CHANGES IN THE ROMANIAN CARPATHIAN TOURISM AFTER THE COMMUNISM COLLAPSE AND THE DOMESTIC TOURISTS' SATISFACTION

Abstract

In the context of Romania’s transition to the market economy after the communism collapse, and the accession in EU, the study aims to analyse characteristics of tourism changes in the Carpathian destinations by correlation with the domestic visitors’ satisfaction for tourist services and new forms of tourism by empirical field observations, and statistical analysis used to test the level of satisfaction for Carpathian tourism. The results show an increase of tourist demand for the Carpathian destinations in the framework of tourist establishments’ structure changes, the spreading of agri-tourism, a need for improvement of accommodation services quality according to the visitors’ profile. Tourism development, revealed by visitors’ flows, has some similarities with the perception of tourists. The tourists’ views can, with several limits, be considered as a barometer in tourism research and a useful instrument in building tourism offers.