Малобюджетные авиалинии идут на восток! УРАААА

Romania : Start It Up 21 September 2005With news that one of Europe's main budget airlines is to open a Romanian route this year, the country's tourism sector greeted a welcome change. On September 14, the multi-based Central European airline SkyEurope announced that it would be entering the Romanian and Bulgarian markets before Christmas. Flights to Bucharest are due to start on December 12, for as little as 25 euros one-way from Vienna-Bratislava, excluding taxes. This will come as good news to those who have been waiting for some sort of shake up in the sector. Direct flights to Bucharest mean that visitors wanting to spend an inexpensive city break weekend away will now be able to bypass the potholed roads that litter the country and enjoy the sights and sounds of Romania's capital. The hope is that now Bucharest will be added to the list of fashionable East European destinations. We look forward to bringing low fares to Bulgarian and Romanian travellers, as well as to positioning Bucharest and Sofia on the map of trendy tourism destinations, Christian Mandl, SkyEurope's chief executive, said when announcing the move. We are particularly pleased to launch these new flights before Christmas, to allow Bulgarian and Romanian citizens living abroad to reunite with their loved ones. The focus is clearly on the mass tourism successes of other East European destinations such as Budapest, Prague and the Baltic capitals, which have similarly been boosted by cut price airlines. Yet, if the hoped for tourists come, many in the industry are concerned that there remains a major question over both the quality and quantity of what they might find when they get there. In the 15 years since the 1989 regime change, the standard of many hotel facilities - which were seldom luxurious in the first place - has often fallen, with many hotels not living up to their official ratings. At the same time, there has been little investment in the transport infrastructure, with poor road and slow rail connections also making the country difficult to access and get around. According to the National Tourism Authority (NTA), this disability continued to show in the tourism figures for 2004. The 4.28m Romanians and 1.35m foreigners who took a holiday in the country that year amounted to only 52% of the total number for 1989, when Romania had been a star destination for tourists from the former Warsaw Pact countries. Now though, with low-fare air tickets coming into play, at least getting to Bucharest will be easier for the mass tourism sector. However, Romanians have some serious catching up to do in terms of the standard of accommodation and services if they want to compete with their southern neighbours. Romania may do well to look at Bulgaria's relatively successful tourism sector. Insiders claim Bulgaria has done so well because of a faster speed of privatisation, which pulled private capital in rapidly to revamp its Black Sea resorts.