ANALYSIS OF POTENTIAL SME’S ROLE FOR DEVELOPING TOURISM IN TRANSYLVANIA

The tourism sector is probably the only service sector that provides concrete and strong trading opportunities for all nations, regardless of their level of development. However, it is also a sector where there is clearly an uneven distribution of benefits, which is threatening the social, economic and environmental sustainability of tourism in some developing countries. For many developing countries tourism is a fundamental sector of their economy and for others tourism is only a source of foreign currency and employment. The paper analyzes the current stage of development of tourism sector from Romania in general, and from Transylvania, in particular. This research intended also to find out the most specific features of this sector, the strengths and weaknesses identified here. Due to the fact that rural tourism is one of the fast developing fields in the Eastern European countries, the paper identifies which are the most important areas from Transylvania with a high potential in this field. Also based on the SME’s development the paper tried to select the most important steps which should be taken in the tourism sector in order to increase its role in the Romanian economy and for attracting new customers for this offers.