmann "studies likethis are useful, statistics & data are extremely important. e problem ishow to combine data to get more accurate results "

Răzvan Antoni ended the serious part of the debate concluding that "on-line is based on mentality and confidence. Unfortunately, we have draw-backs to both of them in Romania. Distrust and juggle are national sports!"

by Anne-Mary NECHITA

MARKETING 11

Profile of romanian holidaY conSumer by Daedalus Millward

Brown

SESSION 2@ „Future is data!”

VisitBritain began Session 2 with presentation of their online marketingcampaign during the Olympics, campaign managed by a small team of 12professionals. Philip Taylor, Head of Digital VisitBritain, detailed the digitalmarketing mix used in key markets and introduced the main advantages ofthe destination - country life, culture and traditions, sports, music, gastron-omy and nature - revealing that about 28 million pounds were spend lastyear to promote the UK both online and offline.

Philipp Brinkmann, TravelPlanet24, directed the discussion to the op-portunities created by data collection. His presentation launched a newconcept "Big Data, Big Opportunities", and listed among the benefits ofdata:1. a deeper understanding of business dynamics2.a new perspective on day to day operations3. deliver accurate answers4. automate and optimize the decision making5. reduce IT costsAn interesting example used in his report: 4,000,000 searches/ day, 2,778searches/ minute, 46 searches/ second are achieved on Google. esesearches mean around 3PB of data and need about 375 servers for stor-age. Considering this huge volume, we subscribe to the speaker words:"Future is data!"

Kasper Hove, International Online Marketing Manager Momondo A /S, presented their interesting meta-search engine and offered some practi-cal advice for those who want to have an effective website. Moreover, hisadvice: "Test, test, test!" applies effectively in any field.

Two other presentations followed. Unfortunately, I failed to attend thefirst one, by Travelport, and felt bad to attend the second one, by Zumzi.Any further comment is superfluous.

SESSION 3 - HOTEL DISTRIBUTION@ „Online is not another market, but another method”

From the wide range of seminars, I chose "Hotel Distribution" to dis-cover if the fears of travel agents that lose their customers, who are at-tracted by lower prices offered at the Front Office or on websites ofhotels, are confirmed or not. I had to discover that these fears are notnecessarily consistent, since keeping price parity across all channels of dis-tribution has been a rule required by headquarters for any hotel of achain. However, not all hotels in Romania belong to a chain, not all pro-fessional follow a certain ethics, and there are exceptions that may con-firm these fears. Generalization, however, does not apply, the side slipsbeing rather peculiar. Hereto is what was discussed in this panel:

Bogdan Stanciu, Owner and General Manager Bit Soft, introduced thetheme and the speakers following with his presentation – "Online HotelDistribution Channels ". According to him, "Online is not another mar-ket, but another method. (...) In the '90s, if somebody wanted a ticket,used to go to Nova Travel. Nowadays, I do not know if someone goes to atravel agency for a plane ticket. Nowadays customer is the same as 20years ago, only the tool has changed."Currently, the main online distribution channels from hospitality are:own website and GDS (Sabre, Amadeus, Travelport), the latter with670,000 terminals in travel agencies around the world, covering 98% ofworldwide agencies. ere are also alternative distribution systems -ADS, such as Expedia (most popular in the U.S.), Booking.com (mostpopular in Europe), Agoda (most popular in Asia), Priceline, Hotels.com,Travelocity, Lastminute.com; and OTA (Online Travel Agencies), such asWebBooking Expert (foreign, but made by Romanians), Travel Booster,eJuniper, Codegen. Regarding the importance of websites - in a Top2011 of Google Searches, the main positions were dominated by: 1. Ex-pedia (21,669,000; down 4% from 2010); 2. Priceline (16,443,000, up10% from 2010); 3. Groupe SNCF (9,330,000, up 2%); 4. TUI Group(8,587,000, up 2%); 5. Ryanair (7,509,000, down 12%). In hotel indus-try the top is dominated by: 1. Expedia; 2. Hotels.com; 3. Travelocity; 4.

Google; 5. Priceline. e figures speak for themselves about the effective-ness of the channel. However, when the customer has to decide to book ahotel or another, the most important features to take into account are: - price - 81% Business; 90% Leisure- hotel website – 55% Business; 58% Leisure- promotions – 51% Business; 57% Leisure- available options – 49% Business; 50% Leisure- online reviews– 39% Business; 50% Leisure- virtual tours and photos – 32% Business; 42% Leisure- loyalty programs – 58% Business; 33% LeisureHowever, only a few hoteliers invest in loyalty programs and prefer topay fees to sites such as Booking.com, on the Romanian market up with20% in 2012.

"B2B Distribution Strategies" were presented by Iulian Beiu, ContractsManager Romania and Moldova Republic , Hotelbeds, a wholesaler mem-ber of TUI Travel PLC that incorporates more than 55,000 hotels in 147countries and has a turnover of Euro 2, 3 billion. He said that distributionchannels should be adapted to each type of hotels and explained the busi-ness model of a wholesaler: global presence, technology and distribution.Effective collaboration in this chain involves a well developed concept of"rate mix", the hotel being forced to follow a correct pricing for each dis-tribution channel. Contrary to all appearances, working with a wholesalerdoes not mean low costs for hotel, but high costs, while the discounts seri-ously affect the ADR (Average Daily Rate). Currently, Hotelbeds (Eu. East),Miki Travel (Asia), GTA (Eu. West) Tourico (Israel), Travco (UK) and Spe-cial Tours (Greece) are wholesalers in Romania.

@ And yet ... hoteliers can give up to travel agents

An interesting debate on the relationship Hotel - wholesalers - tour op-erator/ travel agency was initiated by Cornelia Bădiţă, Revenue Manager,Capital Plaza Hotel. It was based on the idea that "Some wholesalers donot comply with the 25% commission, and have very low rates." e ne-gociation problem was arising. Hotelbeds representative blamed sometour operators for keeping prices down, and forcing wholesalers to returnto renegotiation with hotels. In the same order of ideas, Ştefan Balaur,Operational Manager, Continental Hotels, considered the relationshipwith travel agencies as a delicate one. ey "do not always meet theagreed rates, and the client is the only one to lose. We have a bindingagreement with a travel agency, but they come and force me to give thema lower rate argueing that the wholesaler gave them a low rate. So that Ilose twice – in front of wholesaler, and in front of travel agency”, saidContinental Hotels’ Manager. In response, a solution was suggested byHotelbeds: the hotelier may give up to travel agents at any time. Accord-ing to Hotelbeds representative, "travel agents have access to certain sys-tems with lower rates, and try to negotiate. Today, everyone negotiates.e hotelier may, preferentially, exclude certain travel agents from negoti-ations, if he desires". However, giving up to travel agencies or tour opera-tors was not recommended, unless extremely serious conflict, eachhotelier being free to take decisions on his property.

A series of discussions on pricing, maintaining price parity on differentchannels, low performance policies of some wholesalers (eg GTA), freesales vs allotment, methods of working with consortia (Amex, CarsonWagonlit, BTI, Radius, JTB , TUI and Dertour) and distributionthrough hotel own website followed. Regarding the latter issue, BogdanStanciu considered that hoteliers should have control over customersthrough better use of their websites.

e last presentations - „Online reviews are changing travel” by Mela-nia Kantor, Revenue Manager, Radisson Blu Hotel Bucharest, and "Dis-tribution Channel" by Corina Boronea, General Manager YieldPlanetRomania - extremely interesting for specialists - were played fast due totime constraints. Among the conclusions, we must note that:- it's common sense to respond to customers’ feedback left by reviews- it is intelligent to use revinate.com and application TrustYou - tools foranalyzing feedbacks by hoteliers - the channel manager is a "cost efficient" platform between OTA, ownwebsite and travel agencies

12 MARKETING

e recent Audit and Elections Assembly of National Association of TravelAgencies from Romania (ANAT) occasioned - beyond the presented, espe-cially „in pink”, written reports - a partial X-ray of the guild’s situation.Willy-nilly, a questionable practice of the recent years continued - to avoidthe analysis and debates on President’s and Board of Directors’ work - byvoting everything since the beginning (!).e activity report and the other materials were presented in a strange andunjustified hurry counterproductive to the Association, argueing that ma-terials were sent in advance.Undoubtedly, Corina Martin’s double term (April 2009 - March 2013)meant an undeniable effort - hers and of BD’s – to achieve the committedgoals with enough significant results. Famous was the mainly and perma-nently focus on image and on concluding many partnerships. At the same time, a weaker connection between ANAT and its members -with their important issues exacerbated by economic crisis and lack of so-lutions (insolvencies, jugglers, relations with insurance companies, relation-ship with the Ministry etc.) - was experienced in this term. ere was felt,not only once, the empty running sense! In direct connection to this wasalso the decrease by 200 of ANAT’s number of members. A worrying situ-ation for the association, it was superficially treated being totally absent inthe debates. However, it would be a huge mistake to blame only the crisis!

Needed comebacks, and unjustified continuations. A serious revision of the Statute is required!

We consider Lucia Morariu’s comeback to the position of President – acharismatic personality, organized, hardworking, energy catalyst – as nec-essary, since guild’s expectations from her and BD are higher in the context

of budgetary restrictions, when the much needed support from authoritieswill be increasingly difficult to obtain.Speaking of the new Board, we have to mention some other comebacksjustified by past performance - Mălin Mălineanu, Mircea Vladu, HermanRosner -, and some unjustified continuations with long expected confir-mation! In this context, a serious revision of the Statute is required! Amongother things, to limit the number of terms for members of BD. If it is pos-sible for the President, why should not be the same for Board of Directors?Also, to ensure freshness and stimulate innovation, and to remove the sen-ators.e provisions for elections in ANAT regions should be improved, sincethe appointment of the management has got to be done by a pen signature,without assembly, without debates. And these people – according to thepresent Statute - go directly to BD or even to BEX (Executive Office)!Lack of consistent procedures determined the existence of some unaccept-able babbles during the „central” elections: the existence of two sets offorms, the possibility to vote also during the vote counting etc. Last butnot least, I would highlight a visible stagnation in Bucharest-Ilfov organi-zation, with half of ANAT members, which, for several years, is far fromthe reasonable expectations of its members!Bravo Cluj, bravo Constanta! Honor for them! But the "leaders" fromBucharest can no longer propose a valuable President for the guild?Let's hope that the new and young President of Region will better race theheavy engines in this term...

