ANALYSIS OF THE ACCOMMODATION OFFER IN CONSTANTA (ROMANIA)

AAOTI , 1st Semester

Balint Simon Emanuel
January 2019

1. Demand in Romania
Among the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Romania is endowed with the
richest and most varied natural and man-made tourist resources, which offer great availability
for tourism. This valuable tourist potential is reflected in various landscapes, a favorable
climate for practicing tourism throughout the year, rich flora and fauna, historical monuments,
art and architecture, popular traditions, etc. which can satisfy Romanian and foreign tourists.
This essay brings together aspects of the Romanian seaside tourism situation and how it
evolved.
The tourist accommodation- After 2007, the number of tourist accommodation
establishments registered a continuous increase from 4694 in 2007 to 7905 in 2017.
In terms of space distribution, tourists' arrivals reflect a strong focus. In recent years, more
than 90% of arrivals of foreign tourists have come from Europe. Asia runs second, with other
continents having very small shares, although for many years, America used to run second.
As far as the countries are concerned, most of the tourist issue is concentrated around the
neighboring countries of Romania: Hungary, Bulgaria, the Republic of Moldova, Turkey,
Germany. This is explained by the relatively small distances between countries and by
similarities of language, culture, history.
The data refers to the arrivals of tourists at the border points and not those in the
accommodation unit that are much less because many come to visit relatives, friends.
In foreign travel guides, Romania is well-rated in terms of natural resources but badly in
terms of services and personal safety. Foreigners think that what we lack is the resorts with
high comfort and facilities.
The main tourist resources in Romania generate the basic forms of Romanian tourism:
mountain tourism, balneary, seaside (recreation, spa, medical, leisure, sports), cultural,
business, etc.
This classification is the most complete as it makes it possible to find both the
preferences of the tourists and the motivation of the trip, as well as the tourism generated

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resources. It also considers two important aspects: on one hand, the fact that the multitude of
forms of tourism is given by the complexity of the tourism potential, and on the other hand
that in the territory these forms complement each other, contributing to an optimal use of the
potential.
The diversification of travel motivations generating demand, led to the multiplication
of forms of tourism. The delimitation of tourism forms and their grouping according to certain
criteria presents both theoretical and practical importance as it contains elements of substance
of the decisions regarding the development of the tourist offer and its alignment with the
changes in the structure of the demand.
Measurement of tourist traffic is intended to provide information on its size and trends,
information needed to establish development policies in the perspective of the tourist season.
The statistics used by the Ministry of Tourism show the size (volume) of tourism
activity by four basic indicators,among other, from where I chose namely: type of ownership,
mode of transportation, destination and type of the category of comfort.
Regarding the means of transport used by foreign tourists, roadways ranked first with over
65% over the years, followed by air, by waterways and by trains. The explanation is that the
road means of transport are most convenient and are most preferred by tourists. Naval means
is amongst the least frequented due to higher costs. But we notice an increase in air travel due
to the very short travel time.

2. Accommodation offer analysis in Constanta

The coastal area is a region of great attraction, especially during the summer, where
many foreign and Romanian tourists spend their holidays. The resorts available are Navodari,
Mamaia, Eforie Nord, Eforie, Eforie Sud, Costinesti, Olimp, Neptun, Jupiter, Aurora, Venus,
Saturn, Mangalia, 2 Mai and Vama Veche, on a length of 100 km.
Constanta and Mangalia cities attract tourists through their archaeological objectives (the
Roman mosaic in Constanta, the Callatis fortress in Mangalia).
A characteristic touristic feature of the Romanian seaside is seasonality (summer)
tourism alongside the casual and weekend tourism. These are organized in collaboration with
various partner companies from abroad and with companies in the country, such as: Tarom,
Navrom and travel agencies.
The Danube Delta attracts tourists through the exotism of the landscape offered by the
Danube's numerous canals, lakes, beams, birds, vegetation or the oak forests on Letea and
Caraorman, the fishing villages of Maliuc, Mila 23, Sulina and Sfantu Gheorghe.

