Revista de turism [615248]

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TOURISM IN T HE MIDDLE OF THE GLOBAL CRISIS

Associate Professor Ph.D. Ramona Ioana COSTEA
University of Agricultural Science and Veterinary Medicine Cluj Napoca, Romania

Abstract
The paper is divided into three parts. In the first part is presented the evolution o f tourism in Europe
during 2008 as indicated by data provided by Eurostat, in the second part is made a brief analysis of the
Romanian tourism development in the period August 2008 – January 2009. Both the European Union and
Romania reveal a decrease of th e turnover, a decrease of the tourist number and a decreased length of stay. In
the EU, crisis started to have an effect in the second part of the year. However, the number of nights spent in
hotels and similar establishments in the European Union showed a small decrease ( -0.5%) compared with the
previous year . In Romania, January 2009 brought a sharp decrease of net use of tourist accommodation bed –
place in hotels and similar units from 50.4% in August 2008 to 17.7% in January 2009. The last part of the
paper, presents various ways to decrease and eliminate the effect of the crisis in Romanian tourism. There are presented measures taken by the Ministry of Tourism, national prizes award of goods and services quality, methods to improve services quality by implementing a quality management system. For this purpose are
presented the certified companies by RENAR, which issue quality certificates and the number of firms from the tourism segment certified by them. The paper shows steps that can be followed to im plement a system of quality
management. ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 standards are the guideline standards that can be implemented by any firm.

Keyword s: development, quality management, ISO standards, measures, employment, projects.

JEL classification : O, R, Z

1. INTRODUCTION

The paper aims to briefly present the situation
of the tourism in Europe and in Romania at the end of
2008 and the beginning of 2009. For this purpose have
been processed the most recent data provided by Eurostat and INSSE.
The th eme was chosen out of the desire of
active involvement in an area of great importance for the evolution of Romanian economy and out of the desire to generate an alarm signal. In addition, this
paper presents and proposes measures that could be
considered t o mitigate the crisis effects. Regarding the
approach, I chose to take over and to process the latest data from official sources for a more appropriate knowledge of the current problem.

2. POLICIES AND STRATEGIES FOR
TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

2.1 Tourism sit uation in the European
Union
The demand for hotel services is split between
that for business and that for leisure. Business demand
tends to fluctuate with the economic cycle, as during
periods of recession businesses try to reduce their
expenditure. In a similar way, individuals are also
more likely to curb their spending on tourism related
activities during periods of low consumer confidence.
Europe is a major tourism destination and six
of the Member States are among the world’s top ten destinations fo r holiday -makers. As a result, the
tourism industry plays an important role in European economy. The economic potential and the
employment potential while presenting social and
environmental attract many investors and help to develop the European region.
According to the European Commission,
tourism accounts for 4% of the Community’s GDP. When the interactions with other sectors are taken into account, tourism’s contribution to GDP is estimated to
be around 11% and it provides employment for more
than 12% of the labour force, representing about 24
million jobs.
When we talk about tourism, we must take into
account the infrastructure, the environment, the sustainable development and the economic impact, so
everything links. The presence or absence of one of
the items entails an inadequate development of the sector.
According to Eurostat the European
Commission adopted in 2006 a new policy for tourism. The document contains some challenges that
finally will lead to a tourism change in the coming
years and tak e into account the particularity of
Europe: Europe’s ageing population; growing external
competition; consumer demands for more specialized tourism; and the need to develop more sustainable and
environmentally -friendly tourism practices.

Journal of tourism
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Percentage change in number of nights spent in hotels and similar establishments,
2008 compared with 2007
-5.00%-3.00%-1.00%1.00%3.00%5.00%7.00%9.00%
EU-
27BE BGCZ DK DEEEIEELESFRITCYLVLTLUHUMTNLAT PLPTROSISKFISEUKHRISLINO

Figure 1 – Tourism in Europe, first date publicized by Eurostat for 2008 Data source Eurostat

