Influence of membership in European Union on the Romanian travel agencies.

Maniu, Laura ; Marin-Pantelescu, Andreea ; Firoiu, Daniela 等

1. INTRODUCTION

Romania, a state situated in the south-east of Europe, with a rich and various tourist potential, is part of that category of countries rich in tradition and experience in the field of tourism. Obviously, the economic state, and the socio-political events have greatly influenced Romania's position not only on the European tourist market, but also on the global one (Ioncica Maria, 2006).

Our country is a member of the European Union since the 1st of January 2007. This date marks the end of the fifth wave of extension of the European Union. The request to adhere to EU was made on the 22nd of June 1995, and the political decision regarding Romania's adhesion, together with Bulgaria, was taken in 2006, when the date of 1st of January 2007 was confirmed as the official date when Romania became a member of the EU. Romania is the seventh country as importance in the EU, ensuring 2,070 km of the external frontier of the Union.

Along with out country's integration in the European Union, the competition of the other members has extended on all plans, including the tourist field. To face the strong competition, our country has to create attractive holiday packages and to offer them with the help of travel agencies.

Taking all this into consideration, the present paper attempts to do research on the impact that becoming a member of the European Union has on the activity of travel agencies in Romania. In order to achieve this objective, we have analysed the influence that becoming a member of the UE has on the sales volume of the travel agencies in our country and, with the help of the Chi-Square test, the correlation between the size of the agency and the sales volume owed to becoming a member of the European Union.

Research carried out in the domain has studied the issue of becoming a member of the European Union (Carbaugh, 2007) and its effects on the economic field (Porter, et. al. 2008). As far as Romania is concerned, aspects linked to this membership and the evolution of the activity of travel agencies has been analysed by the following authors: Munteanu (1997), Soca (2007), Marin-Pantelescu&Maniu (2008).

Tourism and the involved economic activities represent the most important sector of world economy. Nowadays, tourism is the domain with the most impressive dynamics, being actually a global economic stimulant. On the other hand, tourism is also the most important engine of world economy (Firoiu, 2008).

As far as Romania's tourist market is concerned, in 2007 (at the time we made the research) it was estimated at 800 million euro. The number of Romanian travel agencies reaches 1000 (ANAT, 2008), and on the first three places, according to their cashing, we find Paralela 45 travel agency (52 million euro), Happy Tour travel agency (51 million euro) and The Eximtur travel agency (with 40 euro in 2008).

Knowledge in the domain of membership of the European Union and the activity of the travel agencies is very advanced, with studies in the field offering a large diversity of information and marketing research.

The present study brings an element of novelty and is of topical interest now when the Romanian travel agencies are facing serious competition from other countries that are members of the European Union and have to prove that they can still be competitive.

2. METHODS PROPOSED FOR DECISION MAKING SYSTEM

The purpose of this research was to study the activity of travel agencies and their position on the national and international market in 2008, in the context of Romania's EU membership.

The main objective of this survey was to determine the impact of Romania's EU membership on the activity of the Romanian travel agencies.

The survey took place at the Romanian Travel Fair, the 20th edition, organized by Romexpo in Bucharest, between 23rd-26th October 2008, using a questionnaire with 23 close and coded questions. The sample basis included travel agencies from different areas in the country that have participated in the fair.

The size of the sample basis: knowing that the total number of the agencies that are members of the National Association of Romanian Travel Agencies (ANAT) is of 1000, the sample volume was established using the following formula:

n = [1,96.sup.2] x 50 x 50/[5.sup.2] + [1,96.sup.2] x 50 x 50/1000 = 9604/25 + 9,6 [approximately equal to] 278 (1)

The profile of the travel agencies: as far as the size of the agencies is concerned, 45.5% of the surveyed agencies appreciated that they were of small size, followed closely by medium-sized agencies (40.9%). Large travel agencies represent a percentage of only 13.6%. The market of the agency: 68.2% of the surveyed agencies have activities on the international market. The most significant weight on the income of the agencies is supplied by the following operations: outgoing 70%, incoming 16.7 and domestic tourism 13.3.

As far as customers are concerned, 68.2% of the agencies focus on high income customers, 27.3% on medium income customers, 22.7% on no special category.

Limits and constrains in carrying out the research were linked to the determined period in which the questionnaires were applied (4 days), and thus the questionnaires that had lacks or contained errors were declared null. In addition, there were some organizational restrictions and thus the compromised questionnaires were eliminated because of different considerations such as a large number of no-responses, or the suspicions about the way they were obtained. In spite of all this, it can be stated that the level of representativeness is high although some insignificant errors may also be found.

3. THE RESEARCH RESULTS

First we studied the influence of Romania's EU membership on the sales volume of the agency. Thus, two thirds of the agencies (68.2%) consider that Romania's EU membership has a strong and very strong influence on their sales volume.

