In different countries around the world, tourism is struggling to sustain economic growth in a sustainable manner. Even if Romania has an important tourism potential, in the last three decades, tourism didn’t contribute of more than 5-6% to the national GDP. 

Bigar Waterfall

 An Overview of the Romanian Tourism

Romanian tourism potential offers various opportunities for sustaining tourism sector

growth. Different tourism forms were developed in the last decades starting with mountain

tourism, seaside tourism, balneal tourism, cultural tourism, rural tourism, business tourism

and so on. Over the years, tourism had to overcome various difficulties related to the economic, social and political context.

Orsova-Decebal's statue

Between 1990-1999, Romanian economy passed through a long transition period, when the economic growth was generally negative, with a negative trend registered in the gross domestic product per capita. The general economic context (high inflation, low investments, unemployment, low purchasing power, volatility of the exchange rate), the poor imagine abroad, low process of privatization, political and social instability were few of the factor that didn’t sustain the tourism development.

Turda Salt Mine

In time, the accommodation infrastructure

suffered from depreciation, especially those built on the seaside or balneal resorts. The

privatization of the tourism infrastructure (accommodation, restaurants, treatment facilities) started very late, after 2000. The privatization process was difficult because

the uncertain status of some commercial companies' patrimony.

Corvin Castle

After 2000 year, tourist arrivals have begun to increase, the Romanian economy has started to grow, the purchasing power has increased and the tourism infrastructure has been modernized to meet the western standards. Also, large hotel chains like, Marriott, Hilton,

Ibis, Novotel, Golden Tulip, Ramada, Radisson, Holiday Inn has invested important amount in Romania, not only in big cities but also in mountain, balnear or seaside resorts, suggesting that the potential exists and the local market can provide the return on investments.