Change Management Initiatives for Romanian Tourism Industry, Based on Benchmarking against South-East Asian and CEE Countries

Taking into consideration the wide gap between Romania’s and other CEE countries’ level of development in the travel and tourism industry, the paper aims to identify and apply the most effective change management approach to the tourism industry in Romania, in order to facilitate the country’s transition towards a competitive tourism destination. The paper proposes a three-step change management approach for closing this gap: diagnosis of the current state; transformation towards the desired state; evaluation and correction in order to maintain the desired results. The analysis provides a comparison of the strength of travel and tourism industries in Romania vs. two groups of countries that have proved successful in this field in the past 20 years: CEE countries (Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Rep. Slovak Rep., Croatia, Hungary) and SE Asian countries (Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam). The paper provides a diagnosis of the current situation of the Romanian tourism industry by analysing the recent history of economic and tourism industry indicators (2008-2013), such as contribution to national GDP, capital investments, etc. An additional mapping of the target countries’ current positions follows the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum and takes into consideration a two dimensional model based on the destination’s level of development and the community engagement, in order to establish the countries’ relative competitive positions and the gaps between them. Following the diagnosis of the current state, the paper provides a set of recommended actions, tailored for both public and private sectors, so that Romania may capitalize on its national, historical and cultural resources and become a successful tourist destination, reaching the status of a competitive tourism industry.