DR. PETRE BAlAş

audit and electionS - 2013

anat between hoPeS and realitieS ASSOCIATIONS

14 EVENT

ttr 2013 with... GoodS and badS

pring of 2013 began with a flurry ofpromotional events as befits a year thatsucceeds the “End of the World”.Moreover, everything was under thesign of the flurry, the endless succession

of seminars, presentations, round tables, cock-tails and others of this kind confirming indeedthat the world begins to change.

Unfortunately, things seem to havenot changed as rapidly at Romexpo. e 29thedition of the Romanian Tourism Fair (TTR),held between March 14 and March 17, 2013,was dominated by traditional confusion regard-ing the organization of booths and their com-plete inventory. e press, for instance, was putagainst the wall from the first day. It is no joke,even if it look like one. e organizers haveplaced in C6 Hall (where all media booths weregathered) a high wall to divide the space pre-venting visitors to find the booths of mediacompanies. ings have been fixed the nextday, when booths were moved to C1 Hall. Itwas a place in the attic where for the oxygenwas easy to reach, but not as easy for the visi-tors. Obviously, the move was also not withoutadventures, the booth of Romanian Press Club,

representative of FIJET in Romania (whereTravel Advisor received its readers courtesy tothe Secretary General of this club), stayingwithout brand inscription almost half of thefair time (2 days).e same fate had sometravel agencies that lacked pieces of contractedfurniture, so that, willy-nilly, we all went overthe inconvenients and kept going with the fairflow.

e first two days, in fact thebusiest, I spent meeting potential partners, ob-serving trends and opportunities, notable ap-pearances and disappearances, while the lasttwo days I met readers at the booth. I had thechance to make a fair impression about the fair,and if I’ll have to pick now a combination ofwords to better describe the last edition ofTTR, “Battle of the Heavyweights” would beprobably the best choice. Tourists have been"nudged" in line for "1 Euro holiday", for"ultra" or "turbo early booking" offers, lastminute inventions to catch new customers.While tour operators have shown their "mus-cles" in the impressive size, appealing colorsand design of their booths, in the increasednumber and cuteness of their hostesses, in the

sometimes loud music, and, not least, in glam-orous post-fair events, all set for the same dayand at very similar hours. Christian Tour,Happy Tour, Eximtur, Paralela 45, Kusadasi,Perfect Tour, TUI – Eurolines seemed to haveactually moved their entire team at Romexpo,followed closely by the newly established (re-established) Alibaba, which competed themsuccessfully in the size of the booth.

Speaking about loud and extrava-gant, not necessarily in a pejorative sense, Ma-maia Resort left behind all possiblecompetitors. Medusa - Corina Martin, formerpresident of ANAT, and Ulysses - RaduMazare, mayor of Constanta, accompanied byFashion TV characters did not succeed maybeto reveal the local particularities of Romania,but at least they showed to visitors we are stillalive, we can move, we have local color, even ifnot always inspired chosen and promoted. Butwhen it comes to creativity, any sin should beforgiven. However, Happy-sor and cartooncharacters from Christian Tour rambled thehalls of Romexpo and left to children - and tothose with a child soul - a sweet memory aboutthe life at the tourism fair.

S

ttr 2013 with... GoodS and badS

A sign of appreciation should be givento professional events, at this edition more andbetter organized than ever. e first was “Brandand the online sale, the secret of increase intourism online sales”, Paralela 45’s conference,held on March 13, a day before the fair, whosegoal was not only to promote agency’s image,but to launch a new application for online saleon Iphone (Ipad/smartphone), as well as onlinepayment application.

e first day of the fair started with aninteresting seminar by J'Info Tours, speakerbeing Melvin Bocher, blogger from Travel-dudes.org. e introduction of Linked2Mediafollowed, a project co-funded by EuropeanUnion within FP7-SME-2011, and then"Vanessa – a PERFECT colleague" by PerfectTour. A success was also Iaşi County presentationattended by a number of personalities from Ro-manian cultural life such as actor Ion Caramitru,writer Dan Lungu, Beatrice Rancea, manager ofIaşi Romanian National Opera, Ioan Holban,manager of „Luceafărul” Children and Youtheatre, poet Emil Brumaru and many others.e booth was inaugurated by Cristian Adom-niței, Iaşi County Council President, who has

defined the concept around Iaşi TTR participa-tion and the fact that it "included both tradition,history, monumentalism and youth, energy, fu-ture, our slogan being <Iaşi, always young> ".Another interesting event was the raffle fortourism press at Malta Travel booth, a prefatoryfor „Traveler as a job " presentation by bloggerCezar Dumitru, to be hosted on March 23, atBastilia library tearoom.

e second day was marked by Gen-eral Assembly of ANAT (National Association ofTravel Agencies from Romania), when CorinaMartin had cede the Presidency of the associationto Eximtur’s Lucia Morariu. Elections pressurewas fully felt between the booths - pros and consbeing thrown left and right according to affilia-tion of the opinionist to a side or another. En-couraging was the strong presence at"Development of health resorts in the context ofrelations between investors and authorities" sem-inar held on the same day by OPTBR (e Or-ganization of Spa Owners in Romania). Sad wasonly the reason behind the suddenly increasedinterest in the fate of Romanian health tourism– the attendance at the event of Minister MariaGrapini.

ere have been several other success-ful events which we could talk about anothertime. In brief, despite its goods or bads,TTR2013 engaged the visitors. It was different,maybe in a twisted way, but certainly different.In figures, current edition of TTR meant 275 ex-hibitors, around 30,000 visitors, and over 12 mil-lion euro sold packages (according torepresentatives of ANAT). In a few words, TTR2013 was defined by:- 15,000 sqm. exhibition surface;- 275 exhibitors, 180 from Romania and 75 fromabroad;- 12 promotional organizations and institutionsfrom various regions of Romania such as Mara-mureș, Iași, Suceava, Dâmboviţa, Tulcea, Buzău,Alba, Hunedoara, Black Sea, Amara, Băile Her-culane, Prahova, Brașov, Bucovina, Sighișoara,Sibiu, Râșnov, Gorj, Danube Delta.- 8 foreign official offices from Bulgaria, Turkey,Croatia, Serbia, Tunisia, Cyprus, Moldova Re-public, Greece Tourism Regional Authority- over 30,000 visitors in four days of fair (March14 to 17, 2013)

What else to say about TTR2013? Welook, of course, for the 30th edition!

EVENT 15

witzerland is a tourist des-tination for over two hun-dred years. First todiscover it were the British

alpinists who conquered Jungfrauand Finsteraarhorn peaks, in 1811and 1812. e fame of the coun-try was due to Sir Arthur ConanDoyle’s Sherlock Holmes and toJohanna Spyri’ Heidi - a novel toinspire not less than 20 film pro-ductions. All these, along withgood reputation of banks, jewelryand watches, with yodels and tra-ditional horns appeal, with fasci-nation of countless customs andtraditions have survived to todaygiving the unique value of Swisstravel experience.omas Cook and Lunn Travelwere the first to organize tours inSwitzerland in the nineteenth cen-tury. Pretty much in the same pe-riod Romanians discoveredSwitzerland, because trip to lessexplored places was sleek. Histo-rian Nicolae Iorga claimed to beone of the first Romanians toreach the heights of Swiss Alps.Later, destination Switzerland be-came popular among rich Roma-nians and began to record highertourist traffic.

Tourist traffic in 2012: falls andtheir reasonsHowever, the number of Roman-ian tourists arrivals in Switzerlandwent down by 1.5% in 2012compared to 2011, from 30,523to 30,079 people, while the aver-age duration of their stay wentdown to 2.7 days. e overnightsof these tourists fell by 7.6% lastyear to 2011, from 86,785 to80,182 people. Romanians weremostly attracted by Zurich region,by Graubünden Romans canton(on the border between Italy, Aus-tria and Lichtenstein) and byFrench canton of Valais. e mainreasons for these preferences weretourist attractions, proximity tothe rest of Central Europe and agood infrastructure.Generally speaking, the balance ofovernights in Swiss hotels had adeficit of 2% in 2012, comparedto 2011 (-720,000 overnights),34.8 million overnights beingrecorded. Even the overnights ofSwiss loyal customers were down

by 0.4% (-62,000 overnights),15,690,035 overnight stays beingobserved. e foreign guestsmarked 19.1 million overnights,meaning a decrease of 3.3% (-658,000 overnights) in theovernights of European touristsfacing the decline in the Eurozone. A decline of 583,000overnight stays (-11%) was no-ticed from Germany, the numberone supplier of foreign tourists forSwitzerland. However, increasewas recorded from China(+23.4%/ 835,699 overnights)Gulf countries (23.9%/ 518,838overnights), Russia (+9.3%/561,490 overnights) and SouthAsia (+13.8%/ 352,616overnights). Overall, the numberof arrivals increased by 0.4%, theaverage duration of stay shrunk to2.1 days (2011: 2.2 days), whilethe generated revenue dependedon variations in currency ex-change. e average duration ofstay was 2 days (as in 2011) fordomestic tourists, but it fell to 2.2days for foreign tourists (2.3 in2011). e longest duration ofstay was observed in Graubünden- 2.9 days -, while Fribourgrecorded the shortest duration -1.7 days. e deepest falls wereobserved in March and June,summer being not the most im-portant period for Swiss tourism.However, it is interesting to notethat these falls were counterbal-anced by increases during thewinter season.

