01How many of your guests are not Romanian
The National Institute of Statistics (INS) reported 13.9 million arrivals in Romanian tourist accommodation in 2025, down 2.4% on 2024. Of those, 18.6% were foreign tourists. The largest groups came from Germany (246,500), Italy (225,000) and Israel (182,600). These are national figures, as reported by Agerpres and Economedia. Your own mix depends on your town, your season and where you advertise, and we have no figure for your property. Look at last season's bookings and inbox before you decide. One more thing the numbers show: none of the top three source countries is English-speaking, so English will not reach every foreign guest.
- 2025, INS: 13.9 million arrivals in tourist accommodation, 18.6% of them foreign
- Largest foreign groups: Germany, Italy and Israel
- National figures only: your own mix depends on your town and season
- English plus Romanian is the pair this article covers, not a promise to reach every guest
02One set of facts, answered in each language
A bilingual assistant is not two assistants. It reads one knowledge base with your prices, hours, rules and open slots, and writes each answer in the language of the question. Two separate FAQs drift apart. Picture a Romanian page that says breakfast ends at 10:30 while the English one still says 10:00: a guest who checks twice trusts neither. The English has to be written as English, not as Romanian carried over word by word, just as the Romanian must not sound like translated English (our post on how an assistant sounds in Romanian goes into the details). Write dates out in words, such as 15 October, so nobody confuses day and month. And a guest may switch language halfway through a chat. Decide in advance what the assistant does then: it follows the guest.
- One knowledge base: when a fact changes, it changes once, in both languages
- Each language reads as if it was written in it, not translated word by word
- Dates written out in words, such as 15 October, so day and month cannot be swapped
- A guest who switches language mid-chat gets the reply in the new language
03The handoff has to work in both languages too
The assistant is the first reader, not the last. When it does not know, or a guest complains, the conversation goes to a person. If that person cannot read English, a bilingual assistant only moves the blockage one step back. Before launch, name who receives the English handoffs, at what hours, and what the guest is told while they wait. The general rule is in our post on what happens when a chatbot cannot answer: it says it does not know and passes the conversation on, instead of guessing. Complaints, refunds and anything about health or safety go to a person, in either language.
- Name the person or desk that reads English handoffs
- Set the hours: what the guest is told outside them
- The guest sees what happens next, in their own language
- Complaints, refunds and safety topics skip the assistant's attempt
04A ten-minute test in both languages
Ask the vendor for a live chat loaded with your own information, not a demo video, and open it on your phone. Send the same question in Romanian and in English and compare the answers: price, check-in time and cancellation rule must be identical. Then ask something your notes do not cover, in English. The assistant should say it does not know and offer a person, not invent an answer. Keep the transcript and read it next to your own site.
- Ask the same question in Romanian and in English: price, check-in time and cancellation rule must match
- Send one English message with a typo in it: it should still be understood
- Ask something your notes do not cover, in English: it should say so and offer a person
- Switch language halfway through a chat and see whether the reply follows
- Compare every price, date and hour with your own site, line by line
05Where PROOF48 is the wrong choice
PROOF48's AUTOMATE plan costs 2,997 EUR a month and covers website chat, DM and email auto-responders, booking automation and a CRM. It does not cover phone or WhatsApp, so if most of your guests reach you that way, this is not the right purchase. If you get only a handful of foreign guests a season, a clear information page in two languages on your site costs less (a business website of up to about five pages is 500 to 2,500 EUR and takes 48 hours; we confirm the languages and the price before we build). If you cannot name someone who reads the English handoffs, fix that first. We also have no named-client case study of a bilingual assistant, and we publish no figure for how many foreign enquiries one handles.
- AUTOMATE, 2,997 EUR a month: website chat, DM and email auto-responders, booking automation, CRM
- Phone or WhatsApp as your main channel: not in AUTOMATE
- A handful of foreign guests a season: a two-language information page on your site costs less
- Nobody who reads English handoffs: fix that before you buy
- No named-client bilingual assistant case study yet, and no results figure
A hotel with its handoff lines already published
The Santorini Hotel case study is useful mostly for what it leaves out. PROOF48 delivered a public website with rooms, a gallery and contact details, a booking enquiry flow, and a guest app built from the same code as the site. The case study lists no AI assistant and makes no claim about which languages the site or the app use, so we cannot cite it as bilingual work. What it does record is that the numbers for reception, restaurant and complaints are published on the site and in its structured data. For any property adding a bilingual assistant, the matching question is who reads the handoff at each of those desks. We publish no occupancy, booking or guest-mix figures for the hotel.
See the build: Santorini HotelQuestions, answered
Does a bilingual assistant need two knowledge bases?
No. One set of facts, answered in the language of the question, so a price or an hour changes in one place. Two separate FAQs are how the Romanian and English answers end up disagreeing.
Is English enough for foreign guests?
Not for all of them. In INS figures for 2025 the largest foreign groups came from Germany, Italy and Israel. Check your own inbox and bookings first. Any language beyond Romanian and English is a separate scoping conversation.
Is a second language an extra cost on AUTOMATE?
AUTOMATE is 2,997 EUR a month. The plan names no languages and no per-language charge, so we scope the languages with you before the build and publish no separate price for them.
Who answers when the assistant hands off in English?
A person in your business, which is why you name them before launch. The assistant passes the conversation on with the question attached; it does not replace someone who can read English.
Where PROOF48 fits
Foreign tourists were 18.6% of 2025 arrivals in Romanian tourist accommodation, per INS figures, and an assistant that only reads Romanian ignores that share of guests. A bilingual one answers each guest in their language from one set of facts and hands off to a person who can read that language too. PROOF48's AUTOMATE plan, 2,997 EUR a month, covers website chat, DM and email. It is the wrong buy if your guests mostly call or write on WhatsApp, or if foreign guests are rare.
Cosmin Tiu · Founder, PROOF48
Cosmin has worked in online marketing and software development since 2018, and has built with AI every day since January 2023. He still writes code from scratch daily, in Python, React, Rust and C#. PROOF48 ships business websites in 48 hours and invoices afterwards, so every opinion on this blog was paid for in real builds, not in theory.