Schengen Visa Holders Can Stay in Romania for 180 Days
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According to Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, starting February 1 of 2014 holders of multiple-entry Schengen visa will be able to stay in Romania up to 180 days for half a year. The Schengen visa used to allow only transit travel through the country, with the maximum stay time of 5 days.
According to Lyudmila Larkina, Director General of ‘Strop’, the tourist flow to Romania will, without a doubt, rise thanks to this measure.
“Sure, the decision is a bit of a late bloomer, but such is the mentality of Romanians – they are not too eager to increase the foreign tourist flow to their country,” she said in an interview with TRN’s correspondent. “For them, personal freedom, clean environment, wine and music take precedence over the money from tourism. That is why, despite having started off in the same position as Bulgaria 20 years ago, Romanians have had less success moving tourism industry forward, and now their sea resorts fall short in comparison to those of Bulgaria.”
According to Larkina, the company’s tourist flow to the country has remained level for the past few years, with excursion tours selling best.
“The ‘roster’ of excursions in Romania is truly great. They are much more interesting than the ones in the neighboring Bulgaria,” she said. “There are lots of unique historical and cultural monuments on the territory of Romania, many of which have been included in UNESCO’s List of World Heritage Sites. The must-see places are the medieval cities Braşov, Sighişoara, a magnificent royal castle Peleș in Sinaia, Bran Castle and Bucharest. Excursion tours are usually organized from spring through November and last for 5-7 days. There is also good demand for beachfront and recreation programs.”
General Director of tour operator ‘Jivie Kluchi’ Pavel Borodin also expects the tourist flow to Romania to grow.
“A few years ago the Romanian government permitted transit travel through their country for Schengen visa holders. Now, the time of stay has been extended to 180 days. The extent to which tourism business will benefit from this is still unclear, since many tourists will organize their own programs,” he told TRN magazine.
According to Borodin, last year Jivie Kluchi sent about two thousand tourists to Romania, which is a bit fewer than in 2012. He attributed the lower tourist flow to the fact that the operator was unable to organize its usual annual round-trip charter flights to Constanța due to the unavailability of small planes on the market.
The General Director of Jivie Kluchi also said that beachfront tours and the combination of seaside holidays and recreation programs were enjoying the most demand in the company. One of the places where they can be combined is a seaside resort Eforie Nord, which houses the unique Techirghiol Lake with concentrated salt water and sapropelic muds. The lake’s healing properties are often compared to those of the Dead Sea.
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