Hospitality: an ever changinglandscapeFor an overview of the hospitalitymarket in Switzerland a return intime is required, to the 1950s,when the destination was in thetop 5 worldwide due to heavytourist traffic. e numerous ac-commodation structures builtsince, in the most picturesqueareas of the country, have been se-verely affected by globalization.eir budgets are incompatiblewith massive promotion requiredby modern marketing. In 2011,4,967 hotels and hostels were reg-istered in Switzerland providing atotal of 128,000 rooms, while in2012 other 36 properties were invarious stages of construction.

s

16 RESEARCH

market Profile:Switzerland

market Profile:Switzerland

14% of these structures are located in Grisons,12% in Valais and Eastern Switzerland, 11% inCentral Switzerland and 9% in Bernese Ober-land.Challenges were automatically reflected byrates, the ADR (average daily rate), for instance,increasing by an average of 50 Euro from 2007 to2011. From the accommodation perspective, themost expensive destination remains Geneva, fol-lowed by Zurich and Bern. is trend affectedrevenue from tourism, the contribution oftourism to GDP dropping by 0.5% over the pastfive years. And this is not just good news forSwitzerland.Since Swiss Law does not allow the acquisition ofproperties by non-residents, the chance for thevolume of investments in the hospitality industryto grow spectacularly is limited. us, accordingto the Swiss Federal Office for Statistics, the num-ber of registered hotels fell by 10% between 2001and 2012, while the number of rooms rose by2.7% (an average of 51 beds/ hotel), a trend re-vealing a significant resize in the surface assignedto a room. On that account, it is not a surprizethat 60% of the hotels are not classified, accord-ing to Swiss Hospitality Association, and only11% of hotels are affiliated to a reputable chain,8.4% being classified at 4 stars, and 1.7% at 5stars.Profile of Romanian tourist in SwitzerlandHe prefers quality 4 and 5 stars hotels, and is notvery cautious with costs. However, he wants thebest value money can buy. He is educated andprefers to combine mountain and ski with urban/cultural / educational experiences. He informshimslef about destination before choosing it,

while the average budget he spends in winter inSwitzerland, as extra, is somewhere between 1000-1500 euro.Future and its trendsAccording to Jürg Schmid, manager of SchweizTourismus, future marketing efforts of the na-tional tourism office will "focus on nearby mar-kets with substantial volumes of customers andmassive presence, while we will direct our com-mitment to remote markets , certainly with rapidgrowth. " Switzerland intends to gain a significant marketshare by focusing on Brazil, China, the GulfStates, India, Korea, Russia and South-East Asia,through additional routes, marketing country'stop objectives in less known regions, promotingindividual or single-destination trips (for example,trips only Switzerland). Switzerland puts highhopes on China to reach 2 million overnightsfrom Chinese tourists by 2022, according to JürgSchmid. Moreover, such a traffic would positionChina on the 3rd place in the top of tourists’ sup-pliers to Switzerland, after Switzerland and Ger-many, but ahead of the United States, Britain andFrance. "ere is no simple recipe to successfully meet thechallenges. Nevertheless, there are two key ingre-dients: investment in quality and effective involve-ment in meeting the needs of guests", said themanager of SchweizTourismus.Strategic objectives set by Switzerland to 2022:- reinforcement of leisure tourism alongsidetourism promotion of alpine areas and rural tour-sim, launching also "Outdoor. Swiss made" cam-paign;

- diversification of travel programs to create a newdemand exclusively focused on Swiss market;- if a Swiss tourism product is expensive, then itshould be worth the invested money; to be differ-ent and of high quality. Switzerland could neverbe marketed through price as an accessible desti-nation, but could convince tourists that expensivemeans, in fact, of great value;- support for Swiss tour operators in their struggleto cut production costs;- support for the Swiss hotels to build a good rep-utation by creating "e friendliest hotel inSwitzerland" Award. It will be granted for the firsttime in Bern on May 28, 2013, on the occasionof the XVIth edition of Schweizer Ferientags, theSwiss Tourism Fair. Schweiz Tourismus launched - for the first timefor a national tourism authority - an applicationTrustYou (www.trustyou.com/?lang=de), whichcollects information from over 250 websites andaggregates tourists reviews on Swiss hotels. us,complete transparency is provided, and a goodreputation for the destination. In order to boostbusiness travel, Schweiz Tourismus launched alsoa product called "Inspirational Hotels" to allowcorporate customers to choose their perfect desti-nation for business in Switzerland.At the time this article is printed, April 2013,Schweiz Tourismus released already, the "Out-door. Swiss made" to promote over 60,000marked hiking trails, combined with over 30,000km of hiking trails, cycling, mountain biking, ca-noeing and roller skating. What impact will ithave on long-term on the growth of tourist trafficwe will see in the months to come.

RESEARCH 17

Copyright by: Switzerland tourism - By-line: swiss-image.ch/Stefan Hunziker

oN tHE FootStEPS oF FASCiNAtiNG tiMUr lENK AND HiS DYNAStY

An exceptional itinerary from where I just returned: Bucharest - Taskent – Khiva – Buhara – Samarkand – Shakhrizab (Timur ) – Taskent – Bucharest

Fascination of this cosmic personality - known as TAMERLAN - swinging betweenthe raw warrior who made tabula rasa whole cities mercilessly killing the conqueredpopulation, and the great supporter of arts, architecture and literature-, excites even

About journey.

After more than 4,000 km of comfortable flight via Istanbul - justfly with Boeing or Airbus? - , you reach Tashkent, former SovietCentral Asia. Uzbeks’ Capital - the heart of Central Asia - is todaysurprisingly green with wide streets and boulevards and plenty ofcommercials rather Westerner with many modern buildings, attrac-tive parks and tourism objectives. If you have with you a professionalguide – as it was mine! -, the feeling that you actually stepped withthe right legg into Salam Aleikum world is complete! I also remem-ber the Old City with well maintained mosques and madrasas.

Outside the subway - also renewed and, more recently, guarded - itwas hard for me to recognize Tashkent with toneless blocks I haveleft behind 25 years ago. At that moment I have visited four coun-tries in the region. And I preserve beautifull memories about uniquehistorical and cultural objectives I visited. All monuments in Uzbek-istan have custodians, and local handicraftsmen are placed in theirvicinity to produce various items for sale. I had to choose betweenroad and rail, and coach was the best option, since I had used therailway previously. It was both a pragmatic and an efficient choice,even if in some areas roads did not excel in quality.

It is worth to mention the quasi-military order of the railways: trainswith large wagons on fully Superlite way, with conductors to eachwagon; fences around the entire network including the stations;

impressive buildings with a control system similar to the one in theairports. By choosing the coach, I reduced the discomfort of trans-fers to/ from the rail station, the bureaucracy and the routine checks,with the advantage of flexible visitation schedule according toweather.

First super-objective: the ancient Khiva. We covered morethan 1,100 km from Tashkent in only 1 h 20', in the modernAirbus of Uzbek Air flying from Urgench, plus a 30 minutestransfer by minibus.

We had a full day of tours to newly renovated objectives -trade, architecture, irrigation systems in the desert, ceramics,arts, state organization, harems - accompanied by Saida, ourexcellent guide. We also socialized with locals peeking into aworld of fabulous privacy.

e city, with a history begining in the 6th century, consistsof two parts: the Outer City, protected by a wall with 11gates, and the Inner City, built in the 10th century. ereare over 250 historic monuments so that I mention SheikMukhtar-Vali Complex, Djuma Mosque etc.

Globetrotter on the Silk Road/ Uzbekistan

oN tHE FootStEPS oF FASCiNAtiNG tiMUr lENK AND HiS DYNAStY

An exceptional itinerary from where I just returned: Bucharest - Taskent – Khiva – Buhara – Samarkand – Shakhrizab (Timur ) – Taskent – Bucharest

Other targets of the journey - the famous Bukhara, Samarkand,Shahrizab – that we visited onboard of a new and modernMidi Hager Bus, made in Australia. Board attendants were Ri-hana, Surat, others - always hardworking and competent.

Buhara (Buxoro), founded in 600 BC, one of the first centersof world civilization, located on the famous Silk Road; its his-toric center was declared UNESCO site. Po-i-Kalan Complexconsisting of a mosque, minaret and madrasa, Samani Mau-soleum, and Bukhara Fortress could be visited among others.Term of „madrasa” usually means an Islamic religious school,university, college or secondary school attached to a mosque, oreven a part of it. In some madrasas spaces to accommodate stu-dents could be found.

Most residents are of Persian/ Tajik origin; until 1920 a largeHebrew community was in the area, but they emigrated to Israeland the U.S. during the Soviet regime.

Samarkand (Samarqand), founded in 700 BC, key point on thSilk Road between China and the West, became the capital ofthe vast empire of Timur / Tamerlan in the 14th century (UN-ESCO site since 2001). Bibi-Khanym Mosque and Registan,the ancient center of the city oftenly sought by visitors, Mau-soleum of the Emperor, Gur-el-Amir, Samarkand Observatory,built by astronomer Ulugh Beg, the famous grandson of Timur,who has also built three madrasas, are just a few monumentsto visit.

Shakhrisab, UNESCO site, is a place 50 km away ofSamarkand, famous as birthplace of Timur; Ak-Saray Palaceand Jahongir Mausoleum, the 14th-15th centuries, are impres-sive to visit.

