Romanian rural tourism development a case study: rural tourism in Maramures

International Journal of Business Research, July, 2007 by Adina L. Negrusa, Smaranda A. Cosma, Marius Bota

ABSTRACT

Many countries considered tourism as a real and sustainable support for their economic development. The tourism was considered a really chance for Romania. Despite this, the travel and tourism economy contribution to Romanian GDP varied around 2 per cent in the last 10 years.

Due to an underdeveloped and neglected road infrastructure, to the lack of financing resources and to the lack of interest of local and central authorities for tourism development, regions fitted for ecotourism and rural tourism--like Maramures--failed to attract tourist, neither foreign, nor Romanian. The situation improved slowly since 1996, after the decision of European Community to finance the rural development (including rural tourism) in Romania through Phare programs and--by the end of 1990s--through SAPARD programs.

Our research is focused on identifying the potential of development of these branches of tourism into international market and the motivation for practicing.

The present paper analyzes the rural tourism potential in Romania and Maramures region, its evolution since 1990 and the prospective strategy needed to a better promotion of this region on the European tourist market.

Keywords: Rural tourism, Strategy of development, SWOT analysis, International market

1. INTRODUCTION

WTO used rural tourism concept for defining that tourism product "that gives to visitors a personalized contact, a taste of physical and human environment of countryside and as far as possible, allow them to participate in the activities, traditions and lifestyles of local people." According to WTO it is considered that take part from rural tourism a wide range of activities like: climbing, riding, adventure tourism, educational travel, sport and health tourism, arts and heritage tourism.

Lane (1994) outlines the specific features of rural tourism. First of all it is concentrated in rural areas. Second it is based on small-scale and traditional activities and enterprises, environmental aspects and heritage. Third it is relating to small-scale buildings and settlements and forth it relies on traditional qualities of the countryside and develops slowly under the control of local people. Lastly it reflects the complexity of the rural environment and has several different forms.

We define rural tourism as that form of tourism offered by people from rural areas, with accommodation on small-scale and with the implication of important components of their rural activities and customs of life.

In European countries rural tourism became an important segment of tourism (Hall D.2000,2004). The EuroGites conference in 2003 reported that there were more than 200 thousand providers of Farm and Village Tourism registered in Europe, with more than 2 millions beds. A Euro barometer survey on "Europeans on Holiday (1997-1998)" showed that more and more people are interested not only in "sampling" new places but also in discovering different forms of tourism, placing greater emphasis on quality products, on more environmentally and culturally sensitive forms of tourism and on shorter but more frequent trips, while a significant number of Europeans (23%) choose the countryside as the most preferred tourism destination (EC, 1998).

Rural tourism is a trend in Europe and is in a continuous growing. WTO estimates an annual growth of approximately 6% of rural tourism comparing with 2% growth of tourism in general. In a number of Southern and Eastern European countries the growth was strongly, more than 20%, due to some transformations which took place in the countryside and agriculture as a results of recently involved in the European Union integration.

The rural space in Romania accounted almost 89% from the entire territory and for 47% of the population their home is situated in the rural area. Romania's rural economy is dominated by agriculture of which the predominant feature is the high share of subsistence farms, mainly producing for their own consumption and only marginally for the market. Because of the domination of this form of agriculture the rural economy remains poorly integrated into the market economy.

After 1990 the tourism was considered a really chance for Romanian economic development. Romania has a harmonious and diverse landscape and, from the tourist point of view, could be considered one of the beautiful and resourceful places in Europe. Romania, also, has a rich traditions and culture. But until now our country did not become--as it was intended--a well known tourist destination.

Some analysts consider--and we intend to be in accordance with their opinions--that the delay in privatization combined with many problems in tourism infrastructure, transport infrastructure and public services postponed the real development of this sector. (Moraru, 2005 and Societatea Academica din Romania, 2004).

2. ROMANIAN RURAL TOURISM--A GENERAL OVERVIEW

Regarding the rural development we identified that important measures were planned in The National Strategy on Sustainable Development. This gives priorities to investments in infrastructure (irrigation), the development of green tourism, the creation of family farms of an "optimal size" (between 50 and 100 ha) and securing the food supply by developing agricultural production and re-launching industrial sectors related to agriculture such as farming machinery. Under these circumstances it is obviously why that rural tourism became an important strategy for development both rural regions and tourism economy.