Rural Tourism Pressure Evolutions in Center Region of Romania

Abstract

In recent years, agro-touristic boarding houses have occupied an increasing interest in preferences of tourists. This is a positive factor with direct implications on the development of local communities, on the one hand, by increasing income, and on the other by increasing the employment rate. Taking into account these aspects, the paper presents and analyzes the characteristics of the tourist flows in the agro-tourist boarding houses in the counties of the Centre development region, using a relative indicator determined like the ratio of the tourists' overnight stays in the agro tourist boarding houses to the number of the rural population in each county, between January 2010 and January 2018 The conclusions highlight both the increase of the phenomenon of seasonality and the accentuation of the discrepancies between the six counties of the Centre region regarding the valorization of the natural and entropic tourism potential of the rural communities in the this counties.