Quality Management in the Romanian Tourism Industry: An Approach Regarding the Rural Mountain Areas

More and more people are putting a special emphasis on health and relaxation and when it comes to vacations, they seek to escape from routine in places where nature and tranquility predominate. Personal and true experiences take the place of the standardized holidays offered by mass tourism, satisfying to a greater extent the desire of tourists to detach themselves from the daily life of crowded and hectic cities. In this context, there is a movement of tourists to nature and to places that can offer traditional outdoor activities such as hiking, horseback riding or kayaking, etc. Authentic food, clean air and tranquility have also become the criteria of tourists in choosing a destination. Thus, tourism in rural areas of Romania, especially in the mountains, has become very sought after and appreciated. The stressful daily life and the fast pace of the cities make people want to spend their holidays in the most relaxing environment. Unfortunately, the rural tourism in our country is not very well developed and, consequently, has a lot to recover in terms of tourist offer. Although nature and people can offer unique experiences to tourists, few of the foreign tourists manage to reach these places and get to know the local natural beauties. For this reason, the focus of this paper is on tourism quality management in these areas, in order to identify the current situation and to develop possible suggestions as ways to improve the quality of rural tourism services.