All-inclusive
- Posted by Cristian on January 12th, 2007 filed in Homes and housing, Services, Tourism and travel
Opportunity: bringing all-inclusive services to Romania
My colleague Magda was writing in one of the first posts about Romanian tourism, its future development and a comparison to Bulgarian tourism. It’s a fact that Bulgarian sea resorts are currently the best choice. Why? Because they deliver three important things: low prices, high-quality and…All-inclusive.
I felt the need to point out the importance of all-inclusive. Offered at reasonable prices, along with good customer care services, it makes a big difference. It can really offer clients the holiday of their dreams and truly the one they deserve.
As for the opportunity in this, not all hotels can manage implementing this service but the ones that do will become tough competition. Also opening a chain of hotels with many stars and all-inclusive delivered with high quality is an option.
The season is about to start, not long before summer kicks in and we find ourselves in the situation of having no choice but to travel to Bulgaria to relax and enjoy our holidays.
I think they understood that a grumpy face with a fake smile attached to it and two mumbled questions is not the way to satisfy customers…
If Bulgarians can….we can too… don’t you think?
Written by Cristian
January 11th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Actually I worked this summer with several of the biggest tour operators in Romania, which also sell vacations for Bulgaria. And they all made the point that it would be very tempting if Romanian hotels would offer All-Inclusive, just like the Bulgarian ones.
So, here I am trying to convince the hotel managers to create all-inclusive packages for next season. No way! they say. Ridiculously, the reason was always that they can not control the inventory. And it was actually one hotel who tried it one year and it gave up as it was not profitable because of the stealing.
January 12th, 2007 at 10:39 am
I spent my summer vacation in Bulgaria, in Albena and I must say the accommodation and services were excellent. The prices were much lower in Romanian for 3 and 4 star hotels, the personnel was funny and amiable, and the all-inclusive services were great. Of course, improvements could be made, but there is a huge difference between the quality of service between Romanian and Bulgarian hotels in the seaside resorts. This summer - Bulgaria again, perhaps Golden Sands, this time
February 8th, 2007 at 8:31 am
[...] In an earlier post I was underlining the fact that Romanian tourism is missing the service called all-inclusive. About those all-inclusive hotels, I remembered my trip in 5th grade in an all-inclusive resort: Club Aldiana Siam. It’s part of an exclusive chain of sea-resorts. [...]
July 15th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
First, Bulgarian Tourism rised to a higher interest level for europeans after Mallorca restricted its well-known party zones. The best alternative was Bulgaria, since the owners there accepted the requests in order to get the tourists there. This included all-inclusive because of the laziness of the tourists.
Second, romanian hotel owner say that they get full hotels anyway. Refurbishing them to a higher level won´t last more than a year before reduced to the same destruction level, by local tourists that do not care.
Third. A vegetarian foreigner, as a friend of mine is, has no real choices when it comes to enjoying food in romania. Salads are indeed made of tasty vegetables, but they have awful dressings. This just to name one inconvenient, which compared to other disabilities like diabetes or other, will always leave Romania out of the ultimative choice list.
Fourth. Other nations have other travelling habits. Germans for instance will always go for the hotel pool instead of the sea. And pools at the Black Sea are not really inviting.
Basically its a lack of strategy to develop now for tomorrow. And as long profits are ok as they are and the owners ale content there will be lack of interest in investing and developing.
P.S.: do not speak about all inclusive as “the missing” stuff. it is the offer (no tasty salads) and the service in general who lacks any professionalism (in relative expensive restaurants you will find waiters who cannot in fact wait)