Rural Tourism—Viable Alternatives for Preserving Local Specificity and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development: Case Study—“Valley of the Kings” (Gurghiului Valley, Mureș County, Romania)
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. The Role of Rural Tourism in the Sustainable Socio-Economic Revitalization of Rural Areas
2.1. Theoretical and Conceptual Background
2.2. An Overview of the Evolution of Rural Tourism in Romania
2.3. Rural Tourism and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development in Romania
3. Materials and Methods
3.1. Study Area: The Main Geographical Features—Favorable Premises for Outlining Attractive Tourist Offerings and the Development of Rural Tourism
3.2. Research Methodology
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Aspects Related to the Economic and Social Development of the “Valley of the Kings”—The Gurghiului Valley
4.2. Aspects Related to Tourist Activity in the “Valley of the Kings”—The Gurghiului Valley
- The existence or non-existence of a strategy for the development of rural tourism within each analyzed commune;
- The degree of openness of local authorities to tourism activity;
- The degree of knowledge of the local leaders regarding the existing tourism potential in the perimeter of their ATUs;
- The method of promotion existing until now regarding the promotion of the commune on a tourist level;
- The types and forms of tourism considered to be triggering or supporting elements of rural tourism.
- The existence of tourism development strategies at the town hall level (three of the four ATUs currently have such a strategy, each with a different direction: the restoration and conservation of anthropogenic tourist objectives—Ibănești commune; the diversification of tourist offerings and/or the design of an original, unique tourist product— Hodac commune; the development of tourist infrastructure such as accommodation, catering, transport and leisure—Gurghiu commune).
- Local leaders consider rural tourism to be an economic component that could contribute, to an extent of approximately 70%, to the economic development of the local community, especially in the entire area subject to research (the Gurghiului Valley).
- The low degree of openness of local authorities regarding the establishment of a tourism service within their municipalities.
- The lack of a clear vision from the local leaders on the categories of tourist resources, especially on those that could trigger and support the practice of rural tourism.
- The modest knowledge of local authorities about the types and forms of tourism that can be practiced and, implicitly, that can support the development of the tourism phenomenon.
- The local respondents place rural tourism among the economic activities that can substantially contribute to the economic and social development of the local community.
- There exist some tourist reception structures with the functions of accommodation and public catering in the administrations of the surveyed locals; the most numerous are from the category of local gastronomic locations and rooms for rent, but, as can be seen on the graph below, they also occur in other categories of tourist reception structures (with accommodation or catering functions) (Figure 15).
- There is a positive image of the locals in terms of the degree of involvement and the methods of tourism promotion used by the local authorities; the most common method of promoting tourism, formulated by locals and supported by local authorities, include support for local entrepreneurs and the organization of tourism activities; however, as can be seen in Figure 16, local authorities have (to a lower extent, in the opinion of respondents) also used other methods of promotion, which shows their desire to promote the area from a tourism point of view.
- There is insufficient involvement of local residents regarding the promotion and support of rural tourism in the area; most of the respondents have no involvement in this regard, which shows a lack of attention from the residents regarding the importance of tourism in the development of the community (Figure 17).
- There is a lack of knowledge in respondents regarding the existing tourism resources and the tourism potential of the area, given that no respondent mentioned ethnographic resources and events (important tourism resources in the research area).
- Most respondents (over 80%) are convinced that rural tourism would help the development of the local community they belong to (Figure 18).
- Agriculture is no longer the main source of income, with the economy returning to industry and other services; this shows that the resident population has exceeded the status of farmers and there is a desire to orient toward other areas, including tourism, even if it does not currently occupy a leading place (Figure 19).
- There exists a high degree of openness (48.1% of respondents) in terms of respondents’ intention to start their own activity in the field of rural tourism (Figure 20).
5. Conclusions
- (1)
- Revealing the attractive value of the identified tourist resources that form the current touristic offerings, which can be obtained via an qualitative and quantitative quantification of the resources that compose the natural and anthropic tourism potential of the studied area; therefore, it is necessary to identify all existing tourist resources that have the capacity to support the practice of rural tourism in the mentioned area and to assess their attractive value. This can be achieved using a complex index (Gołembski’s index), based on multivariate comparative analysis, assessing the natural and human-made features and the degree of development of each locality from studied area [104,105]. This would facilitate the value hierarchy of the inventory resources and establish the priorities of the process of tourism development in terms of objectives and tourist locations in the Gurghiului Valley, a process that will be able to complement the current touristic offerings. In this respect, we will focus on qualitative and quantitative investigation of the potentiality of the whole studied area by dividing it into several touristic areas, based on its physiographic setting and Land Use–Land Cover (LULC) features, using satellite image data [106,107]. Additionally, it is important to reveal how to use the spatial distribution of tourism resources and the influencing factors in order to promote the sustainable development of rural tourism and sustain rural revitalization of the local communities from Gurghiului Valley.
- (2)
- Understanding if the effects of choice attributes on rural tourism are important in order to find a way to offer services and products that can appeal to customers via exploration of tourists’ preferences and examination of the individual determinants of these preferences [108].
- (3)
- Evaluating how site attributes affect the choice of a host area or location from the studied area in different tourism markets [109].
- (4)
- The use of discrete choice experiments for measuring and predicting individuals’ preferences and choices of alternatives, and whether these preferences could provide quantitative measures of the relative importance of the attributes of tourism destinations, products, or services, in order to find out tourists’ willingness to pay for various services [110,111].
- (5)
- Exploring tourists’ preferences for various destinations, taking into account the effects of the modernization of the transport network (the increase in accessibility and safety and the decrease in the time needed to access different tourist attractions in the studied area) and if this can contribute to the planning, marketing, management and sustainable development of different types of tourism that can be practiced in the studied area [112].
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
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Crăciun, A.M.; Dezsi, Ș.; Pop, F.; Cecilia, P. Rural Tourism—Viable Alternatives for Preserving Local Specificity and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development: Case Study—“Valley of the Kings” (Gurghiului Valley, Mureș County, Romania). Sustainability 2022, 14, 16295. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142316295
Crăciun AM, Dezsi Ș, Pop F, Cecilia P. Rural Tourism—Viable Alternatives for Preserving Local Specificity and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development: Case Study—“Valley of the Kings” (Gurghiului Valley, Mureș County, Romania). Sustainability. 2022; 14(23):16295. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142316295
Chicago/Turabian StyleCrăciun, Andreea M., Ștefan Dezsi, Florin Pop, and Pintea Cecilia. 2022. "Rural Tourism—Viable Alternatives for Preserving Local Specificity and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development: Case Study—“Valley of the Kings” (Gurghiului Valley, Mureș County, Romania)" Sustainability 14, no. 23: 16295. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142316295
APA StyleCrăciun, A. M., Dezsi, Ș., Pop, F., & Cecilia, P. (2022). Rural Tourism—Viable Alternatives for Preserving Local Specificity and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development: Case Study—“Valley of the Kings” (Gurghiului Valley, Mureș County, Romania). Sustainability, 14(23), 16295. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142316295