Tourism And Its Influence Upon Macro-Environment In Romania

Tourism is a complex social and economic phenomenon specific to modern civilization, an essential activity in the life of nations, being strongly influenced by the freedom of travel and the evolution of society. Addressing to large shares of the population and meeting the human need for travelling and knowledge, recreation and healing, tourism is characterized by a high momentum both nationally and globally, resulting in a vast human and material potential, with important implications upon the evolution of the entire society. Hospitality and tourism industry are nowadays considered to stand for the largest business in the world, being the main industry in point of their contribution to the gross world product, labor committed as well as the most important capital investor. The objective of our article is to analyze the evolution of several indicators of tourist traffic and their influence on the macro-environment in Romania. As far as the research methodology is concerned, the article is based on a positivist quantitative approach, being in the same time a longitudinal one, as we present the evolution of various indicators measuring the degree of impact the hospitality industry has on the national economy. The main information sources for this research are published on the websites of various authorized bodies (NIS, NBR, WTO), using exploratory method for analyzing the evolution of the phenomenon in time, but I also considered the interpretive method when disclosing the analysis results.