Rural Areas And Wine Tourism: The Case Of Romania

The purpose of the present paper is to provide an integrated approach to the development of wine tourism in Romania’s rural areas. The main research question is: are the communes hosting vineyards and wine-producing facilities and/or cellars/wineries in a better position to attract tourists, compared to the other communes? This question was induced, first, by the fact that Romania is among the top 15 wine producers worldwide, and some of its wine brands are (well)known at least at the regional level, hence this position might influence Romania as a wine tourism destination. Second, Romanian rural tourism is still in its early stages of development at the national level and therefore a differentiation feature represented by wine-related activities might enhance the attractiveness of a rural destination. Furthermore, wine tourism is a fastly developing trend at the international level and those destinations which have the resources to establish and/or improve wine tourism should take advantage of this trend. The findings of the current paper indicate that wine tourism is poorly developed for the group of wine-producing Romanian rural localities. The extra tourist potential of these localities (represented by vineyards and wineries) is used in an unsatisfactory and inexpertly manner for attracting tourists. The findings are in line with the relatively low level of rural tourism development in Romania presented by other academic works.