Romanian tourist industry has after two decades of great potentials - ended up in a state of pathetic incompetence and is strategically in a mess. Like anything else in Romania private financial interests force national and social interests off the agenda when the smell of swift cash is too tempting. Romania - with its huge and colorful resources, its beauty, its variance, its intelligence and rich culture – is the land where the very few stole the documents that gave them access to do whatever they gain something from. And 20 years of talking change has only caused frustration. The game of running a tourist business in Romania is like any other businesses in this country; a scam half legal, half exposed to bribes and bureaucratic nonsense forced upon anyone by the puppets who call themselves politicians.
So what is different this year? Nothing much, except from the fact that the big guys in the tourist business complain in public about less turnover after years of great profits. They look really worried when they appear on TV.
The fact is that this summer season at the Romanian seaside has not been that bad. The expert forecasts in April had the ringtones of a total disaster, indicating almost empty beaches and no tourists at all. All due to the worldwide financial crises that also has hit Romanians basically in the form of increasing unemployment.
Now at the ending part of the season it is obvious that forecasters were mistaken in many ways. Beach resorts like Eforie, Neptun, Costinesti and Vama Veche have been packed with people. The front page resort Mamaia also during weekends. Conclusion: Tourists came in numbers like before, maybe they stayed for a shorter time than usual, but there were crowds on all the Romanian beaches all right. When summer is hot - like the 2009 summer - the urban population flees the glowing asphalt in order to cool down on a windy beach - regardless previous plans of staying home. 150000 of them came during the peak weekend primo August according to a TV Channel that monitored the traffic jam on the highways leading to the coast.
So who are these tourist business people and why do the hoteliers complain loudly, suddenly showing their tired white faces on the tube regularly? I have tried to grasp their messages every time they air their worries, and basically it is like this: The tourists do not spend money any more. - Of course meaning the tourists do not spend money the way the tourist business elite want. We could of course say "the way the tourist mafia wants", but we will not - because according to the Romanian tourist minister the black tourist industry just represents 40% of the business - which leaves 60% of them with legal papers. Do you follow?
Back to the point: The tourists have changed their way of spending their holiday budget. Which again means that the tourists neither accept overpriced hotel rooms with poor service , nor waiters who cheat them on the bill. They prefer to stay with the old baba who offer beds overnight in her own apartment or house.
Families fill up their cars with food from the local grocery before going to the beach, because they are factors in a free market with competition and an ability to adapt. Not a market where things are controlled and agreed upon behind non-transparent curtains. And this reveals another aspect; there are winners in this wind of change blowing down trees in the Romanian tourist industry. The small grocery store, the cheap self service restaurants, the fast food restaurants with corn, donuts and fish plates - and those small hotels and motels that offer low rates with a friendly smile. And the old grandma who has some extras added to her pension by hosting guests privately of course.
One local kiosk and pension owner where I live had his clear words about this the other day. - "How do they dare criticizing their clients for not coming to them? - Why do they sound like victims? They have their luxury beds filled up with black or grey money, they own two or three villas, have five expensive cars and a network of secret connections to higher places and they cry because their profit last month is only 10000 euro and not 30000 euro? Because they are used to have their investments returned into profit after one season instead of thinking long- term? No, this is the summer when a level of sense and adaptation well overdue will force the Romanian tourist industry to rethink strategy."
It is easy to agree, and one should hope he will be right, but Romania is Romania, as a common saying goes when things cannot be explained logically right away. Another likely result of this summer may be that only the very powerful tourist mafia or the big chains survive, making it all full lottery pot next season for the very few and the very rich and very powerful. Then no common Romanian has gained anything from the change.
And this summer has proved another very sad aspect that seems totally forgotten by mass media for some reason or another: The rather cruel exploitation of young unskilled labor force by the local tourist barons. It has always existed but this year the use of right down slave workers has been openly exploited without any shame - apart from a few hours if the financial inspectors pop up and they cannot be bribed. All over the Romanian Riviera young people, many from the countryside - have been hired with promises of a fixed monthly salary ranging from 1000 - 1200 ron, fixed hours, a room for the nights, food and a legal contract. Almost without any exception these youngsters end up with 12 - 15 hours work each day seven days a week, no fixed schedule, no real formal work instructions, no common information of rights, food and room suddenly subtracted from their salary which is paid only half sum if lucky, if at all.
One trade union organizer we talked to in July and who obviously was not paid off by the employers, told us that he was sure 90% of the beach enterprises at the seaside neither pay salary regularly nor correctly. He claimed half of them even do not pay at all by delaying the pay-out so long that the workers with no pocket money in advance just have to leave back home empty handed - or with a private debt too big to be handled - after lending money from colleagues.
He listed an example of a waiter that had worked three months without a dime offered as a salary - just living on tips from a few generous clients, an income from which he had to give to the owner 60% as well. The big scam according to him - and workers we have spoken to - is the fact that many employers sign work contracts with all workers the first day, but the employer only sends a few of the contracts for registration. This again to avoid paying taxes which in Romania are so many, so heavy, so complicated and so stupidly expressed that only the poor pay them because they cannot afford paying someone who knows to get rid of them. In addition if an employer intends not to pay salary at all he cannot frame himself by issuing legal work contracts.
The last fact is not known to the worker until the obvious conflict is coming up later. Or when there is an official financial control and the owner is warned by phone calls from other bosses of enterprises en route - and the boss commands the majority of the staff to take a hike on the beach for a few hours. Leaving only the few registered workers behind when the official control takes place. If someone is caught working black - or there are other missing aspects with the business - of course penalties are issued. Sometimes even with great media attention and the use of the world SCANDAL, though that word is so frequently used by Romanian mass media that it really does not mean anything beyond the ordinary.
