Agreement on development of inbound tourism, its reformation signed in Moldova

Chisinau, 14 March /MOLDPRES/ - More tourism associations from the private sector today signed an cooperation agreement on the establishment of a partnership for the development of the inbound tourism sector in Moldova.  

At a news conference, the head of the National Association for Rural, Ecological and Cultural Tourism, Svetlana Lazar, has said that the goal of the creation of this partnership was to substantially contribute to re-launching the tourism industry through the systemic, structural and complex reformation of the branch.

”The lack of facilities and of a friendly framework for the development of the rural tourism led to the missing of chances to open hundreds of tourism businesses, to de-motivation of small local producers and providers of services to get involved in serving tourists. By this partnership, we will promote the interests of these small  businesses in the rural regions,” Svetlana Lazar noted.     

The head of the Tourism Promotion Federation, Alexandru Filipschi, stressed that the tourism sector of Moldova needed a new approach.

“We notice than, during the 25 years of existence, this branch of the national economy, although described as one of major importance, has been in a chronic stagnation. So far, emphasis has been put on the outbound tourism, or this should be changed. The establishment of this partnership is the first step to this end. The increase in the internal and inbound tourism should be regarded as a national priority, or we believe that the number of tourists can increase ten-fold in the next five-six years, if we carry out the needed reforms. This will be our basic goal,” Filipschi noted.    

The agreement on partnership was signed between the National Association for Inbound Tourism of Moldova, National Association for Rural, Ecological and Cultural Tourism, Moldova’s Tourism Development Association, Tourism Promotion Federation of Moldova and the Centre for Promotion of Wine Tourism.  

Data by the National Statistics Bureau shows that the number of foreign citizens who visited Moldova in 2016 stood at 3.6 million citizens, up by about 18.9 per cent against 2015.

Most visitors came to Moldova from Romania, over 1.8 million, which means a share of 54.9 per cent, 970,000 were Ukrainian citizens and about 7.3 per cent of the visitors or more than 247,000 visitors, came from Russia. Foreigners prefer to come to Moldova by their own motor transport units: 84 per cent of the crossings, followed by those coming by plane – 14.3 per cent of the tourists.    

(Reporter N. Roibu, editor A. Raileanu)