Paul Marasoiu, head of the National Association of Professional Conference and Exhibition Organisers (RCB), says the meeting and business tourism holds a 60% share of the revenues derived on the domestic tourism market. Business travel accounts for 80% of the revenues of the hotels and conference organisers in Bucharest. "The revenue obtained for a person who takes part in an event, amounts to 240 euros per day. It is a proportion of 1 to 5 against the leisure tourism," states Marasoiu.
"The MICE Industry (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Exhibitions), namely the associative or corporate events, which gather up to 5,000 people as well as the specialised services and promotion, is the most profitable part of tourism, both in Romania and worldwide," adds Marasoiu.
The revenues derived from business travel come from the activities directly related to event planning, travel arrangements, hotel services, the services dedicated to the event, as well as the services related to it (food & beverage, multimedia equipment, translators, data management, event promotion).
"The US market is the main beneficiary of such type of events. Between 9 and 14 major events need locations to be developed, but, due to the lack of such locations in Romania, Bucharest is not an option for them," states Marasoiu. Romania has a capacity of 95,554 seats for business meetings this year, the most important of them being available in Bucharest, 37% of the total (35,281 seats), Constanta county 10% and Brasov county 6.8%.
According to Marasoiu, Cluj, Sibiu, Iasi and Ramnicu Valcea have a great potential for development on the business travel segment. There are already some projects for building centres for exhibitions and conferences in Ramnicu Valcea, Sibiu and Iasi, operated by RCB in collaboration with the city halls and the local councils from the respective areas. Marasoiu thinks Bucharest would need a conference centre with a capacity of at least 5,000 seats that would benefit from the logistic organisation required by such events.
"Bucharest needs such a centre with a capacity of 6,000 - 9,000 seats, but the investment would amount to some 80 million euros," says Marasoiu.
According to him, the business tourism will see a faster growth pace than the holiday tourism, especially following the EU integration.
"Over the next 3 to 5 years, we will witness a rise in the event planning market, followed by a period of regress, when the leisure segment will take over in terms of revenues in the tourism industry," added Marasoiu.
The revenues derived from meetings, conferences and other events will amount to approximately 400 million euros this year, up by 25% against last year, according to the estimate made by Paul Marasoiu. This rise is the outcome of the increase in number of business events in Romania.
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