Romanian rural tourism: status and prospects by innovative organizational approaches

Abstract

Romania’s tourism potential is becoming visible by various investment projects that allow its valuation by domestic and foreign tourists. Rural areas are major contributors to the overall tourism potential and their supply is addressing fast growing trends in tourist’s preferences. The analysis aims to highlight the main strengths and weaknesses of Romania’s rural areas in the perspective of tourism development, as being the basis for optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. A number of innovative tourism products are proposed in order to overcome the lack of financial resources and low interest of local authorities. It results that by supply chain management for local resources and association for increasing the local value added the contribution of rural tourism to sustainable development could be significantly increased.