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It is worth mentioning that in the unorganized tourism, during the season, the tourists are
accommodated in private dwellings near the tourist resorts.
The Romanian seaside is the most important tourist area, concentrating almost half of
Romania's hotel capacity and about two-thirds of all accommodation opportunities offered to
international tourism. A special aspect of the economy of Constanta County is the tourist and
balneal valorization of the Romanian seaside. Compared to the other counties, Constanta
presents a special situation, due to the fact that it combines rail, road, sea and river transport
as well as air transport. Constanta is easily accessible from Bucharest by plane 1h, by train 3h
and by bus 4h.
Regarding the touristic circulation on property forms, the largest share of tourists
chose private ownership. The smallest share of tourists has the form of cooperative property,
the number of tourists dropping here with about 7,000 tourists.
For tourist traffic by type of unit, the largest number of tourists chose hotels, which
have the highest accommodation capacity. The situation of foreign tourists on the Romanian
seaside is good due to the fact that the number of foreign tourists has steadily increased in the
last years from. The first country providing tourists for our seaside is Germany, followed by
Italy. There is an increase in French tourists in recent years. The smallest number of foreign
tourists are registered from Mexico and Central America
As mentioned, within the resorts on the Black Sea coast, the largest share of the
accommodation network is owned by hotels, a unit consisting of a building or an ensemble of
buildings, which ensures accommodation in appropriately equipped rooms. A hotel also offers
the possibility of dining, entertainment, and offers a wide or small range of services to
tourists.
The offer of hotels on the Romanian seaside is great, with five star hotels ("Palm
Beach, Scandinavia" in Mamaia), 4 stars ("Palas, Iaki, Majestic, Savoy" -Mamaia, "Britania" ,
3 stars ("Hora" - Saturn, "Doina" - Neptun), and 2 stars ("Arad, Crisana" - Olimp, "Siret,
National" - Mamaia).
The next form of accommodation, as a percentage, consists of camping and holiday
villages. These have been set up and developed as a result of the avant-garde that has taken its
unorganized and semi-organized tourism. As a complementary form of accommodation, it has
been able to satisfy satisfactorily the individual or group demands of tourists with motor
vehicles, followers of a direct contact with nature and a more rigid program. Practice has
shown that these accommodation spaces are much demanded and are currently insufficient at
the peak of the season, failing to fully satisfy the existing demand.

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  Villas and cottages are a complementary form, less used on the seaside. These are
located in isolation or grouped as a holiday village, being an intermediate form of comfort
between the hotel and the camping.
One of the economic advantages of the main accommodation form, the hotel, is the capacity
utilization factor. This is due first of all to the fact that it offers the highest degree of comfort
to accommodation during the season, regardless of the weather, and the number of tourists
staying in the same time period is the highest.
Seaside hotel units are characterized by the fact that they operate or can operate during
the whole summer season, but only at most four months of a calendar year. Because of this
they suffer an excessive usage, which leads to additional maintenance costs, to the
maintenance of an insufficiently qualified staff, to the premature degradation of the
construction and related facilities.
However, the hotel remains the only form of accommodation able to take a massive
number of tourists, especially at the peak of the season, when the tourist affluence is the
maximum.
Houses and villas are used around the same time as hotels, but have a lower usage
rate. Faced with the main form of accommodation, they are also distinguished by lower rates.
The campsite, as a complementary form of accommodation, has the lowest utilization
rate. From practice, it has been found that a camping site is occupied entirely for a much
shorter period of time than hotels and even villas and cottages. It is more requested at the peak
of the season, when the weather is warm and not rainy. From an administrative and
organizational point of view, the camping is the last open and the first closed during a summer
season, compared to the other forms of accommodation. The basic advantage of the campsite
is that it requires lower expenses for placement and maintenance, it is easy to exploit and
completes the demand for accommodation, especially in the case of unorganized tourism.
Coastal experience has shown that existing camping sites are inadequate at the peak of
the season and often remain unused towards the end of the season.
Considering that this form of accommodation is growing more and more, it is
necessary to invest funds for the development of new and varied forms of camping, capable of
meeting the present and future demand, given that the orientation of the infrastructure
development dynamics is fundamental to the need to increase its functionality.
In the last years, the evolution of accommodation capacity and number of
accommodation units has evolved. 

