Agritourism-A Sustainable Development Factor for Improving the ‘Health’ of Rural Settlements. Case Study Apuseni Mountains Area

Abstract

Agritourism is a complex activity, a chance maybe today to ensure both human health and the “health” of the environment and rural settlements in order to achieve a most wanted desideratum, the sustainability of the rural environment. The idea of this paper starts from the trend of the current period, meaning the strong emphasis on natural, organic, bio, in all human activities, health and environment, in a word, sustainability. The necessity of implementing the sustainability of activities, health and environment in rural areas, taking into account the agritourism field, was a subject pursued in the study, taking as area of study the mountainous rural environment, the reason of this choice deriving from the fact that the mountain area offers great opportunities for agritourism development, the practice of which is even necessary in the current period. The sustainability of agritourism on rural health and environment cannot be dissociated from the economic, social and cultural life of the community in which it manifests itself, and has a multiplier effect on all the domains with which it interacts. So the purpose of the paper is to follow the development of the agritourism field and, based on some present information, to make a future forecast for some specific indicators, to highlight the representative aspects related to the development and capitalization of guesthouses from a rural mountain environment through agritourism and to come up with a forecast for future transformations that need to take place in the studied area in order to support the sustainable development of the human environment through agritourism.

Environmental Management Practices within Agritourism Boarding Houses in Romania: A Qualitative Study Among Managers

“…However, most respondents consider that the environmental pollution of tourist destinations is not significantly influenced by the activity of accommodation units, which are too small to have a visible impact. This finding is thus in line with recent studies highlighting that agritourism is a form of tourism with a low environmental footprint [108][109][110].…”

Supporting plant diversity and conservation through landscape planning: A case study in an agro-tourism landscape in Tampusu, North Sulawesi, Indonesia

“…On the contrary, if planned and implemented properly can have a good impact on environmental management and rural area development (Muhammad et al 2016). Agro-tourism can support new directions in rural sustainable development, with specific effects on the environment (Ciolac et al 2019). Moreover, compared with farms without agro-tourism, agro-tourism tend to develop more environmentally friendly agricultural methods, which have a positive impact on biodiversity, landscape and natural resources (Mastronardi et al 2015).…”

Limitations of Rural Tourism as an Economic Diversification and Regional Development Instrument. The Case Study of the Region of La Vera

“…In general terms, the works that analyze the impacts of rural tourism on different regions and from different perspectives [18][19][20][21][22][23][24] highlight the potential of the tourism activity. Faced with this "optimistic" vision, this research aims to analyze, let us say, the "pessimistic" side of the issue: the limitations of tourism as a development tool.…”

“…To cite some examples, from a national or supra-regional level, Giannakis [18] studied the role of tourism in the rural development of Cyprus; Haghiri and Okech [19] analyzed the relevance of agro-tourism in rural development in the Canadian regions of Newfoundland and Labrador; Giacco et al [20] studied the same issue for the whole of Italy. If smaller geographic areas are taken as reference, Ciolac et al [21], Garau [22], Shin et al [23], or Lakner et al [24] could be cited, who by using case study methodology, respectively analyze several aspects of the impacts of tourism on the Apuseni mountains area (Romania), the Marmilla region in the Island of Sardinia, the Korean counties of Jeongseon-gun and Gangwon-do, or the area of Lake Balaton in Hungary.…”