It happens of course because the official inspectors also need some results in their report files, in addition to the general Romanian desire of having a few quick bucks extra. It is quite evident that only a few of them are there to defend any public interest, more enjoying the wonderful position of having the possibility to check beachside mafia bosses with plenty of money – equipped with plenty of legal points to enforce in an environment based on the hope of not being caught breaking the rules during a few summer months.
Once a fine is issued after a theatre scene of loud voices and bad words, paying the penalty is often delayed by months and years in a legal process - or more likely another solution is found when control returns to see if corrections are made - a solution which often includes a form of sophisticated bribe in one way or another. In such cases both the public and the private mafia are half happy and let go of any further process.
The main sad point is that the workers again are the losers. EU reports say that Romanian workers are those who work longest hours in Europe and it is true. And even nobody says so, for less money and less human rights than elsewhere west of Danube. When a worker after three months work in the tourist field has only a minor part of his salary or nothing at all, he or she should of course complain. The trade unions in Romania are not defending anyone as their leaders are paid secretly by the employers so that channel is a lost case. But there are laws and there are plenty of offices where he seemingly would get some support. After all, Romania is officially a part of Europe.
But when you work black in Romania you are also fined along with the employer who hired you black. By having this law, there are no workers who dare to file a complaint as it includes a fine also issued to them as a hello – goodbye from the Romanian state.
If any decent government would get rid of this slave labor taking place all over Romania, they would of course abolish the fining of the worker and fine the guilty employer only. But they do not want to. And one can guess whose interests the top Romanian politicians represent and who gave them funds to enter politics in the first place.
The foreign tourists are avoiding Romania. A direct fall in numbers of visitors from abroad over the last two years is a significant warning sign since the rise in numbers in the beginning of the century indicated that the foreign hesitation towards Romania as a summer destination finally could be overcome.
While there in 2003 were eight charter flights weekly during summer from Scandinavian countries directly to the Romanian seaside, there is no flight at all summer 2009. When asked one of the largest charter agencies in Scandinavia Apollo said that Romanian seaside hotels simply were too expensive to make business - and that the hoteliers in resorts like Mamaia were not able to make realistic and stable deals over time. Some were not even interested. Advices from them on service and efficiency were not taken seriously either, was another point of frustration.
This negative development in Romania is quite remarkable since neighboring Bulgaria is a huge success as a holiday destination for Scandinavians and others since many years and still is. The climate is the same, the living standard comparable and the financial challenges almost the same. And Romania has per se more to offer than Bulgaria including a more understandable language to Western Europeans.
The reason may be simple. Romania and Bulgaria are regarded as budget destinations in many parts of Europe and have been promoted as such. The Romanian idea that any Western tourist is a walking bank box is of course totally wrong – apart from when the Romanian compares a western salary to a Romanian one. Many middle class families in the west really struggle to make ends meet at times and pick holiday destination that can be affordable.
When tourists to cheap Bulgaria return home they tell their friends that it was really cheap, good service and really ok, that is more worth than any official promo. When tourists to cheap Romania return home and say it was not cheap at all, the service lacking and that they were overcharged and cheated all the way from the taxi to the supper restaurant, that is more damaging than any international report on social problems.
If you work all year to have your five weeks off and you spend two of them in a place where you cannot relax because of petty crime and impoliteness, you simply do not spend time and money on such a destination the next time you have a choice. In Bulgaria they somehow have managed to think strategy in the tourist business. Strategy in a long term aspect and it has paid off. In Romania if there is a strategy at all it is just to make as much profit as possible in a very short period of time regardless any effect it may have over time.
The people who profit in the tourist business in Romania are to be blamed. And the problem is that they do not care whether they are to be blamed or not. They can do as they please because money rules wildly in this country - and they are in the business because of money and money only. Tourism as a national hospitality showcase or a national image creator is beyond their wildest dreams. The only external ideas they may have be how to handle any local official control coming up without suffering too much financially. And the strange attitude that they have the right to do whatever they like, the right to abuse their workers, the right to not care about standard or service in general.
And this incompetence and greed cause a chain of reactions. A worker who gets no real salary and work long hours is not motivated to offer good service. A worker who is desperate may find himself cheating on a bill or a payment just to survive. And this goes on and on. The professional and commonly accepted notion that you should care about your workers and keep them happy because it makes your business better and even more profitable seems to be absent in Romania.
A pretty tourist minister with idealistic intentions can walk barefooted along the Romanian beaches issuing statements on improvement or camp outside the town hall in Paris with promo songs about Romania on big TV screens - or pay thousands of euro to show Romanian sport stars boasting about their native and on CNN – but when reality kicks your bottom all the way every day at home, it is a waste of time and money. You may wrap your parcels in glossy papers, but when the parcels contain nothing the receiver will not remember the wrapping.
It should be easy to sell this country as a tourist destination. It has everything and is so beautiful. If there was a strong democratic and genuine supreme political power given the right tools and given the power to enforce a common goal and strategy for all actors in the tourist business, Romania could change and compete with any other destination. With respect and fair treatment to all who work in tourism, tourists would feel welcome - because feeling well is contagious.
tm
One should not express opinions everywhere. It applies in any case for bureaucrats working for government Boc – and the real boss Traian Basescu partly not shown in the governmental back rooms. 
I am not a Romanian, but I live in Romania. And I pay tax to the Romanian state, so I may voice an opinion on Romanian taxation. 
The fact that many seasonal workers at the Romanian seaside during summer are not paid properly - or not at all - after working weeks and months for the seaside barons, is overseen and a sort of taboo in Romanian mass media. So is true of the fact that only a few get any legal contracts verified - and the rather obscene law that workers desperate for an income hired black is fined the same way as the barons who exploit them by only offering black jobs. 
