CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE DESIGN OF SPECIFIC TOURISM PRODUCTS FOR THE TOURISM DESTINATION ROMANIA

Romania, as tourism destination with its component micro-destinations (Muntenia, Oltenia, Banat - Crişana, Transylvania, Bucovina, Maramureş, Moldavia and Dobrogea), possesses many tourism attractions and at the same time has a real tourism potential. The fact that it is not included among the Europe’s „valuable” destinations represents a loss both for its inhabitants and for Europeans in general, too. One of the reasons is the lack of an image consolidated by identity elements or / and simply the lack of image that would represent the starting point for development of appropriate tourism products (developing a strategy). This paper proposes, starting from the image perceived by the inhabitants about their own destination – based on the example of Transylvania – to emphasize the importance and also the role of the destination image in developing the main directions of actions and, especially, in developing the strategy for the specific tourism products

Transylvania – Romanian Tourism Micro-destination

Although nowadays there are many controversies regarding the three regionalization dimensions (the positive-scientific regionalization, the symbolic- informal regionalization and the normativeformal regionalization) in terms of the modification of the third, due to the norms and principles of the accedence to the European Union and due to the access to the structural funds, the symbolic-informal regionalization (“produced in the collective mental of the individual and group selfidentification, of current practices and that includes the sphere of the culture (…) being not only a factor, but also a result of the social construction” (Benedict, 2000, p. 47)) remains in the same time a supporting element in the development of the regional brand. Thus, the region of Transylvania, in accordance with the results of the conducted research, entirely corresponds with the definition that Passy (2001, p. 16) assigned to the region, namely “on the one hand, a social construction – created by economic, politic, cultural and administrative discourses and practices – but, on the other hand, it might become a power center”

Banat-Crişana as Micro-destination – Elements of Tourism Image and Tourism Identity

Geographical regions, according to some authors, are defined and delimited by criteria that vary from one geographical school to another. These criteria may be: scenic, functional, political-administrative, mental etc. (processed after Cocean cited in Neguţ, 2011, p. 157). They also can be combined according to the objectives/strategies that are elaborated for each branch of the economy: industry, agriculture, tourism, etc. In this regard, from tourism point of view, the region of Banat-Crişana was taken into consideration, that includes the following counties: Caraş-Severin, Timiş, Arad and Bihor. Due to the many land and air border points, it represents the first contact with the tourists coming from the West, with other words “its visiting card… crucial in formulating the first impressions regarding Romania” (Cocean, 2010, p. 201). The presented research aims to highlight the role of the image of the region of Banat-Crişana in building its own brand, by identifying its main tourist attractions and forms of tourism

Dobrogea as Romanian Tourism Micro-destination

Dobrogea, known since antiquity as Dacia Pontica, after the name of the sea that was bordering it – Pontus Euxinus, is a region situated in Southeastern Romania and covers four counties of which two – Constanţa and Tulcea – belong to the Romanian territory. The celebrity of Dobrogea consists in its openness to the Black Sea, in Danube Delta (reservation of the biosphere that belongs to the UNESCO heritage since 1991) and in its archaeological traces that prove the existence and the continuity of the Romanian population next to “Turks, Tatars, Circassians, Macedo-Romanians and Greeks, Italian and Ukrainian, Catholic and Protestant Germans, Bulgarians and Russians, even Egyptians and Gipsy Muslims – a true ethnic mosaic” (Popoiu, 2010, p. 15). The conducted research refers just to the two Romanian counties and aims to highlight the role of the image of the historical region of Dobrogea in building its own brand and to identify its main tourist attractions and forms of tourism

The Image of the Tourism Destination – a Supporting Element in the Development of the Regional Tourism Brand Study Case: Muntenia

Nowadays, tourism destinations are increasingly determined to convey an unique and competitive identity within the consumer’s mind. Despite the fact that a growing attention has been paid to the destination brand, in practice there is an inconsistency and sometimes an inexplicable lack of empirical academic studies, thus in some countries (without “a tradition in tourism”) there have been developed, shortly, artificial tourism brands without any substance and argumentation based on real images/perceptions of the tourists/prospects. This work aims to highlight the role that the tourism destination image plays in the development of the own brand and to identify the main tourism attractions and forms of tourism associated with each historical region of Romania

