Romanians want local seaside holidays, but require hotel safety precautions (survey)

Over 78 percent of Romanians want to return to the Romanian seaside this summer despite the coronavirus pandemic, found an online survey conducted between May 10 - May 19, 2020 by the online agency Litoralul Românesc.ro on a sample of 1,181 respondents.

"The special measures taken by hotel owners are the most important criterion for the tourists choosing their seaside stay and of these, the majority of the polled said they would feel safer with disinfectant dispensers installed for guests and staff, staff wearing masks and children's playgrounds being disinfected," the survey reveals.

In the opinion of the respondents, the most effective measures hotel owners should take are installing disinfectant dispensers (88.2 percent of the respondents), staff wearing protective masks (70.4 percent), disinfecting children's playgrounds (62.3 percent) and having a plexiglas barrier mounted at the reception desk.

Also on some tourists' demand list are disposable bed linen, giving up beach mattresses, room disinfection after every guest visit, checking the temperature of staff and guests daily, meals for no more than four people, in-room meal service, distance between sunbeds and between tables.

Asked what their main reason for choosing a stay at the local seaside instead of a foreign beach destination would be, 48 percent of the participants in the survey said they prefer holidays in Romania in general, and 17 percent - that they feel safer in Romanian Black Sea resorts. For 15.3 percent it is important being able to get to the sea with their own car, the closeness to home matters for 10.3 percent, and 7.5 percent of the respondents feel more protected because they don't have to cross the border.

Litoralulromanesc.ro owned by the Constanta-based company Creative Eye SRL, running on 100 percent Romanian private capital, is the largest holiday retailer for Romanian Black Sea resorts both in terms of tourist numbers and sales.