Souqs from Taskent, Samarkand, Buhara etc.– are famous, well-organized, clean, with a huge range of products. ey are part ofthe city life for hundreds of years. We noticed the wealth of fruitsand vegetables as well as handicrafts – and have to mention thefamous dried fruits sold in attractive light packages.

today those eager to unravel the mysteries of glorious times that marked the historyof mankind. His dynasty – his known bloodline- covers a period of nearly three cen-turies (1336-1605).

DEStiNAtioNS

by DR. PETRE BALAŞ

trendS in national medical touriSm market

-Dear Răzvan, since Romanian medical system isnear collapse, more and more patients try to find amedical solution to hospitals abroad. I assume thatyou agree with this statement. Which trends werenoticed in recent years ( 2012 – 2013) on the out-bound medical tourism?

-It is sad, but true. Any Romanian has the right toreceive at least decent health care, but it seems thatevery day Romanian medical system receives a hitfelt directly by all Romanian patients. We have neverdenigrated the image of Romanian system. On thecontrary. I have praised all over the world the doc-tors from Romania, which unfortunately do not havethe necessary equipment and logistics. Furthermore,we promote hospitals and clinics in Romania for for-eign patients. It is true that each forest has its owndead wood, but I do not think we should generalize.e system is sick, but if we put salt on the woundand we only point fingers waiting for everything tobe self resolved, we do more harm. Since I travelseven months/ year I can say that Romania is suffer-ing from a terrible image in civilized countries, animage that has deteriorated in recent years. emedia does its job and brings out what is wrong. It'snot a bad thing, but often we overreac, foreign presstakes over the information, and then we wonder whyforeigners do not come to visit our country.Now, returning to your question, as ANATspokesman for health tourism I can not give you theofficial figures for this year, yet. But I can tell youthat - during January - April 2013 - there was an in-crease in requests for investigations and interventionsabroad, compared to the same period last year.Romania loses more ground in terms of confidencein health services due to recent malpractice and med-ical fraud events. In fact, the Romanian medical sys-tem is a shaky house that stands to fall on innocentpeople. We have patched here and there, we gave apaint, but is vulnerable. It is well known that is muchharder and cost you more to renovate a badly builthouse than to make a new one.ere are so many initiatives. We have even masterplans to save the situation. But they will take timeand will bring higher costs to the state budget.

- What average duration requires this type of stay andhow big could be the related average costs?

-is year we found out that we take less care ofstays, of medical vacations, and more of detailedscheduling and planning complex interventions forpeople who do not think about vacation and relax-ation, but how to get healthy. Now, I answer to thisinterview from Istanbul, where I am with 2 kids whowill enter the surgery for aortic aneurysm, complexinterventions that could not be executed in Roma-nia. In the begining of our activity, we received manyrequests for surgery in Austria, which was a branddue to the president of the country. Now, however,more and more choose Istanbul. Just 50 minutes offlight and you are welcomed at the airport by a Ro-manian translator. You are transferred to the hoteland clinic where you benefit of top medical servicesand have accommodation provided (both for pa-tients and caregivers). You are seen by a ProfessorDoctor of Medicine at prices well below Austria andGermany.We collaborate only with hospitals and doctors thatput the patient's interest first. Most of the patientsare discharged within 2-3 days after complex inter-ventions (cancers, tumors, transplants). us hospi-tal costs are significantly reduced and the patient goeshome on his own feet after 3-4 days.A cataract surgery in Hungary, in a state hospitalwhere patient is operated by the head of department(University Professor), costs about Euro 800. Accom-modation (own suite), meals, permanent medical as-sistance and Romanian translator are included in thisamount. e surgery uses high quality Americancrystalline.

-Which are the most common diseases of those whouse medical tourism?

-Congenital malformations, trauma after crashes,cataracts, astigmatism, cancers, tumors. Applicationsare of all kinds and, unfortunately, many are serious.I want very much to live the day when Romanianswill really go for medical tourism and will have a cul-ture of medical examinations. Now I live only theday when most of the patients come to us too late,

- interview with Andrei răzvan Nacea, managing director Seytour international Corporation -

20 EXCLUSIVE

by Anne-Mary NECHITA

EXCLUSIVE 21

“ … Romanian medical system is a shaky house that stands to fall on innocent people”

ANDrEi răZvAN NACEA, MANAGiNG DirECtor SEYtoUr iNtErNAtioNAl CorPorAtioN

and very little could be done.

-Summing up the above, the experts in global tourism try for some time todefine the profile of medical tourism consumer. More or less successful, ofcourse. If we try to define Romanian medical tourism consumer, which el-ements should we take into account?

-Sick, coming late to investigations and does not have a culture of regularmedical check ups.

-e world's most requests for this type of tourism are geared to India,ailand and the United States, says the "Medical Tourism Climate Survey2013" study conducted by International Medical Travel Journal. Which arethe main medical tourism destinations Romanians require?

-Hungary, Turkey, Austria, Germany, Israel. In that order.

-Which criteria use Romanians when have to choose between a clinic oranother, between a doctor or another?

-We always try to inform Romanian patients when choosing medical serv-ices abroad. erefore, the company has highly trained consultants and awhole team of "advisors" doctors. e decision to treat yourself abroad isnot an easy one, and it should be considered together with a consultantwho knows what he speaks, which is backed by a great team of doctors andwell inspected facilities and the credentials for that medical institution.ere is always an assumed risk in each medical procedure. Our goal is tominimize the risks by working only with accredited hospitals and clinicsand with certified medical professionals providing the highest standards inhealthcare.

- "Commission for Quality in Medical Centers" is a project announced onyour website http://www.turism-medical.eu. What does it mean? How didthe idea appeared? And currently what phase is the project in?

-It is true. We announced this project about four years ago when welaunched the medical tourism department at Seytour. Maybe you shouldlet your readers know that behind this department stood the ambition andthe crazy willingness of our management to not allow other Romanian togo through the troubles we went. I will not go into details, but I can tellyou that for years I stayed in various hospitals in the country and abroad,public or private owned institutions, and not because I wanted to visit hos-pitals to start a business or launch a new market. I do not want anyone togo through what I went with my family. And today we are here to be sureof that. It is sad to say, but we speak from experience. And if I recommendsomething or one of our consultants does, we know very well what wemean. To work with a medical institution, it must pass through some filtersof verification very well implemented by our team. To recommended amedical tourism package or an investigation is not the same as recommend-ing a week in an exotic destination. We have launched a unique franchisefor medical tourism and educational advice, but we did not marketed verymuch this franchise because we did not want to become a tour operatorwith commercial spaces full of salesmen, but agency with a team of highlyskilled consultants and trainers. Training for the two departments takestime, and the new agency can not open the door until there are consultants.We do not need agents to sell, but people to understand that the interest ofpatients and children you send abroad for investigations/ surgeries/ educa-tion comes first.

-Medical tourism in Romania involves, as strange as it may seem to some

people reading the above words, an inbound element as well. Why foreignpatients come to Romania? Which disease are treated here? Has our countryany competitive advantage over other destinations?

-As long as there is „tourism” after the word „medical”, there will be bothincoming and outgoing components, although it does not sound very aca-demic or very medical. Foreign patients still come to Romania despite

everything that is going on. But they visit us for dental tourism, eye inves-tigations and treatments and cosmetic/ plastic surgery. As long as they willcontinue to pay here about 40% of the prices in their home countries, theywill continue to come. But we speak about medical tourism: we have themedical side, where we can boast about our extraordinary dentists, famousophthalmologists and plastic surgeons, but we also need the tourim, mean-ing three magical words: safety, infrastructure and services. Here we stillstay bad. More things need to be done, and following the recent interna-tional studies, it appears that safety and trust is the main reason why onlya few visit us. One expensive leaf does not make a spring...

- How would you define in facts and figures the medical tourism market inRomania?

22 EXCLUSIVE

-According to Insight Market Research Solutions "medical tourism marketin Romania amounts to USD 250 million being dominated by spa andwellness services, and could double by 2014 if the public and private sectorswill be more involved in development of the infrastructure and in promo-tion. Market is expected to reach USD 500 million by 2014, and 500,000tourists ".

-Seytour Medical Tourism is a pioneer on this niche in Romania. You man-aged to expand your network of travel agents - either with own efforts orthrough a franchise system. What message you want to convey to travelagencies interested in purchasing a Seytour franchise? Which are the stepsthey need to follow to become a long-term partner of Seytour?-We have not reinvented the wheel and we have not found a new business.We are successful in what we do because we have a team of consultants thattreat very professional a request and try to put themselves into the person'sskin: how would you want to be treated when you have a medical problem,what kind of information do you need, how fast do you need them, whatto expect from someone who wants to gain my trust to let my child's edu-cation on his hand, and how well prepared should he be, which are the ben-efits for me when consulting ends?

All these questions were carefully studied by us. We already have experiencebehind. We have a great international team and an extraordinary commu-nication with partners with whom we have managed to build a safer futurefor Romanians looking for an alternative to medical and educational systemhere.But I am a convinced optimist and I want my children to live in Romania,a country I am proud of everywhere I go. All our children – because we

treat those who have gone to study abroad as our own children - are ad-vised and counseled by a team (which has many years of study and workabroad) to go back and change things here for the better. And thankGod, there are many things to be changed for the better. In fact, Roma-nia is a challenge and requires well-trained people to meet the challengeshere.Seytour Medical Tourism & Seytour Educational Group Franchise wasvery well designed to meet patients’/ people's needs first, people whoneed consulting services in two crucial areas: health and education.Training is a special one, permanent and offered by an internationalteam. We believe that the first 6 months after the opening are monthsof preparation and investment. We want to grow together as a team, sofor the first 6 months the monthly franchise fee is zero.We are only interested in long-run partners. We want to build strongpartnerships with people who want to innovate in a complex marketwhere reliability and professionalism should always be at its peak. Youcan not afford to make mistakes, and if they do occur, they must be cor-rected immediately and effectively. erefore, training for franchisees iscomplex and on three different departments: travel & events, medicaltourism and educational consultancy.

