New royalty system could destroy Romania's spa tourism

Accommodation prices in Romania’s spa resorts could increase several times and the local spa tourism would be destroyed if the new royalties for concessions of mineral resources, oil and hydro minerals were approved in the form proposed by the Government, Nicu Radulescu, president of the employers' organization of spa tourism in Romania (OPTBR), told News.ro. The draft law is currently in public debate and has been posted on the Economy Ministry’s website. Operators should pay to the state budget a fee of EUR 1 per cubic meter of extracted geothermal water, EUR 2 per cubic meter of therapeutic water, EUR 3 per cubic meter of medicinal water and EUR 4 per cubic meter of mineral water and spring water, according to the draft bill. "If this royalty system is approved, we will no longer be able to cope with it, given how much we consume. The profit margin is already very small,” Radulescu said. Nicu Radulescu owns a hotel in Baile Tusnad and says that if the new values were approved, he would pay a 40 times higher price for the geothermal water consumed. The prices in spa resorts have remained unchanged in the last years, and spa tourism is the tourism industry with the highest growth, he added. editor@romania-insider.com