The planning of the holiday trip by half a year in advance becomes a trend among Moldovans, who prefer to book in winter a ticket to the seaside for summer. IPN’s reporter talked about the advantages and risks of advance booking for travelling with a number of managers of Chisinau travel agencies.
Director of the travel agency TopVoyage Elena Fetescu said the price is the biggest advantage of early booking. Discounts can reach 35%. Early booking is the only method of finding free rooms in any hotel of any resort, of reserving better seats in the car and, surely, of getting rid of a problem. The only disadvantage is that something can intervene meanwhile and the person will be unable to go on the planned vacation. In such a situation, the money paid in advance is lost. The serious situations envisaged in the contracts signed by clients with tourism service providers are an exception. As regards the preferences of Moldovan tourists, these remain practically unchanged. Bulgaria, Turkey, Gere and Spain remain the most favorite destinations.
Mihai Ceban, manager at the tourism agency Panda Tur, confirmed that the price is the most important advantage of early booking. This can be by one third lower than during the season. Some operators offer packages that enable the persons to send someone else instead of them if something intervenes and they cannot go on vacation. The invested money is thus not lost. During the last few years, an increasing number of people have used early booking in the case of the summer vacation and the winter one as well. For example, the trips to the mountains are booked in August, while the interest in the summer vacation appears in November already.
Corina Andritski, manager of the agency Family Travel, said the offer during the season is not so varied as most of the rooms in hotels are booked early. Advance booking ensures a much more varied choice. The disadvantage in case of early booking is that a penalty should be paid if the vacation is cancelled. To prevent the risk of losing the money, the agency offers the clients an additional service – insurance. This enables the person who booked the vacation to get all the money back is something intervenes. Such an insurance costs up to €10.
This year the Moldovans, besides the annul leave, have eight more nonworking days: March 8 (International Women’s Day), April 17 and 24 (day after Easter and Low Sunday), May 1 and 9 (Labor Day and Victory Day), June 1 (Children’s Day), August 31 (Language Day) and December 25 (Christmas). Earlier, the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family proposed that May 8, June 2 and September 1 should be declared nonworking days for which budget-funded employees will work on other days, but the examination of the initiative was put off owing to objections stated by the Ministry of Education.