- What other news brings 2013 for the agency you represent and formedical tourism in general?- An article revealing that "until October 25, 2013, the EU MemberState in which the patient is insured is responsible for reimbursement ofthe insured person, providing that the treatment received is includedamong the reimbursable health services in his national law" was recentlypublished.In other words, Casa de Asigurări (the Insurance House) received an ul-timatum. It remains to be seen what will happen in the meantime, andhow will act the "national law" in favor of Romanian citizens.If the directive will really work for citizens, more people will probablygo abroad than now. But it will be a challenge for Romanian medicalsystem. I think it's time a filter to be implemented, and the Romanianmedical system to be put on perfusion and treated as it deserves, becausethe system is also sick, not only Romanians. In fact here is the problem... And I still want to think I live in a country where Romanians deserveand it's their right to be healthy, and the system able to treat us at Eu-ropean standards, because we entered Europe not only in theory.at is why we have launched at Seytour "Health and Education are

rights for all, not privileges" campaign.is year we have again big and ambition projects. Seytour team is growingyear by year, but our external partners have remained the same. We do notsell hundreds of destinations, hospitals or educational institutions, and werecommend only those we know personally, those who have been carefullyselected and checked.Soon we will launch a unique product in Romania, especially designed forcorporations, and we continue to expand internationally. Too many thingsI can not tell you, because we still work on it, but we continue to innovatein the market, and support those who need us. We welcome all those whoneed professional consulting services in tourism & events, medical tourism,Swiss hotel management consulting, and always try to exceed the expecta-tions.

EXCLUSIVE 23

itb berlin 2013 exotic & GrandioSe

24 EVENT

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lot of opinions were lately released on suc-cesses and failures from ITB Berlin 2013, or-ganized between March 6 to March 10,2013, by Messe Berlin GmbH. Much has

been written about how our authorities were uninter-ested in the effective promotion of Romania, as if thiswas a novelty and not something that we got acquaintedwith for more than 20 years. No word on what does itmean to truly participate in the largest tourism fair incontinental Europe where all the relevant authoritiesand industry gather, and where, if you are not present,it is almost considered that you do not exist; no wordabout fair news and organized events. In the followingwe will present a different kind of ITB, an ITB whereprofessionals have exceeded their limits through inno-vation and communication.

Around the World in... 5 DaysIf we will have to choose from Romanian vocabularyonly three words to describe the atmosphere of the 47thedition of ITB Berlin I would stop at: colorful, exoticand daring. ose 160,000 square meters in 26 hallswere flooded by refined and stylish decors which al-lowed to each of those 10,086 exhibitors from 188countries to express both uniqueness and affiliation toa national brand. Guest of honor, Indonesia - thelargest archipelago country and the most populatedMuslim country in the world -, was in the eyes of every-body both at the inaugural show and also during thefair. Over 120 Indonesians exhibitors have welcomedvisitors with traditional Indonesian coffee, local culinarydelights and extravagant performances of music, danceand color, a refinement that the words hardly could ex-press it. Visitors who accepted the challenge to wear Ba-linese costumes, for example, received free tickets toITB, in the first weekend day. Indonesia, along withAzerbaijan, closed also ITB Berlin 2013, 300 dancers,musicians and artists of various specializations fromKalimantan, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Papua, Jakarta and Javaperforming with great virtuosity in the suggestivelycalled Festival Delphi. South Sudan – attending ITBfor the first time - was also noticed because of cultureand lifestyle illustrated by subtle objects made by arti-sans and craftsmen.Interesting were also the booth ofYemen and Libya, countries returned to ITB Berlin2013 after an absence of several years.Danube was presented in all its glory from March 6 to

10, seven of the eight riparian countries - Germany,Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Bulgaria andMoldova - hosting outstanding cultural events. Onpaper were eight countries, but unfortunately, Romaniadid not get involved, losing a great promotional oppor-tunity. Europ handled the things, as usual, without Ro-mania. ere were large debates on "DestinationDanube - from a political vision to real opportunitiesfor tourism". And a raffle was organized for public andbuyers, "a cruise on the Danube" being the reward forthe winner, holder of a symbolic "Passport to theDanube". For public and professionals alike, the projectwas a success: bold, funny, creative!

A lot of effervescence to Section Proe possibility to book travel packages directly fromtravel agencies was an absolute premiere at ITB, an oc-currance forgotten by many commentators, 64 tour op-erators offering from ski packages to cruises, from travelto Vietnam , for example, to safaris. And more thanEuro 6 billion in sales were registered at this edition.Perhaps this is an „old” news for Romanian tourismfairs visitors, but for ITB was a novelty stressing outthat despite all positive press statements Germantourism also faces specific difficulties of the period.Other elements that differentiate the German fair fromRomanian counterparts - the first three days are openedfor professionals, since 2004 ITB Convention MarketTrends & Innovations being included in ITB Berlin.It brings together the most important leaders in thetourism industry. e last two days are for reserved forpublic. Hosted buyers from all over the world are in-vited by organizers to different events and post events,while accredited media - over 6,000 travel journalistsand 250 bloggers (from 80 countries) – have the VIPstatus.420 speakers, half of them from Germany, have pro-vided information and shared experiences in tourism,politics and society. Good practices in tourism, sustain-able tourism, tourism for Muslims, changes in thecoaches market and technology as major trend weretopics on the agenda for those 200 workshops from ITB2013. Convention program was clear, concise, andavailable to all the info point ready to provide furtherinformation. Exhibitors did not face any logistics prob-lem, an army of assistants being all time available tohelp them.

itb berlin 2013 exotic & GrandioSe

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EVENT 25

itb berlin 2013 – exotic & GrandioSe

ITB Convention Market Trends & Innovations was divided into specificareas of interest - the world of books, business travel, cruises, culturaltourism, technology, hospitality, e-travel world, adventure and responsibletourism, travel services on mobile, training & employement , trends &events, wellness, youth and - something quite spicy and taboo for us - gay& lesbian travel.eme days were also established - ITB Future Day, ITB Hospitality Day,ITB Marketing and Distribution Day, ITB CSR Day, ITB DestinationDays – who did not actually meant calendar days as we perceive them, buta segmentation on themes of each of those three days opened for profes-sionals. Special sections were dedicated to Business Travel Days, an excellentnetworking opportunity due to two special shows - "Home of BusinessTravel by ITB & VDR" (VDR - German Business Travel Association) inHall 7.1a - and - ITB Corporate MICE Lounge by HSMA "in Hall 8.1 –concluded by ITB Berlin Business Travel Forum.From 170,000 visitors to ITB Berlin, 113,000 were professionals interested,according to Christian Goeke, COO Messe Berlin, "to gain a representativeand up-to-the-minute overview of the travel industry's entire value chain(...)ey will find growth and niche markets, find information on exploringnew markets and ideas for innovative sales strategies". In this respect, agrowth of 3-4% in global tourist traffic (compared to more than 1 billiontourists reported by UNWTO in 2012) is expected for 2013. e biggerrevenues will come from China and Russia , the world's leading suppliersof tourists.

Pulse and impulse through travel technology150 exhibitors (25 countries) from those more than 10,000 were specializedin travel technology, IT services and innovative solutions, ITB presentingthe widest range of technology products for travel in the world. Prioritytopics for them were - the risks and opportunities of social media and mo-bile networks, efficient travel through eTravel, navigation and mobile travelguides, trends and opportunities in maintaining a constant increase in thenumber of tourists. For the first time at ITB, eTravel World program wasextended by one day, until March 9, including a series of workshops, heldon two alternative stages, during which over 50 papers were presented. In-

26 EVENT

Copyright © Messe Berlin GmbH Copyright © Messe Berlin GmbH

Copyright © Messe Berlin GmbH

Copyright © Messe Berlin GmbH

itb berlin 2013 – exotic & GrandioSe

ternational bloggers came to limelight being invited to attend numerouspanel discussions and a networking meeting with exhibitors from the ad-venture, luxury and family travel - on March 7 and 8.Travel Technology Convention 2013, held on March 6, belonged entirelyto PhoCusWright Inc., and was closed up by PhoCusWright New MediaSummit, on March 7, both opened for public free of charge. Conventionwas held in the form of presentations and roundtables, the event's openingmonologue being uttered by PhoCusWright Founder Philip C. Wolf. Aroundtable on start-ups in tourism and case studies - "Five minutes of fame"– followed. Interesting was a panel moderated by Mona Faraj, a Pho-CusWright analyst, having at the background the Amadeus co-sponsoredwhite paper “Middle East Online Travel Overview” by PhoCusWright,which revealed that online bookings grew by one third last year in this re-gion. Among attendants, representatives from the e-commerce side of Mar-riott International, Cleartrip Travel Services and Google.Since I wrote about Amadeus, presence of this company at ITB Berlin wasa success, over 115 meetings taking place in Amadeus Meeting Lounge.Amadeus Germany’s presentations of Amadeus Event Management andAmadeus Social Media Suites, CHECKMYTRIP Premium application,and Amadeus Rail Agent Track - brought for it a nomination at "Best Ex-hibitor Award" (BEA), category Travel Technology & Media.

And yet ... the crisis was felt at ITBDespite the effervescence which embraced Berlin for five days, and promo-tion of niche tourism, especially gay, at the International Tourism Fairthings were not so... pink. e flow of visitors was affected by the crisisfrom Euro zone. e number of those from Spain, Italy and Greece wasdown by 1.7%, while less fam trips and post parties were organized. Some-how, the loss was balanced by the larger number of buyers from USA, Mid-dle East and Africa, so that overall the total number of visitors was stableand similar to last year, but signs of concern about European situation con-tinued and continues to persist.

