Alin Burcea anunţă că Paralela 45 va fuziona cu o companie specializată pe turismul de incoming
Alin Burcea, CEO of the travel agency Paralela 45, revealed on Monday that negotiations are underway for a merger with a company focused on incoming tourism. This move aims to enhance Romania’s performance in attracting foreign visitors, a sector that has been underwhelming.
„Regarding incoming tourism, I can only share that we are in talks to merge with a company that specializes in this area within the Romanian market. I will provide more details at the appropriate time; for now, we are still in discussions, which will take about three more weeks. We need to enter this sector because Romania is currently lagging behind. Albania might soon surpass us. Our goal is to attract more international tourists to Romania; we need to push hard in the incoming sector. This should be a national initiative, but unfortunately, I am waiting for the next government to take action,” Burcea stated during a press conference.
On the topic of school holidays, which play a crucial role in tourism, Burcea expressed his desire for the Ministry of Education to adopt a model similar to Germany’s, where students have staggered vacation periods.
„I believe a discussion is necessary because we have been advocating for about a decade for holidays to be organized by regions or school cycles. I have reached out to the last 15 ministers on this matter. We generally support the idea of staggered vacations, as implemented in Germany, to avoid traffic congestion. I think the season allows for this approach, but the decision rests with the intellectuals of the country, all of whom are gathered at the Ministry of Education,” he emphasized.
Founded in 1990, Paralela 45 is among the top three travel agencies established after the fall of communism in Romania. As it celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2020, Burcea noted that the agency’s turnover is nearing one billion euros, which accounts for approximately 0.4% of the country’s GDP.
„I have calculated that we are approaching a billion euros in turnover over these 30 years. If we update the figures, we are looking at an annual turnover of around 30 million euros, which would total about one billion euros over three decades. This represents roughly 0.4% of GDP,” he pointed out.
This year, the company has continuously expanded its portfolio, offering hundreds of vacation programs. According to Burcea, around 1.8 million tourists have traveled with Paralela 45 over the past 30 years, with a turnover of 70 million euros at the end of last year and an expected growth of 12-15% in 2020.
New flight routes added to the agency’s offerings this year include connections from Cluj-Napoca to Bodrum, from Târgu Mureş and Oradea to Crete – Heraklion, and from Bucharest to Mykonos.
In 2020, Paralela 45 provides vacation packages to various destinations, including Turkey (Antalya and Bodrum), Greece (Chania, Heraklion, Corfu, Rhodes, Mykonos), Spain (Costa Blanca, Costa Brava, Costa del Sol, Palma de Mallorca, Tenerife), Italy (Amalfi Coast, Ischia, Sardinia, Sicily, Tuscany), Egypt (Sharm el Sheikh and Hurghada), Cyprus (North and South), Portugal (Cascais and Estoril), Tunisia, Mauritius, Maldives, Seychelles, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates.
A significant part of the agency’s offerings includes tours. Travelers can choose from over 160 excursions across all continents, from North America to Australia, and from Africa to Iceland. Air tours are organized with flights from Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Iași, Sibiu, and Budapest, complemented by bus tours that pick up tourists from various cities in the country. New for 2020, the tour portfolio includes cruises in the Greek islands and Turkey, Venice, China (Tibet and Yangtze), Japan and South Korea, Namibia, Senegal, the USA (Miami), Alaska and Yukon, New Zealand, and more.
„We began emphasizing tours after becoming an IATA-accredited agency, four years after our establishment. Our first tours were in Greece and were organized by bus, but as we expanded our partnerships with airlines, more distant destinations became accessible. For many years, we were known as ‘Paralela of the 100 Tours,’ and now we offer over 160 programs across all continents,” the head of Paralela 45 stated.
The tour operator currently operates through a network of 50 owned and franchised agencies, which has been steadily growing since 2003. The first two Paralela 45 agencies were opened in Bucharest and Timișoara.
Source: Financiarul.ro.
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