Romania’s Competition Council has started the first investigation on a possible break of competition rules in the tourism sector.

The authorities suspect that several tourism agencies have coordinated their policies in order to set up a minimum selling price for touristic packages starting 2013, as well as to maintain their status-quo.

The Competition Council has carried out unannounced controls at several tourism agencies’ offices. The investigated tour operators include Christian Tour, Happy Tour group, Eurolines, and Paralela 45, according to sources in the market cited by local Profit.ro.

The controls have mainly targeted charter operators that often split the seats in a plane. Most of the sold packages included holidays in Greece and Turkey.

editor@romania-insider.com