About Romania booth...... crisis on all the line. But, of the dead, nothing unless good!

EVENT 27

Copyright © Messe Berlin GmbH Copyright © Messe Berlin GmbH

Copyright © Messe Berlin GmbH

Copyright © Messe Berlin GmbH

28 AVIATION

2013, Year of PortuGal- Since June, tAP Portugal will have six weekly flights to lisbon -

In the end of February I attended theLisbon Tourism Fair BTL - invited by Portugueseairline TAP - and Portugal Bureau of Tourism –travelling with 20 travel agents, journalists andbloggers from Romania. Well, I could not noticethat Romanian team was the largest among thehosted buyers. 10% from the entire group wasRomanian due to the efforts of Simona Metea,sales manager, TAP Portugal Romania.

Portugal has recently become a desti-nation increasingly demanded and promoted onthe Romanian market. Tens of thousands of Ro-manian tourists travel to Portugal every year, butthe current increase is due to Portuguese airlineentry on the Romanian market in the middle oflast year. According to Simona Metea if winterprogram has three weekly flights Bucharest - Lis-bon and return , the summer program (startingin June) will have six weekly flights. We recallthat TAP’s load factor was... 90% in the firstthree months of activity (July-September 2012).

Most of Romanians choose today citybreaks to Lisbon combined with local tours toSintra, Cascais, Estoril, Fatima (the famousmonastery where Virgin Mary’ advent occurred).

On the coast, there are travel offers for Algarve(southern Portugal) while the Island of Madeirais also among Romanians preferences.

But Portugal has much more to offer.Famous Porto is located in the North, a wine re-gion that, according to official authorities, re-ceived last year between 2,000 and 3,000Romanians fond of cultural and wine tourism.Most tourists who choose Portugal come fromFrance, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Japan, but Romaniawill also increase in the years to follow.

e Archipelago of the Azores is a des-tination that will be more promoted on the Ro-manian market: nine volcanic islands in themiddle of Atlantic Ocean, 1,500 km from Lis-bon. I attended a BTL Lisbon post-tour on twoislands of Azores: Terceira and Sao Miguel. I flewwith SATA Azores airline, a TAP partner. Azoresare volcanic islands, stretching over an area of ...1,000 kilometers. e total area of Azores eco-nomic region with ocean included is 420,000square kilometers, more than Romania. Prettymuch, if not ... enormous. e population isabout 250,000 inhabitants. e islands are fullof vegetation, flowers, and inhabited by humble

and friendly people, whoknow very well to keep tradi-tions. e archipelago is di-vided into three groups ofislands: Western group (Floresand Corvo), Central group(Graciosa, Terceira, Sao Jorge,Pico, Faial) and Eastern group(Sao Miguel, Santa Maria andFormigas). Gardens and parkswith lush vegetation on theseislands should not to be omit-ted from any tour. On the is-land of Terceira we visited arural property - Quinta doMartelo - where I felt like athome, in... Transylvania.Nothing modern had to befound on this Quinta asidefrom tourists’ cars. Azoreshave also an association ofrural tourism with 58 mem-bers, who own over 100 prop-erties with 700 beds in eightislands.

Another important Portuguese desti-nation is the archipelago of Madeira betterknown by Romanian tourists, which received amillion tourists and 600,000 cruise tourists lastyear. e main island is a demanded MICE(Meetings, Incentive, Congresses & Events) des-tination that hosted eight international con-gresses last year, and 14 in 2011. Madeiramaximum capacity for events is 2,400 beds.

Maybe is a reason behind the fact thatTAP and Portuguese National Tourism Officedecided to declare 2013 as the "Year of Portugal"for Romania. Taking into account both the de-velopment of new flights and the offers of travelagencies, it may be true...

how to make moneY from m.i.c.e.M

.I.C.E 29

few days an article published in one ofthe most important MICE websites ofthe industry caught my attention. Adry article, full of figures, without any

tags, with a shocking title: "e delegates spent40 billion pounds in the UK, according to an im-pact survey." Everyone knows the UK is motherand father of MICE industry, but to find out thata European country succeeds to account a plus -in the middle of economic crisis (the report refersto 2011) -, an amount two times higher than theborrowings of Romania from the IMF (Interna-tional Monetary Fund) is an information to causehealth problems...

And it's not just that. e simple fact that an im-pact survey was especially released for the eventsindustry - for the first time in the UK! - is abarometer of the importance given to the fieldand of the seriousness in treating MICE activi-ties. e consortium who has initiated and ledthat survey consists of some of the most impor-tant players on the international MICE market,while its actual implementation was carried outby the prestigious International Centre for Re-search in Events, Tourism and Hospitality(ICRETH) under Leeds Metropolitan Univer-sity. Funding was in charge of sponsors and op-erators in the field, who were able to invest USD250,000 to conduct the study and publish the re-sults. What I found quite remarkable was thepurpose behind this endeavor. e representativeof one of the companies involved said shortly be-fore the presentation of partial results duringConfex 2013 London, an international exhibi-tion in the field: "We constantly fought to provethe value of meetings and events as well and theircontribution to the UK economy. is study willgive us a much stronger measure of this sectorimpact and will help us to find more supportamong government, destinations and operators,both for future investment and in the process ofattracting new events".

Some relevant figures: more than 1.3 millionevents attended by 116.1 million people and heldin 10,127 locations throughout the UK. Manyother important statistical information about thestructure of events, duration, seasonality, etc. arealso included. I allow myself to dwell a little onthree aspects, the first financial, the second of astrategic nature and the third revealing a certaintype of professional behavior.

Costs taken into account per participant include

all types of quantifiable spendings (accommoda-tion, meals, access fee - which includes the costsof organization - international and domestictransport, attendance to tourism programs or so-cial events, sponsorships). Contiguous individualspendings (shopping, visits to museums andother targets outside of organized programs, etc)are not included. ose nearly 40 billion poundsspent by participants in the events are structuredas follows: 21.3 billion come from British partic-ipants, 10.8 billion was spent by foreign partici-pants and 7.7 billion by participants’companions. If about the amount coming fromthe Brits we can say that, somehow, it was takenfrom a pocket and put into another (but a sig-nificant part went to government in the form oftaxes), the things are different when discussingamounts from foreign participants and theircompanions. Here we have a significant amount(probably around 14 billion pounds if we takeinto account some of companions) that EN-TERED the British national economy after del-egates from other countries attended events inthe UK. at is more than the aggregated budg-ets for 2013 of Education, Labor, Health, De-fense, Interior and Administration ministriesfrom Romania. It is not a comparison, it is just areality. Sad for us. And we talk about 2011 a pre-Olympic year with a good part of London underthe siege of builders and modernization. I lookwith great interest for the results of 2012 surveywhich will include revenues from the Olympics...

e second issue I would like to raise is the struc-ture of "customers", those generating the events.Statistically, it is as follows: 81% of all eventswere organized for corporate segment, 6.3% forassociative, 5.2% for non - profit organizationsand only 4% for government authorities andother public institutions. Without daring -again - a comparison and keeping the propor-tions of MICE phenomenon (both in size andscope of understanding), I can not stop noticing- even in the absence of a similar survey forMICE market in Romania - that the above per-centages are inside out in our country. Public in-stitutions, especially through EU funding, aremajor client causing events. e most importantinternational meetings organized in Romaniawere generated or attracted by various govern-ment institutions. e few exceptions merelyconfirm the rule. In such cases, a large part ofparticipants’ expenses are borne by the statebudget. I' m not saying this is bad, quite the con-trary, since it generates a circulation of money in

the economy - with the appropriate return onbudget - and that they are added substantialamounts that paid for services directly by partic-ipants. I am only worried that for years MICEbusiness in Romania, on international events seg-ment is therefore a repercussive activity, not onestrategically organized as it should be. Attractingimportant meetings, participation with compet-itive offers in international tenders are the engineof any efficient MICE activity. Unacquaintancewith elementary mechanisms in the field, care-lessness, inconsequent interests or lack of profes-sionalism in addressing opportunities led, overthe years, at loosing many occasions and choke-ing the few initiatives of some enthusiasts. It isgood to be realistic: we can not achieve the levelof performance mentioned in the first part of thisarticle. But this does not mean we can not domuch more than we do now. And perhaps thestarting point should be a serious research on thefield to know exactly where we are... is leadsme to the third point I wanted to emphasize.

e impact survey conducted in the UK couldbe achieved both due to methods and method-ology adopted by authors and the professional,prompt and very open response of those morethan 3,600 people asked to provide data onevents in which organization they were involvedin a way or another. 15 years ago I have had theopportunity to coordinate an attempt to achievea similar survey on Romanian MICE market,under the umbrella of the newly founded (at thattime) Romanian Convention Bureau. Perhaps itis useless to mention that it was a voluntary ac-tion and there was no funding. But this is not themost important. We, the few enthusiasts whoworked on the project, were very happy that fi-nally managed to have about 150 respondents,and an approximate mirror of the general featuresat that time describing Romanian MICE market.

I have often asked myself - then and later – wherecomes from the massive reluctance to provide in-formation about past events. I have also won-dered why some actors in the field overassess theircontribution to the organization of some meet-ings. I found some answers to both questions. Iwould like to confront them with your answers,answers of those with patience to read these linesand to whom I address this invitation.

Pending receipt of your replies, I am convincedthat not only Brits can make money from MICE,but we also can. Hardly, but we can...