The influence of Romania's EU membership on Romanian travel agencies has had both advantages and disadvantages. Among the advantages we can enumerate the following: Europe is the most important destination in the world (60% of world tourism); a strong wish manifested by the Europeans to discover tourist destinations in the Eastern countries; a larger market of consumers, including tourists; a fast development of the low-cost flight market in Romania; no control at the frontier, traffic fluidity; the prospect of the development of road, railway and airport infrastructure, financed with European money and, last but not least, higher competition with positive effects on tourists.

Among the disadvantages we can enumerate the following: the facilities, meaning hotels and restaurants, are not ready for the competition with the countries in the area; the infrastructure (especially the roads) is not developed enough; high taxes on the labour force have had as an effect the migration of the skilled employees to other markets and the inability to agree on commercial behaviour codes between hotels and the travel agencies, which is a strong barrier in the way of the appropriate functioning of the Romanian tourist market.

Non-parameter correlations: we have used the association coefficient based on the Chi-Square to test the correlation between the size of the agency and the influence of Romania's EU membership on the sales volume.

The calculated value of [chi square] was 56.8 while the table value for (3-1)(5-1)=8 degrees of liberty is 15.51, 20.09 and 26.13, respectively, for the three levels of probability. It can be noticed that the calculated value of [chi square] is bigger than the three theoretical values of the probability levels. This proves the significance of the association between the two variables.

The association coefficient proves that the link is of medium value.

[C.sub.A] = [square root of 56.8/300 + 56.8] = 0.4 (2)

We can conclude that there is a significant link between the size of the agency and the influence of Romania's EU membership on the sales volume of travel agencies, but the intensity of this link is not extremely strong.

The fact that Romania became a member of the European Union has a strong and very strong impact on the sales volume of medium and small travel agencies because the competition has forced these companies to improve the quality of their offers, to meet the European standards and to implement quality management at all their levels of activity.

4. CONCLUSION

Travel agencies, the fundamental link of the institutions that cover the field of travel and tourism, offer counselling on travelling and act as agents in organising travel arrangements in the form of transport services, accommodation, car hire, circuits and travel insurance.

In the context of becoming a member of the European Union, the competitiveness of tourist services has become a priority, possible only due to the quality and diversity of the services provided.

We conclude that the impact of Romania's EU membership on the activity of the Romanian travel agencies is very strong. Romania has to follow a process of permanent quantitative and qualitative renewal of the offers that come from the travel agencies in order to be able to deal with the competitiveness that exists on the European Union market.

According to the results of the research on the effects of becoming a member of the European Union, this situation has a strong influence on the sales volume of travel agencies in Romania and this is a chance that our country should definitely seize and take advantage of at the maximum.

Research in the domain has to be continued in order to notice the evolution in time that the status of being a member of the European Union has had on the activity of travel agencies in our country.

5. REFERENCES

Carbaugh, R.; (2007). International Economics, Publisher Thomson South-Western, ISBN 032-458-148-3, Mason, Ohio, United States

Firoiu, D.; (2008). Industria turismului si a calatoriilor (Tourism and travel industry), Publisher Prouniversitaria, ISBN 978-973-129-300-4, Bucharest, Romania

Ioncica, M.; (2006). Economia serviciilor abordari teoretice si implicatii practice (Service economy theoretical approaches and practical implications), Publisher Uranus, ISBN 973-7765-26-5, Bucharest, Romania

Marin-Pantelescu, A.; Maniu, L. (2008). Analysis of Factors Affecting the Decision To Purchase Holiday Packages by Tourists Through Travel Agencies, Annals of DAAAM for 2008, 22-25th October 2008, Trnava, Slovakia, Vol.19, No.1, ISBN 978-3-901509-68-1, ISSN 1726-9679, pp. 0791-0792

Munteanu, C.; (1997). Tranzacpii comerciale international (International trade), Publisher Economica, ISBN 973-9198-87-2, Bucharest, Romania

Soca, D.; (2007). Restructurarea serviciilor de piata in vederea alinierii Romaniei la standardele UE (Restructuring services market to align Romania with EU standards), a XII-a Session of Scientific communication of teaching, Romanian-American University, Publisher Prouniversitaria, ISSN 1843-178X, pp. 506-510, Bucharest, Romania

*** (2007) http://www.anat.ro, Association of Romanian Travel Agencies, Accessed on: 2009-05-31

Fig. 1. The influence of Romanian's EU membership on the
sales volume of the travel agency

Strong 50,00%
Very strong 18,20%
Weak 9,10%
Very Weak 13,60%
No influence 9,10%

Note: Table made from pie chart.