TRAVEL AGENCY BUSINESS PLAN
ROMANIAN EXPERIENCE

1. The Business
Romanian Experience will begin operations this year and provide travel packages with upscale accommodations, gourmet food, and quality service providers to the clients. Romanian Experience includes hard-adventure travel packages and soft-adventure travel packages. An opportunity for Romanian Experience's success exists because the travel industry is growing and the national tourism is very well promoted lately.
Romanian Experience's mission is to provide customers with the highest quality outdoor adventure. The company is a travel agency that specializes in adventure tourism and travel. It will provide consulting and custom travel arrangements and packages. It is very important for the company to become the foremost provider of adventure travel to the people Romania. Romanian Experience's employees are outdoor adventure and travel enthusiasts as well as seasoned travel industry professionals. The company seeks to connect adventure travel newcomers and veterans with service providers, adventure activities, and accommodations that fit the client's desires, budget, and skill level. They exist to attract and maintain customers.
Romanian Experience will be a partnership in the town of Brasov, Romania and the company will have the headqurter in a rented office from a central building in Brasov. Romanian Experience start-up costs will include all the equipment needed for an office. The office equipment will consist of four computer systems, DSL router, printer, CD-RW, phones, copier, fax machine and installation of DSL and two phone lines.
For the begining, Romanian Experience will start with 5 persons, and because it will be a small organization, its employees will share in management duties and decision making. Requirements for all Romanian Experience employees include at least five years travel industry experience, knowledge and ability in the types of activities.

2. The Product or Service
Romanian Experience is a full service travel agency that specializes in adventure travel and provides recreational and business travelers with professional service and consultation. The agency will be concentrating on two types of packages: soft-adventure and hard-adventure travels. Soft-adventure packages include fishing, bird-watching, horse riding and photo safari, while hard-adventure packages contain helicopter-skiing, kayaking, white-water rafting, mountain biking, mountain climbing, parasailing. Romanian Experience has chosen these activities to allow the company to not be restricted by seasons, having trips occurring through the year.
This is a relatively new service on the Romanian market and that has its advantages because, like every new service it will cause curiosity and excitement. Romanian Experience seeks to differentiate itself as the premier adventure travel agency in the Romanian market.
Additional services include assistance with the travelling, providing access to top-of-the-line equipment and supplies, and a superior offering that includes access to better than average terrain and activities, accommodations, and entertainment. Romanian Experience can position itself as a niche service provider within the travel and tourism market and offer high quality travel packages for various sporting trips. The agency will serve the adventure travel market as a top quality, full service provider.
Romanian Experience has positionated itself as an adventure travel specialist. As unique features, all service providers will be high professionals with accomplished backgrounds. They will be medically trained, and evaluated for knowledge and ability to ensure safety and high-quality service. If quality falls, another provider will replace them. For the activities that require, we will hire local guides to accompany our professional guides and service providers.

3. Marketing
The company's target customers are hard adventurers and also soft adventurers. The average hard adventure traveler is 35 years old with some college education who is employed full-time. They are more likely to be men, single, belong to Generation X, and work in a professional or managerial job. Some of soft the adventurers have attended some college while a large part of them are married. Both soft and hard adventure travelers take an average of three adventure trips every five years. The former are likely to participate in several different types of activities while the latter are likely to engage in only one activity. Compared to hard adventurers, soft adventurers are more likely to take a spouse, child or grandchild and less likely to take a friend with them on a trip. Hard adventure travelers tend to spend more on trips than soft adventurers.
The five largest travel agencies in the Romanian market are Happy Tour, Eximtur, Aerotravel, Perfect Tour and Travel Marshal. None of these competitors have the combination of price, scope, or local focus that our company will be able to offer.
The travel agency market is competitive, and technology, namely the Internet and the systems developed for online reservations, have changed the way travel agencies operate. The Internet gives agencies and individuals the ability to perform travel related research. Discount airfare brokers have taken advantage of the Internet by offering tickets online at discounted rates. This has increased price competition. The reservation systems have increased the speed and efficiency of the agency-to-customer transaction. One notable trend in the travel industry is increased deregulation. Deregulation has increased the need for differentiation and has, in many cases, lowered the prices of airfare and other travel-related services. Additional trends include caps on agency commissions by many of the larger airlines, increases in adventure travel, and reduction of profit margins. The travel industry is highly fragmented. There are large national chains, small home-based businesses, and also consolidators on the Internet.
Romanian Experience's pricing strategy will be a major consideration. Much of it will be determined by market standards. Margins on all other products and services vary depending upon the provider but are expected to average 20%. The company will make every effort to maintain a competitive pricing policy. However, as Romanian Experience builds its reputation as the premier provider of adventure travel, it expects to earn the ability to charge a premium for its services.
For the promotion of the services, the company will pursue an aggressive marketing campaign. During Romanian Experience's first year of operation it will hold a grand opening and will organize and sponsor several athletic events. All employees will promote the agency's services to local athletic clubs. Negotiations with area health clubs have begun and additional promotions will likely occur through these strategic alliances. Specialty, rather than large national publications, will serve as media vehicles for Romanian Experience advertising. Local radio stations will also be used. Personal selling will occur, though phone solicitation will be limited. The company plans to occasionally station sales personnel in locations aroun the South-West area such as shopping malls. The company's goal is to develop personal familiarity between its employees and the community.
Romanian Experience's distribution strategy will focus on the target market in the South-West area to whom it will sell directly. Secondarily, RA seeks to establish distribution capability on the World Wide Web. Doing so will improve the company's ability to establish a national reputation.

4. Finance Romanian Experience's total start-up capital requirement is approximately $103,000. Start-up will be financed through the owners personal investment and a long-term note secured from the Romanian National Bank. * EXPENSES: These will be rent, office supplies, consultant's fees, insurance, utilities, etc. The largest start-up expense will be for computers. * ASSETS: Primarily cash and computers. * LOANS: An $85,000 loan has been secured from Romanian National Bank.