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by Radu Cimponeriu

Miami and Miami Beach are perhapsthe most exotic places in the United States, whileFlorida is the Paradise on Earth! Warm weatherall year round made it also the ideal place for re-tired people from the U.S. and Canada whobought houses or apartments at acceptable prices(until recently). In the meantime, prices wentup, tax on oceanfront buildings tripled. Despiteall these, tourists fleeing the winter cold betweenOctober and the end of March find here a placein the sun at honorable prices. East Coast isbathed by the Atlantic. West Coast is washed bythe Gulf of Mexico.Numberless nature re-serves - full of rare birdsand subtropical vegeta-tion, pristine lakes wheremany fish and/ or swim,attractive cities such asMiami to South, Jack-sonville to North East,Orlando in the centre -make Florida an ab-solutely recommendeddestination, especially inwinter months. I shouldalso mention the vast,clean, and guarded by po-lice beaches where youcould feel very, very good.

I arrived inMiami with Air Berlin via Dusseldorf. From theairport I took a bus to Miami Beach paying a 2USD ticket. In 70 minutes I have reached thebooked hotel, Tropics, on Collins Avenue, whichI do not I recommend. e plane ticket cost meEuro 160 for Bucharest – Dusseldorf - Bucharestand Euro 469 for Dusseldorf -Miami - Dussel-dorf. I spent seven weeks in Florida, and a fullmoon in Miami and Miami Beach. Many do notknow, but Miami is the modern city, full of lifeand business, while Miami Beach is a phalanx ofthe city to the Atlantic Ocean, actually linked bytwo broad bridges. People relax cycle, jog, swim,surf, and party all night long in Miami Beach. Allin all, they feel good. A large gay community islocated in the city having "their" hotels and bars,but where access is allowed also or heterosexualswithout discrimination. Miami Beach is domi-nated by a few high hotels - not very high andnot too many -, and small buildings where localslive surrounded by palm trees and other exoticplants. Calm, peace and respect on the streets. Asa pedestrian, you do not hear a horn, and nobodyassaults you even if crossing the street on red

light. Accommodation in hotels is not necessarilyexpensive if you stay longer. I made a mistake bybooking on booking.com and paying for twoweeks the amount „displayed” on the monitorbecause reaching the spot I found much cheaperto call the hotel and ask for the "Weekly rates".Americans are used to pay the rent weekly, notmonthly as we do. Hence, if you stay a full weekyou pay with 20-30% less than if you stay andpay 7 days... For instance, I have paid 89 USD/night the hotel for two weeks, when my book-ing.com had cost me 1,246 USD/ two weeks. If

I would have call the hotel , it would have costme only 900 USD/ two weeks because "theweekly rate" was 450 USD. Another importantdetail: state tax is added to all prices, and it is13% in Florida. is tax does not appear in thetotal amount from booking.com, so pay atten-tion!

You do not have to have a bunch ofmoney to feel good in Miami Beach. Young peo-ple can be accommodated in Hostels, in the so-called dormitory with kitchen, shower, hotwater, comfortable beds. And all for only 20USD/ day. I lived in a Miami Beach Hostel, too.I enjoyed the shade of the inner garden at mid-day; the nearby Publics store, the size of Car-refour, where I provided myself with food tocook in the fully equipped and clean kitchen ofthe hostel; and the free WiFi to chat with FBfriends. ere is a not very large but a quite Okbookstore in Miami Beach: Public Library. In-side, you can read a book or check your emails- away from the midday heat and blessed by thepleasant air conditioning - since a few computerswith free WIFI are available. In the vicinity of the

library, Bass Museum of Art is located housingpaintings by famous European authors, and con-temporary art. Access fee is 8 USD/adult, whilefor kids up to 6 yo is free.

What could you do in the evenings?Well, you could walk through the stunningbuildings in the Art Deco district. Florida is alsoknown as "e American Riviera and Art DecoPlayground." Over 800 historic buildings fromthe 1920s, 30 and 40, containing an impressivevariety of styles - make the delight of any eveningwalk and photographic snapshot. Of course, they

are just as interesting at the day-time, but in the evening the com-mercials of hotels are lighted.

After this walk, I recom-mend a promenade on the gener-ous Lincoln Road. It is full ofrestaurants. I was happy to dis-cover NEXXT, a Mexican restau-rant where for a dinner & a drinkI had to pay only 30 USD, tipsincluded. If you are fond of shop-ping, take the bus from MiamiBeach (Public Transport) for 2USD and go to Aventura Mall,where you can linger the wholeday through dozens of shops ...

Miami Beach is, after all, aspecial place due to excesses! e

cars look like "in the movies" - tuned, big, old,but superbly reconditioned, or new and huge;men are almost all packages of muscles as themodels from the bodybuilding magazines. Andrestaurants try to draw customers through livemusic or typical "American" shows with stageand males/ females dancing madly on devilishrhythms. ere are also "soft" places for late Ro-mantics who do not enjoy the noise and wheresomebody plays the piano eventualy.

I end up this material written in SouthBeach with the proposal to visit Biltmore Hotel,in Miami - Coral Gables. It was built in 1926 byJoyn Bowman, as a small architectural master-piece. e price for a standard room begins with315 USD / night. e hotel had the largestswimming pool in the world, and hosted amongothers famous guests such as Judy Garland, BabeRuth and Al Capone. At that time, JohnnyWeissmuller, world champion from Timisoara,Romania, later discovered and turned into moviecharacter "Tarzan", was hotel swimming instruc-tor.

miami beach - whY not?U.S. Correspondence from Simon Buia

Copyright: www.Simion Buia.ro

DEStiNAtioNS

Copyright: www.Simion Buia.ro

Copyright: www.Simion Buia.ro

mYSterY ShoPPerMystery Shoppers visited two agencies in Bucharest and selected an online site chosen by a random searchON Google, selection criteria being the "A summer 2013 stay in Bodrum."

Goal

Mystery Shoppers required a 7-nightstay in Bodrum, Turkey, for two peo-ple - mother and son. Budget aroundEuro 1,500.

essentials :an adult +1 child age 7 Budget : 1,500 Euro Destination : Bodrum

attention !

Purpose of our Mys-tery Shopper is not to defameor prize a travel agency or aparticular travel agent, but toactually help the industry toimprove their selling tech-

niques in the current increas-ingly fierce competition.

In this regard, TravelAdvisor magazine hiresmonthly, on a rotating basis,a team of Mystery Shoppersto simulate a real processes ofbooking. Data on their iden-

tity will not be revealed, butwe can add that they are ex-perienced Mystery Shoppers.

e research con-sider first impression, kind-ness and travel agent’sinterest, the actual salesprocess, if the agency offer

meets the client's budget andif they offer a bonus to per-suade the customer to buy.Subsequently, Mystery Shop-pers are asked their opinionon the services of agency /website and if they wouldchoose it as a holidayprovider in the real life.

First impression First impression First impression

Kindness Kindness Kindness

interest in Consulting interest in Consulting interest in Consulting

Sales Process Sales Process Sales Process

offer fits the Budget offer fits the Budget offer fits the Budget

Bonus Bonus Bonus

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d.t.S. travel aGencY marina travel www.e-vacanta.com

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Copyright: Ad Meskens

this month: offline vs online

D.T.S. TRAVEL AGENCYStr. Petre Ispirescu no. 2, Bucharest, Romania

I easily found the entrance to the agency, but Iwas unpleasantly surprised to see a lot of ban-ners indicating there a center to fill printer car-tridges and a dentist office. I cautiously enteredthe building, and a spiral staircase was immedi-ately opened in front of my eyes. I carefullyclimbed the stairs, and to the right I saw a doormarked with „Dental Travel Services”. I walkedshyly because I did not know if it was a door ofa travel agency or a dentist office. Inside I sawtwo travel agents who invited me with good-humor to „enter with courage, take a sit and getto the point”. I had the pleasant surprise to bewelcomed with a smile and adviced with highinterest. Two 5-star hotels in Bodrum meetingmy criteria were kindly suggested to me. etravel agent introduced the agency website tome, and showed to me some photos of thosehotels and prices for various periods. Subse-quently, the agent wrote the names and thetotal price for those two hotels on a sticker, andhanded the sticker to me accompanied by theagency card. She also invited me to contact theagency for any further information. In the end,I saluted the two agents and they answered po-litely.

MARINA TRAVELBdul I-G Duca No. 1-3, Bucharest, Romania

I found Maria Transport quite easy in ChirigiSquare. Near the crossroad, in a courtyard withopen gates I saw a bus and a few drivers aroundspeaking Turkish language. I greeted them andasked how to get to Marina Travel. One of thedrivers jumped quickly to help me and with avery natural politeness invited me to follow himin the travel office. e trave agent I met insideinvited me to sit, while the driver rushed to bringme a cup of coffee and a glass of water, even if Idid not request one. I talked to travel agent whoexplained to me that the real travel agency is lo-cated in Gara de Nord area, and that at ChirigiSquare was only their transport office. However,she was nice to guide me with some information.I briefly explained to her what I was looking for,she asked me what kind of transport I was look-ing for, and immediately made some suggestionsfor me. Later, she told me some interesting thingsabout Bodrum. At the end of the discussion – shehanded me a card with contact details for MarinaTravel where to continue the discussion with spe-cialized travel agents, expressed her hope to betheir customer and said to me a very friendlygood-bye. On my way out, the Turkish driveropened the door for me and politely saluted. Idiscovered the travel agency in Bdul I. Duca ex-tremely easy. And I was happy to see that thekindness and hospitality of Turkish people wasto be find there as well. e travel agents fromMarina Travel confirmed the offer, and asked formy phone number to come back to me if theyhad more or better offers. Finally, I was greetedvery friendly and a travel agent accompanied metoward the exit.

