The Gura Portitei Holiday Village had a 70% occupancy rate in July, lower than in previous years, when it reached 84%, as the start of the tourist season in the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve (RBDD) was weak, against the background of the war in Ukraine and rising inflation.

The wild beach near the resort is increasingly popular with tourists, although camping is banned by the RBDD administration.

The manager of the holiday village, Gabriel Ditu, told AGERPRES that this year the accommodation facility he runs offers visitors 40 new rooms, and all the rooms on the island have been completely renovated.

"Mainly, I believe there are a lot of Romanians who go abroad, it's also due to the purchasing power that has decreased lately, but also to the idea of war that is on our border, although we didn't feel it at all, because we are farther from the border," Ditu explained.

One of the investments made by the tourist facility is located next to the wild beach in the south of the developed area and is in fact a sanitary unit for people camping illegally. Access to the new sanitary unit is based on a QR code and a ticket for four entries per day costs 25 RON. However, tourists sleeping in tents on the wild beach are not pleased with the new fee, especially as the QR code receipt is unfamiliar to them.

"We've been coming here for 20 years. Everything has changed a lot. Before, we had one toilet, one bathroom and we stayed all week. Now, we get a receipt that includes four uses and when we go there to scan, we only have one. It's very nice here, it's quiet, you can go fishing, it's not like other resorts, where there are a lot of traders who will scam you. All you need here is a tent. We have portable cylinders, a stove, we collect the waste and take it to the bins," says Ciprian from Prahova county, as he packs up his tent.

He added that in each of the seven days he stayed he saw airplanes, seagulls, horses, dolphins and jellyfish.

"I come here every year and I haven't seen seaweed in the sea. (...) Access fee to the Reserve, I have to tell you, there is a tractor that carries our luggage, we can't carry so much, we pay the tractor, we pay these fees to the toilets, but no one asked us the access fee to the Reserve. That's what i wanted to say, people won't come because they charge too much. I haven't seen something like what happened this year, taxes on top of taxes," he concluded.

In the developed area that belongs to Gura Portitei Holiday Village, tourists can enjoy sun loungers, a swimming pool, hydrobikes, a playground for children, lifeguards, a medical point where massage is available, a terrace and reed umbrellas. The prices at the terrace are close to those on a beach on the Black Sea in Constanta County.

There are two bays developed in the late 1990s, and the second, where the music from the terrace is quieter, is surrounded by wooden cottages and a scaffolding advertising a restaurant with several stars.

On the wild beach to the north of the vacation village, the Black Sea shore is covered in shells, so there are very few tourists here. Between the sea shore and the dike built by Grigore Antipa, either there is water puddling or there are wild horses.

"They are beautiful, we have nothing to comment on that. We like them when they run along the shore. It's a sight you only see in American movies. Except that in the stable you have to clean, feed the animals, whitewash... What will happen when from 50, their number now, they will get to 500, that's really hard for me to figure out," said the manager of the vacation village, Gabriel Ditu.

On the shores of Lake Golovita, where the locals transport tourists from Jurilovca to Gura Portitei during the summer, there are two buildings left in disrepair, the Border Police and the tourist information center of the RBDD Administration.

"The staff is minimal. What can you do to people camping? To continuously fine them? I don't think it's a solution," says the manager of Gura Portitei Holiday Village, Gabriel Ditu.

He says that the number of same-day visitors to Gura Portitei has at least doubled in recent years, and that the cost of utilities is very high in an isolated area as the one he runs.

In the evenings at the end of the week, folk ensembles from Tulcea county come to sing to the tourists the fishermen's stories of the place, and many tourists are delighted.

The accommodation unit has planned to open a new restaurant next year, as well as a new restroom for tourists who want to visit the wild beach north of the complex.

According to the RBDD administration, sunbathing, bathing, walks and the setting up of removable umbrellas are allowed on the wild beaches within the perimeter of the Reserve, only during the period of the stay and bathing.AGERPRES(RO - author: Luisiana Bigea, editor: Karina Olteanu; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Maria Voican)