In October 2007 a new document was issued
by the European Commission " Agenda for a
sustainable and competitive European tourism", which
outlines the future steps for promoti ng the
sustainability of European tourism and further
contributes to the implementation of the renewed
Lisbon strategy for growth and jobs.
In 2008, the number of nights spent in hotels
and similar establishments in the European Union showed a small decrea se (-0.5%) compared with 2007.
Big differences are observed across the EU, from a decline of 4.8% in Cyprus to a growth of 7.7% in Slovakia.
According to EUROSTAT the economic and
financial crisis started to have an effect in the course of the year. In the period January to April 2008, the
number of nights spent went up by 1.6% compared with the same period in 2007, while a decline by – 0.5% was reported for the period May -August. In the
last four months of the year, the total number of nights
spent contrac ted by 3.2%. The main factor that led to
this decrease was a decrease of foreign tourists. The
accommodation sector seemed to be more affected by
the crisis than the overall tourism sector. The number
of holiday trips made by EU citizens went up by 7.1%
in 2008 but the growth was less favorable in the
second half of the year. Trips were shorter. A ir
passenger transport grew by 1.6% in 2008, but
operators have reported a decline in the last semester
(Demunter , Dimitrakopoulou,2009).

2.2 Romanian Tourism Dev elopment from
August 2008 to January 2009

During August 2008 – January 2009 the
turnover volume of firms from the tourism industry declined from one month to another, especially since
November. In October, the turnover volume registered by the travel agen cies and tour operators grew by
5.5% related with the previous month, but in December fell to 66.8% related to the previous month. Obviously must be taken into account several
aspects: the students summer holiday, the
parliamentary elections, the economic and financial
crisis and the fact that people prefer to plan their
holiday a few weeks earlier, etc.

102.4
91.787.4
63.69195.6 92.2105.598.9
66.878.785.7
020406080100120
aug sep oct noi dec ianTur nover vol um e indices of m ar ket ser ices r ender ed
from august 2008 to january 2009 regarding the
previous month
Hotels and restaurants Travel agencies, tour-operators, reservation service and
related activities
Figure 2

I believe that this decrease is not exclusively
due to the crisis but also to other factors mentioned
above.
If we report the August 2008 – January 2009
period to August 2007 – January 2008 period we can
observe a significant decline in the economic activity
of the travel agencies and oth er firms from tourism
industry.

99.8152.5
97.5107.6
83.6105.9
8081.6 77.2
51.9101
78.3
050100150200
aug sep oct noi dec ianTurnover volume indices of market serices rendered from august 2008 to
january 2009 regarding the same period from the previous year
Hotels and restaurants Travel agencies, tour-operators, reservation service and
related activities
Figure 3
In December 2008 the travel agencies turnover
volume went down t o almost 50% of the turnover
volume registered in December 2007. Although

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Indices of net use of tourist accommodation bed –
places
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55augseptoctnovdecjan
Hotels and similar units Specialized units Other typesJanuary 2009 is considered to be part of the crisis
period, hotels and restaurants turnover went by 1%
compared to January 2008.
The graphs below show the situation of arrivals
in the main establishments of touristic reception with function of touristic accommodation from August
2008 to January 2009. Of the total number of arrivals in January 2009 in the littoral resorts excluding town
of Constanța have been 1%, in the watering resorts
7%, in the mountain area resorts 12%, in Bucharest
and town country of residence excluding Tulcea 12%,
in the Danube Delta area and Tulcea 4% and in other
localities and other tourists routes 11%.

Figure 4

Figure 5

2.3 Indices of net use of tourist
accommodation bed – places

If in August 2008 indices of net use of tourist
accommodation bed – place in hotels and similar units
was of 50.4% in January 2009 was of 17.7%, as we
can see is half of the value reached in August.
Regarding specialized units (such as school camps) has gone down to 13.3% in December, increasing in
January to 13.5%.
Figure 6 – Indices of net use of tourist
accommodation bed -places Bucharest and towns country
residence excluding Tulcea
aug
19%
se pt
19%
oct
20%noi
17%dec
13%ian
12%Mountain area resorts
aug
25%
se pt
17%
oct
16%noi
15%dec
15%ian
12%
Other localities and tourists routes
aug
24%
se pt
19%
oct
17%noi
15%dec
14%ian
11%Litoral resorts, excluding
town of Constantza
sept
18%dec
2%ian
1%noi
2%oct
2%aug
75%
Watering resorts
sept
20%
oct
18%noi
15%dec
12%ian
7%aug
28%Danube Delta area including town of
Tulcea
se pt
25%
oct
13%noi
8%dec
5%ian
4%aug
45%

