The project "Promotion of Roman Festival Zalau Porolissum - tool for promoting archaeological sites from Zalau municipality" was initiated in 2010 by Zalau municipality because of the need to develop tools to promote Zalau at the national level, as it turned out the city had an image deficit even among its own inhabitants.

The opportunity to access grants to promote a community's specific tourist products was a chance to experiment new ways of presenting the city to a national public. Among the tourist products identified in the municipality which were eligible according to the funding guidelines, the municipality choose to focus on the archaeological sites from the ancient age. The choice was also determined by the existence of two Roman castrum near the city (Moigrad - Porolissum and Bucium), and the organization in Zalau of the Roman Festival Zalau Porolissum ever since 2005.

As a consequence, in May 2010 the application for the project "Promotion of Roman Festival Zalau Porolissum - tool for promoting archaeological sites from Zalau municipality" was filed within the Regional Operational Program, Priority Axis 5 "Sustainable development and tourism promotion", Key area of Intervention 5.3 "Promoting the tourism potential and creating the necessary infrastructure to increase Romania's attractiveness as a tourism destination". The grant agreement was signed in July 2011.

The project duration is 27 months; the total project value is 1.029.096,20 lei, funding being provided by the European Regional Development Fund, state budget and local budget.

Using various marketing tools the project intends to promote archaeological sites from ancient age, precisely those of Roman origin, located within Zalau municipality and its surroundings. The goal is to increase their visibility at a national level and to increase the number of tourists. The Roman Festival is, by itself, such a promotional instrument, perhaps the most efficient at a large scale. Therefore the project has, among its activities, two editions of the Festival, in 2012 and 2013. The novelty brought by the project for the two editions of the Festival lies in the organization of sport competitions, theatre performances and, in 2013, the organization of a Scientific Conference.

Other marketing tools, some of them new for the Municipality, are:

• participation at 4 tourism fairs in Cluj and Bucharest
• making of a film to promote Zalau municipality, the archaeological site Porolissum and the Roman Festival, and distributing the film on 2000 DVDs
• making a tourist show and broadcasting it at a TV channel with national coverage in the period preceding the Roman Festival.

There will also be made a series of promotional materials that will promote both the archaeological site from Porolissum and the Roman Festival Zalau Porolissum; the materials will be distributed during the Festival and tourism fairs. A web site dedicated to the Roman Festival will also be created.

Another novelty brought by the project will be an impact study of the Festival and Project on the local tourism market. Thus we will try to determine the profile of the tourist who visits Zalau, the impact of the various marketing instruments used, including monitoring the city's presence at the tourism fairs.

In addition to the results aiming at a better knowledge about Zalau, Porolissum and the Roman Festival at national level, with direct implications on the number of tourists, the project is expected to contribute to the improvement of the municipality's experience and practices in tourism promotion and urban marketing.

Detailed information about the project and its progress can be found at the following link: http://www.zalausj.ro/ro/programe.htm.

Further information about the Regional Operational Program can be found by accessing: http://www.inforegio.ro/.