Benefits for small and medium domestic producers of natural food and hand made products
Currently, local producers (individuals, families, households, small entrepreneurs) have the know-how, the knowledge of how to produce or manually produce traditional Romanian products; whether we are talking about food, about clothing, furniture, utensils, and any other objects, mainly textiles and wood.
A very small, almost insignificant, number of producers, out of thousands of households were able to enter the market and few of them have managed to achieve an acceptable profit. Unfortunately, their number can be regarded as an exception. We refer here to the domestic market at international level as we cannot be talking about a recognized market for traditional Romanian products.
The main reason that the Romanian peasant or the small or medium manufacturer fails to start successful businesses is the lack of a Romanian traditional brand, with all its elements.
The small producer has no access to entrepreneurial education in management and marketing. The vast majority of producers do not have the financial means to hire business consultants nor the minimal knowledge or the entrepreneurial experience to understand the market economy, even if they could afford paying a consultant.
Nowadays the small producer does not use marketing, an incredible fact for the times in which we live, for the European region in which he operates, nor is there a supply chain that would could take on his product to work with and build on national and much less internationally.
The occurrence of a global manager which is developing a brand dedicated to these types of products, which in turn starts the whole set of related and mandatory activities and projects, starting from business consulting and financial advisory services, including financing, standardization, marketing and creating a global chain of distribution, basically ensures a “good to go” tool for small producers, through which they can market their products.
Respecting the imposed standards through the Transylvania World licensing, the small producer benefits from the advantages of marketing, from the reputation of an international brand, without having to invest amounts which he would not be able to independently. His only concern is the production and product quality. Payment for these services is represented by the licensing commission, an insignificant fee, applied to the turnover, deductible only when selling products.
The payment of license fees, by all the licensees per total, covers the costs of a team of outstanding experts, workshops, activities, projects, partnerships and the entire process of global promotion and distribution. Virtually, each small producer can consider as having employed a mammoth structure working in his favor for an absolutely convenient fee.
Transylvania World focuses on a quality not quantitative market. The value of products placed on the market by the licensees includes the production or manufacturing costs for pure natural products, which is much higher than the one for unnatural products already on the market, the uniqueness traditional factor value, the licensing value and the profit for the licensee.
Transylvania World aims to help the small licensed manufacturers make profits comparable or higher than those of the most recognized manufacturers of similar products around the world, so that this activity becomes his core activity, bringing satisfaction and maximum economic revenue.
The benefits of local service providers, especially in the area of tourism
Like the producers of goods, providers of traditional Romanian tourist services lack the advantage of a dedicated brand. Romania has a general tourism brand, at most. To be able to highlight on an international level all the unique touristic opportunities Romania has, especially those belonging to Transylvania World, and to be able to fulfill them, not just propose them, we need to merge some key elements and embed a strategy for tourism in a much broader strategy which allows, by using the brand’s communication strategy, the unification of media power by online virality for touristic opportunities as well as other products and services.
Online virality assumes the existence of a critical mass of dissemination agents, a mass which related to Romanian tourism and taken individually is not large enough. To complement the basic needs of dissemination we need publicity and Romania cannot afford such investments at this point.
As shown in the section on motivation and brand potential, Romania can and should use the existence of a series of global non-proprietary brands to empower their media power in its own interest. Thus, not only will there be saved money (whereas they would have been invested in publicity and advertising), but a new existent and still globally unexploited chapter will be attracted towards utilization.
On one hand, by developing the brand, the activities and the Transylvania World projects, the tourism and collateral service providers will benefit from the advantage of strong centralized marketing, which will empower this media power of global non-proprietary brands.
Licensing tourism service providers, from agencies to accommodation units to all the entities that are directly or indirectly part of the proposal and delivery of the package tour, is based on standards developed by the Transylvania World association, which ensures the quality of the touristic product, respectively the quality of the brand assurance which targets the international tourist.
Just like in the case of producers, the licensing process includes elements such as funding the ongoing development of standards, assessment, consulting, issuing guides of good practice as well as the tool for promotion and selling touristic packages globally. Basically, the cost of licensing covers all the brand’s development and marketing costs, and it is comprised of absolutely suitable commissions, deductible from the turnover which in turn results of the benefits of using the brand.
On the other hand, by using the association’s research activity, through classification and standards, through a centralized analysis of the demand niche/offer, we contribute and develop alongside licensees new and unique touristic products, which offer maximum attraction and are basically “good to go”. Through the experience and expertise of Transylvania World’s team, experts and specialists, we supplement the scarcity of management and marketing felt when talking about tourism service providers, especially hostels and small traditional hotels.
Transylvania World’s offer of licensed services is addressed to foreign tourists and it will punctuate holidays for a few specific niches, it will utterly eliminate kitsch and it will avoid interacting with elements which harm Romania’s image. Basically we develop tourism packages in accordance with the brand’s market positioning and with the personality derived from the brand elements.
An important category of tourism service providers is represented by accommodation providers, for which Transylvania World is developing a specific standard, meant to distinguish between professional accommodations, conform to the requirements of a Transylvanian specific market, mainly characterized by rustic elements, and accommodations overshadowed by kitsch, lack of professionalism which characterizes Romanian tourism. Benefits for providers of quality services include their merging, unitary promotion, so as tourism related to the specified niches which Transylvania World and generally speaking Romania can offer, can become a powerful brand, part of Transylvania World’s brand.
Benefits for foreign suppliers of goods and services
Transylvania World, in accordance to Dacian mythology and Romanian folklore gives a historical sense to the different categories of products and services that have a direct or indirect connection with the term “Transylvania”.
Transylvania World products licensed as “Made in Transylvania” comply with the concepts developed by our association and with the required quality standards. Any product that includes the terms “Transylvania” or “Dracula” should reflect the historical truth or original mythology and point to the source, or to the association’s online concepts. Also, raw material, if any, or certain manual operations, must be of Romanian origin, guaranteed by the standardization developed by Transylvania World.
This way, through a strong brand image, through certification and licensing, the manufacturer’s end clients will receive assurance that there is a strong local connection between the product or service and Transylvania’s real territory or its original mythology.
By licensing, this direct local link differentiates between the tens of thousands of global products and services which in reality have nothing to do with the historical truth, most of them being manufactured in China, and the products which express the main affective reason for which they were purchased to begin with.
Therefore we offer a competitive advantage of great effect to the producers, and at the same time we fulfill our association’s mission, as the sole manager of a global Transylvanian brand.
Benefits of Romania’s local administration
All the above mentioned benefits are reflected in supporting local producers and service providers, in the start-up and the strengthening of local markets with an international target, whose economic potential is immeasurable.
Also, by carrying out the association’s mission, we tackle not only the local economic development issue, but also the preservation and promotion of Romania’s heritage issue, heritage consisting of the sum of local heritages and all the ethnogeographic areas from Transylvania and its neighboring regions.
The partnership with municipalities and county councils can help identify on one hand the local resources and on another hand, Transylvania World association is dealing with standardizations, classification, consulting and the construction of the global distribution chain.
This partnership is all the more important and interesting if we take into account that for its achievement irredeemable funds can be granted through European or other local, regional or international projects. Different types of financing tools, unused so far can be trained through this brand initiative, including Private-Public Partnership, recently adopted as a tool by the Romanian Parliament.
The team’s and work group’s structure and especially the partnerships with first class entities, the association’s social media channels and international network allow the identification of unique and massive types of projects, their management and successful implementation.