Journal of tourism
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Indices of net use of tourist accommodation
bed – places by tourism area

In the littoral resorts excluding town of
Constanța , these fell down from 64% in August to
8.2% in January, in the mountain area went from
36.5% to 18.7%, in the Danube Delta an d Tulcea from
50.9% to 10.5%, in the watering resorts from 70.6 to
15.6% in Bucharest and town country of residence
excluding Tulcea from 32.6% to 20.2% and in other localities and other tourists routes from 31.3% to 14%.

Figur e 7
Source: www.insse.ro

Watering resorts
70.663.660.955.729.715.6
0 20 40 60 80augse ptoctnovdecjan

Figure 8 – Watering resorts Bucharest and towns country
residence excluding Tulcea
32.636.336.332.522.220.2
0 10 20 30 40augse ptoctnovdecjan

Figure 9 – Bucharest and towns country residence
excluding Tulcea

Other localities and tourists routes
31.326.223.722.419.214
0 10 20 30 40augse ptoctnovdecjan

Figure 10 – Other localities and tpurists routes

3. SOLUTIONS FOR THE REDUCTION
AND ELIMINATION OF THE TOURISM
CRISIS EFFECT

From my point of view, one of the main
problems of the Romanian tourism is the quality of
services provided. I believe that improving them will
increase the employment rate, the tourist
accommodation bed – places, the turnover volume of
companies from the t ourism industry and the jobs
number.
Even though the current Ministry of Tourism
seeks to find sustainable solutions and tries to help
businesses and tourists, offering tickets for Romanian
holiday, even though they create a diverse range of programs they don’t make concrete steps in improving
the quality of services. There is a project issued in
2007 called “ Master Plan for the National Tourism
Development 2007 – 2026” which contains
recommendations in this direction.
According to the data presented in t his plan in
2006 in Romania there were more than 4700 units of
accommodation.
The main stipulations of the plan regarding the
improving of services quality are:
• Quality and safety control and the
development of high professional service standards
• With th e granting of licenses or registration
and classification to provide an acceptable standard
and the facilities and services offered to tourists
security.
• Keeping the records of hotels, motels,
hostels, touristic villas, touristic chalets, camping, ship
accommodation spaces, restaurants and travel guides. Mountain area resorts
36.525.522.620.524.818.7
0 10 20 30 40augse ptoctnovdecjan
Litoral resorts, excluding
town of Constantza
6418.68.2
8.5
37.413.3
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70augse ptoctnovdecjanDanube Delta area, including town of
Tulcea
50.931.724.21912.810.5
0 10 20 30 40 50 60augse ptoctnovdecjan

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• Collection of fees for licensing.
• Publication or contracting as regard
publishing annual lists of buildings registered or who
have been licensed.
• Ensure the inclusion in the website of the
Romanian touri sm containing updated lists of
registered accommodation structures and other
products and services authorized.
• Based on data, research and guidance
provided by the Department of Marketing the
Department should review and harmonize the criteria
for licensin g or registration and classification so that
the industry will be encouraged to maintain the
standards at the international market expectations
competition. [10]
In a functioning market economy with global
competition, Romanian tourism suppliers of service s
should be forced to take into account, in terms of
services quality and charges applied the needs, the requirements and expectations of the consumers
(Dinu, 2005).
Not only the Ministry of Tourism should take
measures but also managers and employees in t he
hospitality industry (travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, etc.) should take measures. They should try to raise the standards regarding the service quality and to practice lower tariffs, so that they maintain and
even to gain new customers for a consta nt increase of
turnover volume, profit and market share.
I consider that problem of the services quality
provided by tourist establishments in Romania and
their image is a matter of survival for them. This problem is mainly one of vision, values, goals an d
strategies. It is also a problem of codes of g ood
practice and high standards (Dinu, 2005).
Once realized and formulated the problem we
can go even further to resolve it. Thus, in order to sell high quality services, managers and employees of companies m ust create quality, to assess it and to
improve it. These steps can be made by implementing a quality management system conforming to ISO standards, which involves system planning, quality control and quality improvement of tourist services.
International Organization of standardization is
an organization which – since 1947 – develops
voluntary technical standards applied in almost all
industries, technology and business sectors.
International Organization of Standardization
developed models for quality sy stems by introducing
ISO 9000 standards, among which introduced
standards for food safety (ISO 22000), environmental management (ISO 14001).
In the figure bellow it can be seen the relation
between the market actors and how they influence each other. If o ne of the actors does not match his
place or is missing then we don’t have any more our
object of discussion.

