Bucharest tourism and Romania's 2007 EU accession as a path-shaping moment of change

Entity: Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV)

Confidenciality: No

Education area(s): Gestió de Destinacions Turístiques

Title in different languages: Bucharest tourism and Romania's 2007 EU accession as a path-shaping moment of change

Abstract: Evolutionary Economic Geography and the moment’s framework by Sanz-Ibanez et al. (2017) were applied to the case of Bucharest tourism and the 2007 event of Romania joining the European Union as a path-shaping inflection point in the evolution of the destination. The paper used a mix of qualitative and quantitative sources to support the EEG-moments perspective on the link between tourism in Bucharest and Romania’s EU accession as to gain an in-depth understanding of the case. Tourism evolution in Bucharest was viewed along a continuum, the 2007 inflection point dividing the pre- and post-moment scapes, each with its specific conditions and discourse, 8 focus areas being identified: MICE – coevolution and reinforcement with the hotel sector, heritage reuse – metamorphosis under the creative industries, environmental management – redevelopment through EU funding or NGO initiative, image – breaking of legacies and renewal, supply – upgrading and upscaling, demand – extension and segmenting, policies – EU ‘de-locking’ effect and need for further coherence and applicability, governance – resilience to change. The findings supported the initial hypothesis that Romania’s accession to the EU had an effect in shaping the tourism trajectory in Bucharest, and more specifically it was concluded that the impact created was significant, of path plasticity, with mostly positive outcomes in the new equilibrium. An interesting direction for future research could be the use of the EEG-moments framework in assessing the other side of the coin, the ways in which EU tourism evolved as a result of new members joining. The EEG framework and moment’s theory by Sanz-Ibanez et al. (2017) should gain further focus in the field of tourism studies due to their wide applicability and adaptability to very diverse destinations, circumstances and occurrences.

Subject: Turisme

Academic year: 2018-2019

Language: Anglès

Work's public defense date: 2019-09-12

Subject areas: Tourism and leisure

Student: Oala Scurtulescu, Ana

Department: Geografia

Creation date in repository: 2019-10-22

TFM credits: 12

Keywords: Tourism evolution, Evolutionary Economic Geography, moments of change

Title in original language: Bucharest tourism and Romania's 2007 EU accession as a path-shaping moment of change

Access Rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Project director: Anton Clavé, Salvador