The first vice-president of the Romanian Tourism Employers' Federation (FPTR), President of the Mamaia Employers' Association, Nicolae Bucovala, said on Wednesday about the draft law on tourism passed by the Government that specialists in the field are not consulted by those in power, arguing at the same time that someone who "has not even managed an apartment or a villa" cannot head the relevant ministry.
According to him, business operators want to manage the resorts where they operate.
The FPTR Executive Vice-President Dragos Raducanu also claimed that the new draft law on tourism did not take into account the observations made by the employers' associations in tourism.
"This is a tourism law in which our observations have not been taken into account. We agreed with a tourism law but that law was mutilated," said Raducan.
He added that "misinformation is used in the new tourism draft law and that the stakes actually are "who manages the money."
"For example, we would not agree with planting flowers but we would prefer public lighting at the beginning. We want this money to be managed, controlled also by us, those who give it, which has not happened so far. This provision, this mutilation of the law on tourism, gives the mayors the right to decide in case we do not agree with the decision they make," the FPTR executive vice president said.
The new draft tourism law, passed by the Government on Wednesday, includes new "mystery guest" control methods and the decentralization of some competencies, said Tourism Minister Bogdan Trif. He explained that the Destinations Management Organizations represent a partnership formula between local public authorities and the private sector that will set promotion priorities and how the special promotion fees charged by authorities from hotel owners and tourism business operators will be spent.
AGERPRES