Figure 11 – The concurrencies phenomena

Source: Managementul Calității 2008

In Romania the organisms with rights in
management activities and quality standardizations
are: RENAR (the national network of accreditation from Romania); ASRO (Romanian Association for
Standardization), Romanian Association f or Quality,
Romanian Foundation for Quality Promotion,
Association of accredited laboratories , the National Register of Auditors.
Between the RENAR accredited companies
that deals with quality standardization only six of them deal with the Standardizatio n in hotels and
restaurants. Five of them have their registered office in Bucharest. (SC CERTROM LLC M ăgurele, Ilfov 24
certified hotels and restaurants, SC AEROQ SA Bucharest 3 certificate for hotels and restaurants from
2303 certified company, SC SIMTEX –
CERTIFICATION BODY SRL Bucharest less than 15
certificates from 2379, TÜV Rheinland ROMANIA
Buchares t has not certified any firm in this field in
Romania, Romanian Movement for Quality Craiova
data not available, SC SRAC CERT SRL Bucharest,
SC Certind SRL from 3217 certificates only 1% are
for hotels and restaurants).
Accreditation provides confidence t o buyers
and to authorities and facilitates cross -border trade.
The ultimate goal is to complete a single accreditation and a single assessment of compliance.
A company which excels in providing quality
services can enter in the race for the National Jose ph
Juran Award for Quality.
Another program for competitive companies in
terms of quality is "Q Mark" the quality being considered a priority for the National Authority for Tourism and a component of the strategy for tourism
development in Romania.
The C enter for Quality services in Tourism and
Hospitality industry (INQUALTOUR) aims to take
over the Spanish system for the quality Q brand as a
standard of excellence in the field. The
INQUALTOUR is founded by 14 associates including: Romanian Society for Qu ality Assurance
(SRAC), Tourism Hotel and Restaurant Consulting Group (CG -thr) and the Romanian Association for
Rural and Ecological Tourism (ANTREC).
(Drăgulănescu, 2009)
In view of achieving the service quality there
are several steps that must be made. The table below
shows the synthesized phases. EUROPEAN AND
ROMANIAN NORMS
FOR QUALITY
Safety
Environment protection
Services guaranty
FIRMS
OBJECTIVES SERVICES
QUALITY COSTUMER
DEMANDS The concurrencies
phenomena

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Table 1 – Stages achieving service quality

Stage The name of the
stage Activities
1. The Concept of
quality Marketing activities
Comparative studies
The competition study
Improving existing services
Setting the costumer
demand
2. Designing quality Technical specifications for
services
Develop instructions and
procedures
Software
3. Quality Assurance Creating an duties note
book
Quality control plans
Designing and
implementing the quality
management system
4. Achieving quality To follow the achieving of
quality prescribe by the
production factors
5. Quality control The supply control
Metrological assurance
The Services control
6. Quality evaluation Quality costs analysis
Analyze how is made the
quality system of organization and leading
Application of the
analytical methods and
quality evaluation
7. Quality
improvement Improve the quality
Improving the quality
characteristics
Improving the organization
structure and quality
management

Source: ( Albu Angela, 2008)