TURISTIK.ROwww.turistik.ro

e website design is simple, clean and informa-tion extremely readable. Social network icons ap-pear in a superior menu, slightly to the rightbeing displayed the traditional contact data. emain menu, inserted below, reveals destinations,offers, photos and info about account creation. Iwent deeper into the site, searching an offer tomatch my criteria and ... I found a list of holidaysand a lot of hotels.When I accessed the desired pages I found the

offers accompanied by adestination miniguide,by a list of tourist objectives and pictures, andthe detailed offer. Since for each offer a travelagency was assigned I looked for their profile andnoticed that some could be contacted by chat(Yahoo Messenger) or through an applicationform. I chose Time Gate travel agency, and sinceno representative was online, I looked for anotheroffer, from eda Travel Management, to fit mybudget. I contacted the agency on Yahoo Mes-senger and, to my surprise, I have got an imme-diate response. e information eda agent offered matchedmy requirements. And additional resources - onselected hotels, the arrival airport, and Bodrum,in general - were indicated to me. e discus-sion ended on a friendly tone, the agent invitingme to re-contact him upon my decision.

winner of the month

marina travel (& marina tranSPort)

This month's winner withstood the other competitors by a highly professional be-

havior. Our Mystery Shopper went happy out of this agency wishing to revisit it in

real life due to the empathy towards customer needs, and hospitality proved by its

employees. DTS and www.turistik.ro performed also good, both coming on the sec-

ond position. The competition was nip and tuck, all agents acting in a professional

manner. Sincere congratulations!

HotEl NEWSLeonardo Hotels took over 20 hotels in Germany

A few days ago, Leonardo Hotels, part of the Israeli company Fattal Hotels, took over20 hotels from Queens Moat Houses Holding GmbH Germany, located in Berlin, Munchen, Dus-seldorf, Frankfurt, Köln, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Wolfsburg, Mannheim, Hanovra, Baden-Baden,Aachen, Monchengladbach and Karlsruhe.15 among them were previously operated as HolidayInn Hotels, 4 under Best Western Hotels and 1 under Queens Hotel. e new portfolio includesover 3,600 rooms, 28 bars, 29 restaurants and 154 conference rooms with a total surface of9,675m².

According to Daniel Roger, General Manager of Leonardo Hotels Europe, "With thetake-over, we are now represented in 20 cities. is way, we can offer our guests an expanded rangeat Leonardo’s usual high standard". An investment plan was defined for the new portfolio and isbeing implemented this year.

e recent acquisition increases Fattal Hotels Group portfolio to 84 hotels, with over16,000 rooms, 53 hotels and 8,449 rooms being located in Europe (Austria, Switzerland, Belgium,Hungary and Germany), and 31 hotels with 7,600 rooms in Israel. With the acquisition of QMHportfolio, Fattal Hotels manages 44 hotels in 20 cities in Germany.

David Fattal, CEO Fattal Hotels / Leonardo Hotels claims the took over is not an endingpoint, "We want to continue to grow and negotiate projects in major European cities". In this con-text, the former Holiday Inn Düsseldorf City Centre-Konigsallee and former Best Western QueensHotel Baden-Baden will be rebranded as Leonardo Royal Hotels. e reconstruction, necessary forthis purpose, will follow designer Andreas Neudahm’s projects.

Here is the list of those 20 properties, and the names they will be operated under:Berlin: Best Western Queens Hotel Berlin City West will be Leonardo Hotel Berlin

City WestDusseldorf: Holiday Inn Dusseldorf City Centre-Konigsallee will be Leonardo Royal

Hotel DusseldorfKonigsallee: Holiday Inn Dusseldorf will be Leonardo Hotel Dusseldorf City CenterKoln: Holiday Inn Koln - Am Stadtwald will be Leonardo Hotel Koln - Am

StadtwaldHoliday Inn Koln-Bonn Airport will be Leonardo Hotel Koln Airport

Hamburg: Best Western Queens Hotel Hamburg will beLeonardo Hotel Hamburg City Nord

Heidelberg: Holiday Inn Heidelberg will be Leonardo Hotel HeidelbergHannover: Queens Hotel Hannover will beLeonardo Hotel Hannover

Holiday Inn Hannover Airport will be Leonardo Hotel Hannover AirportBaden-Baden: Best Western Queens Hotel Baden-Baden will be Leonardo Royal Hotel

Baden-BadenAachen: Holiday Inn Aachen will be Leonardo Hotel AachenKarlsruhe: Best Western Queens Hotel Karlsruhe will be Leonardo Hotel KarlsruheMannheim: Holiday Inn Mannheim City Centre will be Leonardo Hotel Mannheime following hotels will still be running under the brand Holiday Inn with affinity to LeonardoHotels: • Holiday Inn Munchen• Holiday Inn Dusseldorf Airport-Ratingen• Holiday Inn Frankfurt Airport North• Holiday Inn Frankfurt City-South Conference Centre• Holiday Inn Heidelberg-Walldorf• Holiday Inn Monchengladbach.

Rezidor announced Park Inn Istanbul Ataturk Airport for 2014e Rezidor Hotel Group, one of the most dynamic hotel companies worldwide and a member ofthe Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, announced the very first Park Inn hotel in Turkey: e Park InnIstanbul Ataturk Airport featuring 144 guest rooms, an all-day restaurant and a lobby bar is sched-uled to open in Q1 2014. Furthermore, the hotel will be equipped with meeting facilities of almost1,000m² including a ballroom of 600m², a wellness area and underground parking..

e Park Inn Istanbul Ataturk Airport ideally complements the existing Radisson BluConference and Airport Hotel, Istanbul. It is located 5 km away from Ataturk International Airport,Turkey’s largest and Europe’s 6th busiest airport, serving over 45 million passengers annually. ParkInn will offer shuttle services to and from the terminals and also provide easy connections to severalbusiness districts in the region and Istanbul’s largest fair site, CNR Expo.

Park Inn is Rezidor’s mid-market full-service brand. It is currently being re-launched –the new brand concept will further enhance the attractiveness, commerciality and profitability ofthe brand. It aims to retain guests of Gen X (born between 1965 and 1981) and to attract and nur-ture the growing clientele of Gen Y (1982-1990) through a positive, personalized guest experience.

Amadeus Airlines Ancillary Services & Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD)

We are pleased to inform you about the launch of two new solutions

Amadeus Airlines Ancillary Services (AAAS) and Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD)on the market in Romania, since April 15, 2013. The launch of these solutions begins with Alitalia, Finnair and Montenegro Airlines. Progressively, other companies will follow.

What are Ancillary Services ?

Any additional/ optional service an airline offer and does not represent the "core" regarding

transportation. In essence - Content!

Amadeus Ancillary Services offers to travel agents the opportunity to provide (display,

booking, pricing and payment) optional services (value added) in addition to the basic

rate. This solution follows ATPCo standards regarding optional service pricing (known as

"OC fees") and IATA standards for EMD (Electronic Miscellaneous Document).

Amadeus Ancillary Services is a solution integrated in the selling platform that provides

for travel agencies the opportunity to:

• Increase parity in terms of ancillary services content offered through direct and online

channels

• Customize offers according to clients’ requirements consolidating your travel consultant

role and improving customer service

• Amadeus is the first provider of integrated selling solutions that offers quick and easy

access to a catalog of ancillary services to be read before booking the service.

Here are some examples of ancillary services:

• Prepaid extra baggage voucher

• Special bags

• Seat selection

• Unaccompanied Minor

• Upgrade voucher

• Meals

• Parking voucher

• Kennels, boxes

• In flight entertainment

• Lounge access

To check which are the airlines and countries where AAAS solution is implemented, use

transaction: FQNANC/CXR.

AAAS benefits for travel agencies • Increased efficiency and generation of new revenue

• Improvement of customer service and customers retention

• Easy integration into the workflow of the agency

What is an Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD) ?

Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD) is an industry standard solution which en-

ables travel agents to issue documents for travel related services.

EMD will gradually replace MCO (Miscellaneous Charges Order) and MPD virtual IATA

(Multiple Purpose Document). The migration deadline required by IATA is the end of

2013. After this date, VMCO and VMPD could not be used in BSP (Billing Settlement

Plan) markets.

Leader in the industry, Amadeus attaches great importance to technological develop-

ment and renders aid to all its partners to make the transition as smooth as possible

without business interruption.

Amadeus is the first Global Distribution System that provides a complete EMD solution

to travel agencies and is also the first GDS to gain IATA acceptance for EMD.

EMD is the document responsible for Amadeus Ancillary Services solution allowing

users a better management of passengers’ requirements and better services.

There are available two types of documents (EMD):

• EMD Standalone (EMD-S) :o can be used independently of a plane ticket and is issued for services such as car

rental, lounge access.

o this type of document will fully replace the MCO used at this time for residual values

or to collect penalty fees (for reissuance, for instance).

• EMD Associated (EMD-A):o is directly linked to an individual flight coupon, e.g. Excess Baggage, Meals, Special

Seat etc.

o status of both coupons (EMD and ET (Electronic Ticketing)) is synchronized.

Distribution Channels• Amadeus EMD can be used both in cryptic interface (Command page) of Amadeus

Selling Platform application and in the graphical one(GUI).• Amadeus EMD solution is integrated with Amadeus Agency Manager - TINA, Amadeus

Ticket Changer and Amadeus Interface Record and can be used with Amadeus Ancil-

lary Services solution.

The main advantages of EMD • Standard single solution that replaces the automatic MCO, Amadeus Virtual MCO and

IATA MPD and allows travel consultants to issue travel documents for services associ-

ated with travel;

• Fully integrated into Amadeus system via Amadeus PNR, daily sales reports, and

Amadeus Interface Record (A.I.R.) for mid-back office systems;

• Provides real-time information throughout the lifetime of an EMD by communication

with an EMD server (EMS server);

• EMD is the document responsible for Amadeus Ancillary Services solution;

• Same working steps as for V-MCO or MCO, which is translated into a minimal impact

on current work pattern;

• Compared with MCO, EMD provides enhanced functionality such as the interline be-

tween companies, documents with multiple coupons, association with an electronic

ticket (ET).

For further information, please contact Amadeus Romania.