Over 50 percent of Romanians book holidays online, says HotelGuru.ro

Most Romanians document and make reservations for their summer vacation online, concludes a study conducted in July by HotelGuru.ro hotel booking platform. About 72 percent of respondents say they trust the online booking sites and 44 percent of them access between 2 and 5 such sites to read reviews of where to spend their holiday.

Most of the Romanian tourists prefer to travel during the summer, and the top favourite destinations are Romania, Greece and Turkey. Contrary to expectations, holidays in Bulgaria have decreased in popularity, only 3 percent of respondents looking to go on a Bulgarian coast summer vacation.

However, 42 percent of those surveyed say they go on vacation only once a year, while 13 percent of Romanians said they go on holiday whenever they find a special offer. As for time spent planning a vacation, the average time is between 1 month and 3 months for 29 percent of respondents, while 21 percent say they plan for leave half a year earlier.

For trips outside the country, the plane is preferred by 46 percent of respondents, while 38 percent say they prefer to travel by car. The coach is not so popular among the Romanians, only 15 percent of respondents preferring it.

About 60 percent of those polled said that the budget for a day of holiday in Romania is between RON 100 and 200 per person (between EUR 25 and 45), while 43 percent of respondents believe that a double budget between RON 200 and 400 per person (between EUR 45 and 90) is enough for a holiday abroad. Instead, holiday stay did not differ from that of a holiday abroad: between 3 and 6 nights.

According to recent data by the National Institute for Statistics (INS), in June 2015, compared to the corresponding month of the previous year, both the arrivals and the overnight stays in establishments with functions of accommodation increased by 17.3 percent and by 15.3 percent, respectively. The average time of stay was 2.6 days, with higher indices of accommodation registered by hotels (36.5 percent), ship accommodation spaces (28.2 percent), holiday villages (22.2 percent), hostels (21.9 percent), tourist villas and pre‐school and school camps (18.7 percent each) and motels (17.6 percent).

Interestingly, for half of the Romanians who answered the questionnaire, both comfort and interacting with the people and culture of the place they are as important when choosing a holiday destination. Moreover, the architecture of the places they visit is a very important criterion for over 68 percent of respondents in choosing destinations.

The study was conducted on a sample of 1,930 respondents from Romania who participated in an online questionnaire between July 29 and August 12.

HotelGuru.ro is an online booking portal that lists 1,800 accommodation units in Romania, out of the 145,000 accommodations throughout Europe, posted on the site. It is part of the Szallas.hu in Hungary, which generated bookings over EUR 25 million last year in Central and Eastern Europe.