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 In conclusion, it can be noticed that the accommodation services in Constanta County
have developed and diversified, which means also the development of a suitable technical-
material accommodation base, with adequate facilities, which offers tourists optimal
conditions and fulfills other functions. However, the accommodation service is dependent on
the qualification of the staff, their proficiency, the organization of the work in the hotel units.
In this context, insufficient accommodation, inappropriate equipment, inconsistency between
the level of comfort offered and the exigencies of the tourists, as well as the small number of
workers or poor training influence the quality of the touristic service.
We can say that the leisure and entertainment service in Constanta County has
diversified a lot in recent years with the emergence of new recreational units. All resorts offer
good quality and quantitative leisure conditions. The higher the supply of services, the lower
the risk of losing customers. For this, the tourism infrastructure needs to be modernized and
diversified.

6. CONCLUSION
The particularly accelerated pace of tourist traffic during the season peaks makes the
tracking of the statistics still have a number of deficiencies, especially as regards to the way
information is collected and the source from which the information originates.
It can be appreciated an increase of the tourist traffic that is manifested in all the
Romanian seaside resorts, also increasing the number of foreign tourists arriving on our
seaside, which demonstrates an increase of the tourist competitiveness of the Romanian
seaside. The increase of tourist traffic, as well as the changes in its structure are accompanied
by the corresponding evolution of the infrastructure. All this development of tourist traffic,
infrastructure, and services leads first of all to the development of Romanian tourism.
         For the future, specialists expect the significant development of the tourism sector with
the entry into the Romanian market of internationally renowned hotel chains such as
Radisson, Hyatt, Kempinsky or Le Meridien. Along with business tourism, which remains the
most developed branch, rural tourism is a sector in a constantly advancing. In the future, this
sector will attract a higher percentage of tourists.
         In order to support the promotion of the Romanian tourist offer and to increase the
tourist circulation on the Romanian territory, the project "Tourism Development Strategy
2007 - 2013" was officially launched with the participation of the professional and employers'
associations in tourism, local and regional authorities in Romania, Tourism NGOs and
international consultants and started the national branding process through a project supported

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by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The project also
includes representatives of professional and employers' associations in tourism and is linked
to the national branding project initiated by the National Agency for Governmental Strategies.
By joining the National Geographic Charter for Geotourism, in September 2005, Romania
was declared the third geotourism destination in the world. A package of draft normative acts
harmonized with the legislation of the European Union (EU) countries has been developed,
which will ensure both the increase of the quality of the services and the diversification of the
offer. At the same time, it was decided to simplify the legislation in this field, in collaboration
with specialists from the Tourism, Hotels and Restaurants sector and with the support of
experts from the Ministry of Labor and the National Institute of Statistics (INS).

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Bibliography
 Institutul National de Statistica “National Statistics Institute”, INS,
http://www.insse.ro/cms/ro/publica%C8%9Bii-statistice-%C3%AEn-format-electronic
 Literalul Romanesc “Romanian Seaside”,
https://www.litoralulromanesc.ro/en/cazare_constanta.htm
 Romania Tourism, https://www.romaniatourism.net/beach-resorts/
 European Commission, Partner Country Profiles: Romania,
http://ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/17561/attachments/40/translations/en/renditions/nat
ive
 World Tourism Organization WTO, Romania National Tourism Master Plan 2007 – 2026,
http://old.unibuc.ro/prof/dobre_r_r/docs/res/2014marMaster_Plan_Tourism.pdf