Rural Tourism In Dobrudgea From The Perspective Of European Integration

In the context in which the European states have shown an increasing interest in the positive role that rural tourism can play in their economies through the diversification of the economic activities, job creation, improvement of infrastructure and services for a better life quality in the rural areas, the paper attempts to make an analysis concerning promotion and stimulation of tourism activities, as part of rural development in Dobrudgea, from the European integration perspective. Located in the South-Eastern part of Romania, Dobrudgea is a well individualized territory from the geographic point of view, limited by the Black Sea to the east, by the Danube to the west and north and by the border with Bulgaria to the south; it consists of two counties from the administrative point of view: Tulcea and Constanța. Taking into consideration the geographic position, as well as the cultural-historical profile, this region can easily develop many types and forms of tourism, namely: summer tourism, business tourism, cultural-historical tourism, religious tourism, rural tourism, agrotourism and ecotourism. The promotion and stimulation of tourism activities in the rural area is both a present and future option, as part of rural development in Dobrudgea, from the perspective of European integration. The methodology used is based on the quantitative data analysis regarding the main indicators of the tourism activity in the rural area. The statistical data were completed with other information from articles and studies published in specialty journals as well as in the Government documents. Following the analysis, it results that there is a great number of opportunities provided to rural entrepreneurs by Dobrudgea's tourism potential, yet these are not sufficiently valorized.