EN ISO 9000:2000 standards was took over in
Romanian standard terminology as SR EN ISO 9000:2001 entitled “Management Systems of quality. Essential principals and vocabulary "and defines "the ability of a range of intrinsic characteristics to meet
certain requirements”. According to the standard the
quality term can get a grade (mediocre, good and
excellent) according to the degree of requirements
satisfaction take under consideration.
According to SR ISO 9004:2-1994 terminology
standards “Quality ma nagement and quality system
elements. Guide service” (Part 2) the service is the
result of some activities carried out by a service provider -named performer -in order to meet the
customer needs, both in customer -supplier interface
and by the supplier internal activities.
According to ISO 8402-1994 the quality
planning includes the activities that determine the objectives and requirements regarding the quality and the requirements for implementing quality system
elements (Albu , 2008) .
4. THE ISO 9000 STANDARDS FAMILY

SR EN ISO 9000 (SR – Romanian standards,
EN – European standards, ISO – International
Organization for Standardization)
The ISO 9000 standards family can be
implemented by any companies of all types and sizes
for the operation with effective sy stems of quality
management.
This family forms a coherent set of standards
of quality management system (QMS) who facilitate
the mutual and internationally trade nationally.
The next standards define the terminology for
the QMC:
• ISO 9000: 2006 (ISO 9000 issue in 2006) –
describes the fundaments of the QMC and name the
terminology applied by this system.
• ISO 9000: 2001 replaced by 9001: 2008 on 14
November 2008 – contains the requirements for the
QMC and addresses mainly to organizations that have
to de monstrate the conformity assurance with the
clients requirements and with the body of certification.
• ISO 9000: 2001 – provides guidance regarding
the effectiveness of the QMS. It aims to improve the company’s performance and the satisfaction of all
stake holders.
• ISO 9004: 2001 – quality management
systems. Guidelines to improve the performances
• ISO 19011: 2003 – provides a guide for audit
quality and environment.
• ISO 10005: 1999 – provides guidelines to
assist organizations in developing, analyzing,
accepting and reviewing the quality plans.
As mentioned above from November 14 ISO
9001:2006 standard has been replaced by ISO
9001:2008, which entails a series of changes.
Until 14 November 2010 will no longer be a
certificate issued under the 2000 edi tion, and the
certificates issued with reference to ISO 9001:2000,
must have maximum validity of up to 14 November 2010. No other audit made after this date will be
conducted according to the edition of 2000. Till July
1, 2009 new customers can opt for qua lity
management certification according to ISO 9001:2000 or according to ISO 9001:2008. Organizations already
certified under ISO 9001 SRAC have a period of two
years to make the transition to 2008 edition. The transitional period will end on 14 November 2 010.
ISO 9001 is generally aligned with other
management systems such as ISO 14001 – (Systems
for environmental management), ISO 22000
(management systems of food safety), to increase the
compatibility standards.
ISO 14001 provides requirements for the
system of environmental management, applicable to
any organization which aims:
• Implementing and improving
environmental management system;
• Ensuring the system compliance with its
environment policy;

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• Demonstration of system compliance with
this standard;
• Certification / registration of the system
with this standard;
• Making a self -assessment or his own
responsibility shifting of the system conformity with
this standard . (Dumitrașcu )

5. CONCLUSION

According to data supplied by EUROSTAT the
number of nigh ts spent in hotels and similar
establishments in the European Union showed a small
decrease ( -0.5%) compared with 2007 the main reason
being the crisis.
According to data provided by the National
Institute of Statistics, in Romania the crisis was felt
especially in the latter part of 2008 and early this year. One of the measures that are necessary to be
taken to reduce the effects of the crisis is improving
the quality of services provided. After consulting
databases containing approximately 15,000 Romani an
firms certified in quality management and
environmental management, I found out that less than
100 of them belonged to the tourism industry (accommodation units, restaurants, travel agents).
Almost all bodies are now taking measures, but
lack of fundin g, uncertainty of the next day make
things stagnate and events march back. The signals
from the last weeks indicate a greater involvement of
the Ministry of Tourism in economic activity of this sector.
There were created new programs that
encourage the Ro manian tourism, gathering the
economic relations between the actors, the degree of
involvement is greater. Prices seem to decrease but the
problem of the quality of services provided remains .

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