THE COMPETITIVENESS OF ROMANIAN TOURISM IN EU CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Tourism is one of the economic sectors with significant growth potential for Romania, but its performance remains moderate in relation to the available natural and cultural resources. The paper analyses the competitiveness of Romanian tourism in a regional context, by reporting it to the economies of Central and Eastern Europe in the European Union, aiming to highlight Romania's positioning and the typologies of tourism development in the region. The originality of the paper lies in the integrated use of the Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI) 2024 and economic indicators in order to assess both tourism competitiveness and the economic contribution of the sector. The analysis is based on the Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI) 2024 indicators and a series of relevant economic variables, such as the contribution of tourism to the gross domestic product, the sector's share in employment, and the structure of tourism demand. To identify tourism development models, the study uses hierarchical cluster analysis, allowing the grouping of economies according to the structural similarities of the tourism sector. The results highlight the existence of three distinct clusters of tourism development: economies oriented towards domestic tourism, economies strongly dependent on tourism, and high-performing and diversified tourism economies. Romania is included in the cluster of economies predominantly oriented towards domestic tourism, characterized by a relatively modest economic contribution of the sector, limited integration into international tourism flows, but by a high degree of internal demand. In this context, strengthening the competitiveness of the sector depends on investments in infrastructure, the development of human capital, and the implementation of coherent strategies for destination management and international promotion. The study is limited by its static character and by the fact that the cluster analysis offers a classification of countries, not causal explanations.