Bulgaria and Romania are set to offer joint spa holiday packages to tourists from the start of 2016 as part of an existing EU-funded spa tourism project called The Roman Thermal Spas of Europe.

The Roman Thermal Spas of Europe project comprises spas in eight European countries that have Roman bathing ritual origins, connected and promoted by partners including the European Spas Association (ESPA), tour operator Fit Reisen and certification body EuropeSpa.

The new holiday package was presented in the Bulgarian town of Sadanski during the second congress of the Bulgarian Union of Balneology and Spa Tourism, according to novinite.com. Tourists will stay at two spa resorts, the Bulgarian Hisarya spa property in the spa town of Varshets and the Romanian retreat called Baile Herculane.

Joachim Lieber, general secretary of the ESPA and co-ordinator of the project, said this will be the first trans-border spa package available to consumers that has been put together by the association and its partners.

The package will see guests experience balneotherapy and heritage from the ancient Roman bathing era. For example, the package is also expected to include a trip to the 2019 European Capital of Culture Plovdiv in Bulgaria.

The regional spa industry will be hoping to overcome previously highlighted shortcomings in time for the new offering. In Q4 2014, director of the Bulgarian Institute for Tourism Analyses and Assessments – Rumen Draganov – decried Bulgarian balneotherapy shortcomings and said that standards must improve.

Wellness tourism also has a long way to go in Romania too, according to the country’s former health minister Vasile Cepoi.