Romanian Tourism Ministry bets half of its budget on online comm

Cristina Blanaru Branding, Creativity, Digital & Media, Marketing

Tourism Ministry will allocate half of its communication budget for online: 49% for online communication, 32% for TV ads and 19% for printed ads.

Elena Udrea, Tourism minister, presented, on Thursday, the Strategic ad Operational marketing plan for Romanian Tourism from 2011 until 2015, compiled by Horvath HTL

Although the plan covers the time until 2015, the consultants recommended the budget to be spent until 2013.

For 2011-2013, the budget of Euro 72.4M is to be split as it follows: Euro 21.5M for each 2011 and 2013 and Euro 29.4M for 2012.

The communication budget will be Euro 13.2M in 2011, Euro 17.5M in 2012 and Euro 13M in 2013. The sales activities included in the strategy will need amounts from Euro 3.3M to Euro 5.4M.

For 2014-2015, the proposed budget is Euro 46M, from which the communication gets Euro 28.5M.

The marketing plan also proposes, for the following period, specialization and diversification of touristic products and services, the development of the six key products and the prolongation of the touristic season.

The actions aimed to promote Romanian tourism are maily targeted towards the following markets: Germany, Italy, France, UK, Austria, Russia, US and Hungary. Another actions will take place in Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Serbia, Moldavia, China or Japan.

Recently, Romania’s Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism intends to spend up to EUR4 million, without VAT, to advertise the national tourist brand on foreign TV channels. As Mediafax news agency informs, the campaign aims to promote Romania as a tourist destination, raise awareness of the country and increase the number of tourists coming from priority markets. Financing will be provided from European Union funds.

Romania’s tourist brand, under the slogan “Explore the Carpathian garden”, was launched on July 29, at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. The slogan will be used to promote Romania as a tourist destination in the upcoming years.

Also, Tourism Ministry officials held talks with Facebook officials regarding the options Romania has to promote on Facebook.