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Abstract
Tourism is a pillar of a country's economy due to its ability to provide growth and prosperity and to reduce poverty and regional disparities. The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC, 2011) estimates that the Travel & Tourism sector is accountable for 9.2 per cent of global GDP, 4.8 per cent of world export and 9.2 per cent of world investments. In this context, the travel & tourism competitiveness index, created by World Economic Forum, aims to measure the factors and the sub-factors that make attractive the development of tourism in different countries. The aim of using this tool is to provide useful information for comparing the tourism industry at country level.
This paper aims to analyse the factors and sub-factors that underline the travel & tourism competitiveness index (TTC1), applied at regional level, from the perspective of the 8 development regions of Romania. The purpose of this analysis is to observe the competitiveness of these regions and to determine the strengths and weaknesses of each region, analysis based on which we can find solutions to increase competitiveness at regional and country level. The results of the article can provide useful information for the tourism industry regarding a comparative analysis of the regions of Romania, and can also be a tool for decision-making related to business development and tourism sector.
Furthermore, this paper is useful for the tourism industry due to the possibility of drawing attention to the obstacles faced by the tourism sector, first of all at regional level and secondly, at country level.
Keywords: tourism, development regions, competitiveness index, interregional analysis.
Introduction
According to the 2013 Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report, the sector of travel & tourism is accountable for "9 per cent of global GDP, a total of US$6 trillion and provides 120 million direct jobs and another 125 million indirect jobs in related industries." As this numbers clearly show, it is easy to understand the importance of this sector in job creation, for economic growth and development at global scale, but also for each country in particular. Tourism is one of the most important and most rapidly growing economy sectors and that it has a positive impact on the development of regions and cities and for generating prosperity for...