Sustainability of Agritourism Activity. Initiatives and Challenges in Romanian Mountain Rural Regions

Abstract

Sustainability has become a priority in the last decades. If we consider rural regions, agritourism, an activity strongly related to local communities, represents an opportunity to ensure the sustainability of rural settlements and of the environment, and at the same time an innovative and diversifying possibility for the economic support of rural settlements. Many studies have shown that the sustainability trend of the current period can be achieved by combining rural and local resources and traditional products specific to the rural regions with tourist activities, the challenge being the revitalization of rural economy. A large number of Romanian mountain rural regions can provide opportunities for sustaining agritourism activity; some of them may succeed to capitalize on the niche characteristic of agritourism, and through appropriate and effective strategies to move from the pioneering stage to an economically and socially valuable chance for improving the living conditions from rural area and finally to ensure sustainable development of rural communities. This paper begins from the importance of agritourism for rural regions. It aims at identifying the current situation of the agritourism activity in three regions and at developing proposals that are based strictly on the specific needs of the regions. In our opinion, the implementation of these specific actions would represent future challenges and at the same time ways of supporting the sustainable development of agritourism activities and of local settlements.

A New Livelihood Sustainability Index for Rural Revitalization Assessment—A Modelling Study on Smart Tourism Specialization in China

“…It is noteworthy that the sustainability of rural tourism is based on the idea of combining the social and economic interests of rural areas and the interests of the natural environment. Combining rural and local resources and traditional products that are unique to rural areas with tourism activities can facilitate the current trend of sustainable development [13].…”

Agritourism—A Business Reality of the Moment for Romanian Rural Area’s Sustainability

“…The low percentage of the owners of agritourism structures who declared that, in order to coordinate the activity, they have benefited from aid, in fact they referred to the accounting and sales/capitalization part of the agritourism products. In fact, a previous study [29] showed that the owners of agritourism structures, from the two areas do not have specialized training in the field, so in other terms they need help for certain stages of the activity, especially in terms of the creation and capitalization of the agritourism product.…”

The “Eco-Effectiveness” of Agritourism Dynamics in Italy and Spain: A Tool for Evaluating Regional Sustainability

“…The poor sustainability of agritourism growth was also found in a large proportion of the central and eastern regions of Spain, the largest group of regions in Spain (Group C), and is comparable with that of Italy. Some policymakers may have increasingly and uncritically invested in the "utilities" of agritourism, more due to superficial rhetoric [47,[115][116][117][118][119] than out of any meaningful concern for sustainability [29,40,120,121]. In this situation, the SSI offers new parameters for evaluating the status quo and for drafting policies aimed at diversifying agriculture through tourism.…”