Analyzing The Mountain Tourism Demand In Romania Over The Last Two Decades

Mountain tourism demand fluctuated predominantly downward in the last two decades, as a result of some complex economic, social, and political changes. Tourism demand for the Romanian mountain destinations in the last two decades has been analyzed in quantity and evolution, by processing (also graphically) and interpreting the specific tourism indicators (tourist arrivals, tourist structure, tourists’ preference for accommodation, overnight stays, average length of stay, accommodation occupancy rate), also making comparisons with the situation at national level. Mountain tourism demand is an important segment of tourism demand (domestic and international) in Romania, with shares between 13.19% (minimum in 1994) and 15.63% (maximum in 2013). The mountain area is ranked second most popular for the Romanian tourists and third place for the foreign tourists. Tourist arrivals in the mountain area recorded the following variations: a period of sharp decline (1994-2002) with a minimum in 2002 (700,000 tourists), a period of growth (2003-2008) with values around 1 million tourists in 2007 and 2008, a decrease of 100,000 tourists corresponding to the economic crisis in 2008-2009, followed by a period (2010-2014) of strong revival with the maximum value of the entire analyzed period (nearly 1,3 million tourists in 2014). The fluctuations of overnight stays were directly proportional to those of arrivals. The increasing demand for mountain destinations resulted from a better promotion of winter sports in recent years, a revival ("fashion") of Romanians’ preferences for winter sports practicing; in parallel, a number of ski areas were arranged or redesigned in many traditional 'white' resorts, and several smaller centers for winter sports emerged or were re-launched. Tourists’ preferences for the mountain accommodation units such as boarding houses, villas and chalets reflected the characteristics of the mountain tourism activities and the corresponding accommodation facilities. In case of accommodation comfort degree, most tourists preferred the 3 or 4 star units. The average length of stay in mountain destinations recorded a downward trend, from more than 3 days in the period 1994-1998, to a long period of stagnation at 2.2 days in the past 7 analyzed years (2008-2014). Tourism density in the Romanian Carpathians in 2014 registered almost 2 tourists / sq.km. The accommodation occupancy rate showed a decreasing trend with stagnant periods in the analyzed period, reaching 18% in 2014. That decrease was the result of reducing travel demand until 2003, but after that period there were many and complex causes: management changes in many resorts, poor management of the companies and stakeholders involved, as well as tax evasion in tourism.