Irineu Darău, Romania's Minister of Economy and Tourism, on the Country the World Has Not Yet Fully Discovered
- Agrilinkage
- 15 hours ago
- 4 min read
Interview conducted at the Salon Mondial du Tourisme, Paris 2026
At the Salon Mondial du Tourisme in Paris, you walk past Romania's stand and something catches you. Wines from a country you had not associated with wine, regional foods, traditional crafts, landscape footage that looks nothing like what you imagined. And then a thought settles in that is hard to shake: Romania is the sixth largest wine producer in Europe, with a winemaking history stretching back over six thousand years, and most of the world still knows almost nothing about it. That gap between what a country has and how little it is known is exactly what brought us to speak with the minister responsible for changing it.
Irineu Darău is Romania's Minister of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism. He was at the Salon meeting tourism agencies, foreign ambassadors and international professionals, representing Romania's ambitions on a global stage. We asked him the obvious question: why does a country with this much richness remain so undiscovered?
"I am convinced it is a question of marketing. We have everything we need in this country to attract tourists. Everyone I speak to, tourists, travel agencies, foreign ambassadors, they all tell me the same thing: they did not know Romania, but the moment they visited for the first time, they left with a great impression and wanted to come back."
Irineu Darău, Minister of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism of Romania
He has been in office just over two months and says this with the certainty of someone who has already thought it through. Romania receives over one hundred thousand French tourists a year. It can do significantly more. What the country needs, in his view, is not a different product but a stronger way of presenting what already exists, and the digital infrastructure to make it visible where travelers are actually looking.
That second part is not incidental. Before entering government, Irineu Darău spent over fifteen years in the private sector across software development, international industry and finance. He lived in France for nearly a decade. He knows, practically and personally, what it means for a destination to be present or absent online. Visibility is not a detail. It is the difference between being considered and being skipped.
When he talks about what Romania actually holds, the picture he gives is layered and specific.
Romania is a country of deep diversity, he explained, historical, ethnic and geographic. Romanians, Hungarians, Saxons, Slavic communities have shared the same land across centuries, and each has left something behind in the food. The gastronomy that exists today is a direct result of that history, traditional Romanian cooking carrying Hungarian and Slavic influences, a mix that does not exist in any single other place and that you find most vividly not in cities but in villages.
"There are many things the world perhaps does not yet know about Romania. We have a gastronomy that is traditionally Romanian, but we also have Hungarian influences, Slavic influences. It is a mix that you find across many villages, because this diversity is historical, a diversity of nationalities that have each left their imprint."
Irineu Darău, Minister of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism of Romania
Romania still has a great deal of active agriculture, communities living close to their land, and rural food traditions that have remained intact. That is precisely why ecotourism, built around village stays, regional circuits and living culinary traditions, is now a named priority in Romania's national tourism strategy. The foundation is there. For anyone traveling with that kind of experience in mind, the minister's suggestion is straightforward: spend a week or two, move through several regions, because each one delivers something distinct.
He lived in France for almost ten years, and that time shaped how he speaks about food and about the two cultures he knows from the inside.
"One thing I understood living in France is that French people, like Romanians, love to eat well. We share that. I love French cuisine, I love Romanian cuisine, and I think everyone should experience both in their lifetime. It is worth it."
Irineu Darău, Minister of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism of Romania
What he describes waiting for a visitor is specific: good restaurants, but also private hosts, families who will receive you and cook for you, and through them a cuisine he defines as carrying the flavors of all of Eastern Europe in one place. Romania is Latin and Francophone at its roots, three hours by direct flight from France, with accessible ticket prices, and a consistency to how people describe the experience once they have had it that is hard to ignore.
"Romania is a little bit of a surprise country, because not everyone knows all its details yet. My message is simple: come and visit. Whether for a weekend, a week or two weeks, what I can guarantee is that you will not regret it."
Irineu Darău, Minister of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism of Romania
Romania is exactly the kind of territory we cover. The culinary and agricultural heritage is real, the regional diversity is real, and a government that has placed agrotourism and ecotourism at the center of its national strategy is a meaningful signal for travelers and operators alike. The international visibility is what is still being built, and that is where the work, and the opportunity, begins.
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