Romanian Rural Tourism and the UNESCO Heritage Sites

The present paper investigates the evolution of rural accommodation facilities in relation with the tourist attractions represented by Romania's UNESCO heritage sites. Romania can offer varied types of rural tourism, from agrotourism or farm-based tourism, to ecotourism, sport and health tourism, active tourism (walking, trekking, climbing, cycling, riding, adventure, photo hunting, angling, etc.) to cultural and heritage tourism. Romania has a privileged position with six of the seven UNESCO heritage sites located in rural areas, and the seventh (the historic center of Sighisoara) being located in the heart of a rural area. Tourist attractions are important for any tourist destination and the presence of a UNESCO heritage site is supposed to increase the attractiveness of a destinations. Therefore, it is only natural to investigate if and how these sites have influenced the development of rural lodgings within their surrounding areas.The investigation relies on the data provided by the Romanian National Institute of Statistics for the general framework; for a more detailed analysis the database of the Romanian Authority for Tourism will be used. The study was carried out at the level of communes and/or towns where the UNESCO heritage sites are located and at the level of the respective counties.The main finding of this research indicated that the presence of a UNESCO heritage site is not enough to increase the tourist attraction of a rural area in Romania. It seems that there is a vicious circle: the locals consider that there is no enough interest for their destination, therefore, they do not put any effort to develop other tourist attractions communities might also be reluctant to deal with a constant tourist flow. Thus, the circle can be broken only by an attractive and adequate offer