Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Booking A Romania Tour: A Short Note to Make All Aware

We're in an advanced stage of finalizing the booking a private tour of Romania for this coming Fall. Party of two, been to 70+ countries and counting. Airline tickets purchased back in April. Looking for a classic (not academic though), cultural tour with a guide with added days in Bucharest at the beginning and end of the country tour.

During our six-week research we found the following characteristics of the Romanian private tour market and this refers solely to the Romania-based agents.

1) most of the local agents declare a number of years of presence on the market / expertise they can not prove. And are those for real ? We came across an agent proclaiming 10 years of experience "in tourism", he could not prove beyond just a couple of insignificant day trips from Bucharest done in 2016. We got an angry e-mail admonishing us for asking for too much.
Fake / fictitious years of experience: www.booktoursromania.com

2) a number of agents show on their websites so-called "reviews". Again, are those for real ? Reviews all sounding the exact same and signed by "Fadl from Mumbai" or by "Gaku from Ankara" stating they loved their guide and they "made pictures". This is a dangerous and unfair practice.
Fake / fictitious reviews: www.rolandia.eu

3) confusing and unjustified differences in price for the same number of days of the tour, from one agent to the other. This is a regular occurrence but in Romania you're looking at a whopping 50% more or $800 to $1,000 extra per couple. We eventually got the explanation of the local "value for money concept": more expensive agents are usually either third party re-sellers of tours or tour brokers having no real means to run the tour except for outsourcing. As in any country, competent tour companies would have better rates overall. Do check prices and check carefully. You may save the cost of your airline ticket.

4) took us some time to realize what itineraries were the "original" and what were second-hand copies. It only became obvious after a while, however not really knowing the destination it takes time and patience to compare with the map in hand. Avoid any re-sellers of duplicated / transcribed itineraries.

5) a final word of advice after spending the last six weeks getting to understand a confusing Romanian local tour market: if you're looking to book a country tour (we're looking at a total of 14 days not counting the travel days) it's best you avoid any one-day-trip agents. Focus on the ones doing extensive tours to all areas of the country and providing a national guide instead of a local guide. Ask for references that can be checked directly and get in touch with the respective people.

We will soon make our decision as to who will operate our private tour of Romania and promise to publish a full report upon return in the second week of October.

Michael