As a country, Romania tries to communicate abroad its authenticity, intact nature and unique cultural heritage. This message matches perfectly the main attributes associated to Rodna Mountains National Park, as it is the second national park in Romanian. The aim of the research is to identify and analyze the prospects for sustainable development of rural tourism in the area of Rodna Mountains National Park, taking into account its impact on the social and economic life of the inhabitants of the Rodna commune, but also factors that may positively or negatively influence the whole process. From a methodological perspective, quantitative methods were used; a survey-based research was carried out among Romanian mountain tourists, aiming at identifying and analyzing their opinions and suggestions regarding tourism in protected areas in Romania, as well as the impact of the tourist flows generated by the Park upon the surrounding communities. Rodna Mountains National Park seems to be among the favorite destinations of tourists, as the respondents have a good and very good general impression about the interaction with the mountain and protected areas, prefer internal to external destinations regardless of the season, budgets allocated per night, per stay and annually are quite high, so the purchasing power is also high; they constitute a solid foundation for the decisions of the tourist development of the area. The need for holidays and the savings that tourists make throughout the year to go on vacation, regardless of income level, give viability to this opportunity. Other results of this research are related to the problems tourists helped to identify and the solutions they proposed.
The aim of this article is to investigate if Romanian rural localities hosting or situated within a natural WHS (World Heritage Site) have benefited from their situation and developed the local rural tourism. Research Design & Methods: Since the topic of this article had not been previously investigated for Romania, the research was constructed as a case study, exploring the available secondary data on tourism supply and demand. Within the case study, a combination of empirical methods was used in order to investigate two ratios (the survival rate and continuity ratio) constructed to study the sustainability of the offer of local tourism. Findings: Romanian rural localities hosting or being part of a WHS do not exploit properly their tourist potential. However, these localities are in a better position than common rural localities from the viewpoint of a sustainable tourism offer. Implications & Recommendations: Further studies on tourism demand and tourism governance for WHS localities are needed in order to help local governments to develop authentic and sustainable tourism for these areas. Contribution & Value Added: Given the sparse academic Romanian literature focusing on WHSs, this study contributes to this field and opens new avenues for research. Furthermore, the findings of this study add to the existing international literature by supporting the idea that simply the presence of a WHS in rural areas is not a panacea for promoting tourism.
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