Bucharest is a good destination for conferences, business meetings, corporate events, says Brian Donnelly, which runs the company’s operations in 41 countries. Companies in Romania allocate budgets of half a million to one million euro, he added.
The highest budget allotted by a multinational in Romania amounts to almost EUR8 million, the same as the budgets of multinationals in Austria, the company officials said. They would not reveal the name of the said company.
FCm operates in 75 countries and its revenue stands at EUR5 billion in the EMEA, Asia and North America, Brian Donnelly said. Travel management companies provide such services as plane ticket and room booking, event organizing and consultancy for optimization of travel budgets.
FCm Travel Solutions’ representative in Romania used to be Prestige Tours. After Prestige Tours was acquired by Spanish investment fund GED and integrated into Happy Tour this year, FCm is represented by the latter now.
The Happy Tour Group, whose consolidated revenue is put at EUR62 million this year, covers all tourism market segments: corporate travel (the agency by the same name), luxury holidays (Travel House), online (Paravion) and tour operator services (Prestige Tours).
Donnelly says consolidation is necessary in the travel sector because companies are looking at the most complex travel budget management solutions now. As such they do no only demand plane tickets, but also accommodation, event organizing and may even ask for holidays.
There are about 3,000 travel agencies operating on the Romanian tourism market put at EUR500 million. The largest travel groups other than Happy Tour include Eximtur, Aerotravel, Marshal Turism and Paralela 45.
The bulk of revenue of the largest companies on this market comes from services provided to corporate clients.
FCm’s most important clients are those in the oil and gas, engineering and pharmaceutical industries.
Happy Tour, in partnership with FCm Travel Solutions organized 1,000 to 1,500 events for corporate customers this year on the MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and events) segment. Almost 80% of them were organized for companies on the local market. Asked by ZF how the euro zone turmoil changed the way managers travel for business purposes, Donnelly said companies were much more focused on cutting costs.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)