Source: http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACK770.pdf, Enterprise Development and Strengthening Program For Romanian Micro, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (MSMEs)

1. RFA No. 186 – A – 00 – 03 – 00101 – 00 Final Report
EDS provided technical assistance and financial support of a three-museum, six week exhibition
of Maramures in Bucharest. Based at the Romanian Peasant Museum, the Natural History
Museum and the Museum of Geology, the event was entitled “The Country is Full of Countries -
Country of Maramures.”
With all three museums involved, the event helped to promote Maramures as a tourism
destination amongst tourists and expatriates. The following activities were supported as part of
the EDS contribution:
1. Temporary Exhibition at The Museum of the Romanian Peasant: “Maramures in the
Mirror,” an interactive event consisting of the three exhibitions at the three neighboring
museums;
2. Traditional Music Concert – two generations of fiddlers;
3. Printing an Exhibition Brochure, which was distributed free of charge together with a
unique entrance ticket for all three museums;
4. Hosting a Gastronomical Evening of Maramures Cuisine.
2.3.7 IT Interventions for Improving Tourism Promotion
Redesign of www.mturism.ro and www.romaniatravel.com
The National Tourism Authority owns and operates both a corporate website and a promotional
website located in Romania and other being promotional sites hosted overseas. Because of the
inconsistent image being portrayed between all sites, the lack of modern user interface and
information of poor quality on some, EDS suggested that the Authority update all the sites along
a common theme using modern Internet technology. The original assistance proposal drafted
was to be supported by the RITI Access Project (a USAID-funded IT-related program).
However, their involvement did not come to fruition and EDS was left with the obligation to
assist. While there were strong arguments in favor of supporting the initiative, EDS was
concerned with the apparent lack of commitment, involvement, and planning on behalf of the
NTA. Nonetheless, a was finalized with Kondiment SRL for the redevelopment of two websites
for the National Authority for Tourism. The first site, the NTA’s corporate site (www.mturism.ro)
was redesigned and updated. The second site, a consumer site (www.romaniatravel.com) was
also redesigned and the NTA hired a contractor to develop new content. The consumer site’s
redesign was based on recommendations made by the EDS IT component based on a study
they completed on best practices in national tourism websites.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
As more and more tourists research, plan, and purchase vacations over the internet, websites
aiming to capture and entice potential tourists must increasing design their sites around criteria
that results in improved search engine rankings. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a
process in which a website is analyzed by qualified professionals, who then issue a set of
recommendations aimed at increasing the site’s search engine rankings resulting in increased
traffic to the site. Due to the growing importance of search engine rankings, EDS sponsored a
select few Romanian tourism industry websites. The Sibiu Town Hall (www.sibiu.ro), ASTRA
museum (www.muzeulastra.ro), ANTREC (www.antrec.ro) and ARTCE B&B (www.bed-and-
breakfast.ro) websites were chosen for optimization consultation. The NTA website
(www.romaniatravel.com) and the Maramures County Council Tourism portal
(www.visitmaramures.ro) were also optimized as part of their design contracts. An RFP for the 4
sites was issued and awarded to KSD SRL for implementation (the individual work for every site
was quoted separately). The contracted company issued preliminary reports on each website,
edited a guidebook for webmasters, decided upon the keywords in Romanian and other foreign
languages and started the SEO process through the issuance of positioning reports. The
Page 56 of 128

2. RFA No. 186 – A – 00 – 03 – 00101 – 00 Final Report
websites were subject to the following processes: initial monitoring, personalization of pages
titles, descriptions and keywords, implementation of a friendly site architecture, a Google
sitemap added, written guidelines for webmasters developed and delivered, an RSS news feed
added, and the sites were submitted for inclusion to over 300 manually edited web directories.
Maramures County Council Tourism Portal (www.visitmaramures.ro)
EDS issued an RFP for the development of a tourism web portal for Maramures County Council
and Antiq Design, based in Brasov, was selected as the contractor. The site map was created
along with basic design work. The website’s content and photographs were developed internally
by EDS staff from Bucharest and Sibiu. The new website incorporated a large number of
activities that EDS completed in Maramures including: branding, asset mapping, traditional
recipes and cultural routes. The website is maintained and updated regularly by the Maramures
County Council Tourism Information Center.
Panoramic Tours of Bucovina - Collaboration with Panoramax
Panoramax, an IT company specializing in creating 360 degree virtual tours provided, free of
charge, 50 tours of the Bucovina region. EDS facilitated the visit of Panoramax to the region and
has passed along to all Bucovina stakeholders the information required to upload these tours,
free of charge, to their own proprietary websites. The tours can be viewed at
www.panoramax.ro/bucovina.
Dezvoltare_Turism_Romania@yahoogroups,com
In 2005, the EDS Tourism team started a yahoo tourism discussion group, which was
administered by EDS until the end of the project at which point moderator duties passed to the
executive director of the National Association of Travel Agencies. At the time of writing, the
group has 158 members and over 900 messages have been posted on the site.
Web Reservations International – Free Online Booking for Guesthouses
Web Reservations International (WRI) is an Irish company that enables real-time credit card
reservations at no cost to, and with minimal requirements of, the property owners themselves.
Once a property owner registers his property on WRI’s website, the property’s rooms/beds
become available for online booking through WRI’s own site and on over 1000 affiliated travel
websites.
Online booking of accommodations is the fastest growing avenue for tourists making room
reservations. Every year more and more tourists are using the Internet to plan their vacations
and online room reservation is a key ingredient in this process. By having the capability to
receive room reservations via the Internet local businesses stand to gain more exposure
worldwide as well as increase room-night sales. Western tourists, especially independent
travelers, prefer to book reservations online and are increasingly unwilling to make the extra
effort needed to locate available rooms via more traditional methods (travel agents, telephone,
etc.). Through the efforts of the EDS Program, guesthouses were encouraged to enroll with
WRI. 17 guesthouses, members of the Association for Rural Tourism in Transylvania (ATRT),
and 2 guesthouses in Bucovina, members of the Tourism Association Bucovina, have been
enrolled.
2.4 Increased Access to Credit
2.4.1 Access to Finance Workshops
Four EU Awareness training events were implemented in Maramures, Sibiu, Sighisoara and
Bucovina targeting small tourism entrepreneurs, guesthouse owners, and artisans. The syllabus
Page 57 of 128