STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABES-BOLYAI, NEGOTIA, LIV, 2, 2009 ANALYSIS OF TRAVEL AGENTS PERFORMANCES DURING THE ECONOMIC CRISIS - CASE OF CLUJ COUNTY, ROMANIA VALENTIN TOADER 1 , MAGDALENA VORZSAK 2 , CARMEN MARIA GUT 3 ABSTRACT. The economic crisis we confront at this moment affects the peoples’ lives and enterprises’ activity. In this paper we evaluate the impact of economic crisis on the travel agents’ activity. The peoples’ standard of living and the enterprises’ activities has a significant influence on the travel agents’ economic performances. We will base our analysis on two assumptions. Firstly, when the society standard of living is higher its leisure expenditures are higher and the travel agents have more clients. In opposition, in recession the amount of leisure expenditures decrease and the number of private clients of the travel agents is lower. Secondly, in the economic growth times, the number of business clients of the travel agents is rising, while in the recession times the business clients are decreasing. In order to verify these two assumptions, we will conduct a survey on travel agents from Cluj County, Romania. Using a questionnaire, we will collect the necessary data and by the statistical means we will process and interpret these data. In the questionnaire we will study the evolution of the peoples’ leisure expenditure and business clients’ expenditures on tourism services as reported to 12 months ago. Keywords: travel agent, economic crisis, economic performances Introduction The current global financial crisis affects all economic sectors, bringing lot of instability and uncertainty. Started from the housing sector, passing to the banking and financial sector, at this moment the economic crisis affects all parts of the real economy. This phenomenon affected also the tourism sector, where the private demand decreased and the number of tourist diminished. Romanian economy was also affected by the crisis as a consequence of the slowdown in the economic growth of the European Union. The impact on financial and banking sector was limited so far due to a prudent approach of the National Bank of Romania. But, in the real economy, the rise of unemployment and employees union demands accentuate. 1 Lecturer PhD, Faculty of Business, Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, valentin.toader@tbs.ubbcluj.ro 2 Professor PhD, Faculty of Business, Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, magdalena.vorzsak@tbs.ubbcluj.ro 3 AssistantLecturer PhD, Faculty of Business, Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, carmen.gut@tbs.ubbcluj.ro