Bucharest: Analysis of an ‘old’ destination with a new tourism identity

To be able to promote itself efficiently on the market, a destination, given the marketing perspective – has to be aware about the authentic and crucial elements of its own identity as being the only way to transfer, virtually and materially, of what it has best – the social-cultural and artistic identity (which, from a tourist perspective, represents its perceived image, along with psychological and artistic image of the destination). Hence without a detailed knowledge of this aspect, the promotion leads to a presentation of a distorted image of the destination which, in time, can distort the socio-cultural identity of the inhabitants of that region. To build the image of a destination (a notoriously long and complex process), begins with the need to profoundly understand tourists’ complexity of expectations (both functional and psychological) and, on their basis, to use these as attributes of the destination in order to improve attractiveness. In Romania’s case such an aspect gains more importance due to the fact that, after the 1989, young generation, an important population segment, seem to register a continuous and dangerous process of “identity erosion”, which over time could result into disconnecting from the essence of the Romanian spirit, not being able to understand or even ignoring sense of belonging, sense of identity, heritage and “tourism heritage”

Oltenia – Micro-destination of Cultural and Medical Spa Tourism

A region, in order to express its viability as tourism destination, has to emphasize not only its defining elements, but also the activities from the recreative, curative or cultural field in which it has specialized in (processed after Cocean et al., 2002, pp. 297-298). This involves several stages, organically linked in a planned framework, with the establishment of the specific objectives and strategies, not only at micro and meso, but also at macro level, beginning with “the study of the motivational demand, of the resources, in terms of their functionality in tourism and their profitability in exploitation” (Erdeli, Gheorghilaş, 2006, pp. 288-289). The authors intend, based on these considerations, to reveal the elements of regional brand, with the identification of those functions or types of tourism (recreative, curative and/or cultural) which are specific to the region of Oltenia, that is “still unseen and unknown”

Banat-Crişana as Micro-destination – Elements of Tourism Image and Tourism Identity

Geographical regions, according to some authors, are defined and delimited by criteria that vary from one geographical school to another. These criteria may be: scenic, functional, political-administrative, mental etc. (processed after Cocean cited in Neguţ, 2011, p. 157). They also can be combined according to the objectives/strategies that are elaborated for each branch of the economy: industry, agriculture, tourism, etc. In this regard, from tourism point of view, the region of Banat-Crişana was taken into consideration, that includes the following counties: Caraş-Severin, Timiş, Arad and Bihor. Due to the many land and air border points, it represents the first contact with the tourists coming from the West, with other words “its visiting card… crucial in formulating the first impressions regarding Romania” (Cocean, 2010, p. 201). The presented research aims to highlight the role of the image of the region of Banat-Crişana in building its own brand, by identifying its main tourist attractions and forms of tourism.tourism destination; destination image; regional tourism brand; form of tourism; destination marketing.

Moldavia and Maramureş – Micro-destinations for Relaunching the Romanian Tourism

Since Romania holds a rich tourism heritage and a great tourism potential, the tourism division into zones was drawn up as “a possibility toward a superior and complex development of the tourism resources, in a unified vision…” (Erdeli, Gheorghilaş, 2006, p. 264), this representing a permanent concern of the specialists from all fields that are related to the tourism management. Although the criteria for selection and ranking of the tourist attractions have been the subject of some controversies, regarding the types of tourism that can be practiced in these areas, there were arrived almost unanimous conclusions. In order to ensure the representativeness and considering that all historical regions of the contemporary Romania are to the same extent microdestinations with a substantial “tourism heritage”, the regions of Moldavia (including Bukovina) and Maramureş were merged into one for the elaboration of the research that presents, in essence, the main types of tourism and a part of the treasury of Romanian age-old heritage