IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/vrs/quageo/v41y2022i4p107-125n7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tourism Development in the Borderlands of Romania: A Case Study of the Danube Gorge–Iron Gates

Author

Listed:
  • Băbăț Andrei-Florin

    (Department of Geography, University of Craiova, Craiova, Romania)

  • Pavel Sorin

    (Department of Geography, West University of Timisoara, Timisoara)

Abstract

Border areas are a real challenge for tourism development. Usually associated with the periphery from a socio-economic point of view, these areas often have natural potential and attractive landscapes that have been little transformed by human activity and numerous historical and cultural tourist attractions. Although these areas have considerable tourism potential, this is not sufficient for the sustainable development of tourism and the exploitation of this potential is strongly influenced by the degree of permeability of the border. This is the case of the Romanian-Serbian border, which overlaps the most spectacular sector of the Danube – the Iron Gates Gorge. The main aim of this article is to analyse the role of tourism in the development of border areas and how it functions in a particular territorial context: the Danube Gorge located at the border between Romania and Serbia. The Romanian-Serbian border currently functions as an external border of the European Union in a favourable historical and political context, given the tradition of good neighbourliness between the two entities, the states located on either side of the Danube. However, the communist period altered the prospects for tourism development in this region through a very drastic and controlled border regime, even though the area benefited from major investment projects, such as the dam and hydroelectric power station at Porțile de Fier, built in the 1970s in cooperation with the former Yugoslavia. An analysis of the statistical data on tourism development shows that tourist traffic is on the increase, although there is a contradiction between the upward trend in tourist flows and the backwardness of large-scale tourist infrastructure, with the dominant type of accommodation being small, flexible, and rural accommodation that does not require large investments. The results presented in this article can be summarised in the general conclusion that the development of tourism in the Danube Gorge–Iron Gates remains dependent on the political factor and the border regime, even though the region has a remarkable tourism potential.

Suggested Citation

  • Băbăț Andrei-Florin & Pavel Sorin, 2022. "Tourism Development in the Borderlands of Romania: A Case Study of the Danube Gorge–Iron Gates," Quaestiones Geographicae, Sciendo, vol. 41(4), pages 107-125, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:vrs:quageo:v:41:y:2022:i:4:p:107-125:n:7
    DOI: 10.14746/quageo-2022-0037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.14746/quageo-2022-0037
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.14746/quageo-2022-0037?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Causevic, Senija & Lynch, Paul, 2013. "Political (in)stability and its influence on tourism development," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 145-157.
    2. Beatrix Haselsberger, 2014. "Decoding borders. Appreciating border impacts on space and people," Planning Theory & Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 505-526, December.
    3. Corneliu Iațu & Bogdan-Constantin Ibănescu & Oana Mihaela Stoleriu & Alina Munteanu, 2018. "The WHS Designation—A Factor of Sustainable Tourism Growth for Romanian Rural Areas?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-12, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Asongu, Simplice & Acha-Anyi, Paul, 2019. "Global Tourism and Waves of Terror: Perspectives from Military Expenditure," MPRA Paper 101793, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Farmaki, Anna & Altinay, Levent & Botterill, David & Hilke, Sarina, 2015. "Politics and sustainable tourism: The case of Cyprus," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 178-190.
    3. Farmaki, Anna, 2017. "The tourism and peace nexus," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 528-540.
    4. Bogdan-Constantin Ibănescu & Oana Mihaela Stoleriu & Alina Munteanu & Corneliu Iațu, 2018. "The Impact of Tourism on Sustainable Development of Rural Areas: Evidence from Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-19, October.
    5. Aydin, Mucahit, 2022. "The impacts of political stability, renewable energy consumption, and economic growth on tourism in Turkey: New evidence from Fourier Bootstrap ARDL approach," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 467-473.
    6. Webster, Craig & Yen, Chih-Lun (Alan) & Hji-Avgoustis, Sotiris, 2020. "Hotels hurting horrifically but hopeful: A case study of the Indianapolis hotel industry," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 6(3), pages 54-58.
    7. Cătălina Ancuța & Ioan Sebastian Jucu, 2023. "Sustainable Rural Development through Local Cultural Heritage Capitalization—Analyzing the Cultural Tourism Potential in Rural Romanian Areas: A Case Study of Hărman Commune of Brașov Region in Romani," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-31, June.
    8. Sarah Khasalamwa-Mwandha, 2021. "Local Integration as a Durable Solution? Negotiating Socioeconomic Spaces between Refugees and Host Communities in Rural Northern Uganda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-22, September.
    9. Compagnucci, Fabiano & Morettini, Gabriele, 2024. "Inner areas matter: A place-sensitive approach for the identification of the Daily Life Spaces in the Italian Abruzzo region," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    10. Reddy, Maharaj Vijay & Boyd, Stephen W. & Nica, Mirela, 2020. "Towards a post-conflict tourism recovery framework," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    11. Ghassan Dibeh & Ali Fakih & Walid Marrouch, 2020. "Tourism–growth nexus under duress: Lebanon during the Syrian crisis," Tourism Economics, , vol. 26(3), pages 353-370, May.
    12. Kaj Zimmerbauer & Sulevi Riukulehto & Timo Suutari, 2017. "Killing the Regional Leviathan? Deinstitutionalization and Stickiness of Regions," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 676-693, July.
    13. Bronner, Fred & de Hoog, Robert, 2014. "Vacationers and the economic “double dip” in Europe," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 330-337.
    14. Asongu, Simplice & Nnanna, Joseph & Biekpe, Nicholas & Acha-Anyi, Paul, 2018. "Contemporary Drivers of Global Tourism: Evidence from Terrorism and Peace Factors," MPRA Paper 91996, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Stanislav Hristov Ivanov & Craig Webster & Elitza Stoilova & Daniel Slobodskoy, 2022. "Biosecurity, crisis management, automation technologies and economic performance of travel, tourism and hospitality companies – A conceptual framework," Tourism Economics, , vol. 28(1), pages 3-26, February.
    16. Simplice A. Asongu & Joseph I. Uduji & Elda N. Okolo-Obasi, 2019. "Tourism and insecurity in the world," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 66(4), pages 453-472, December.
    17. Claudio Detotto & Sauveur Giannoni & Claire Goavec, 2017. "Does good governance attract tourists?," Working Papers 002, Laboratoire Lieux, Identités, eSpaces et Activités (LISA).
    18. Caesar, Beate & Pallagst, Karina, 2022. "Development paths for cross-border cooperation and the status quo," Arbeitsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Pallagst, Karina & Hartz, Andrea & Caesar, Beate (ed.), Border Futures - Zukunft Grenze - Avenir Frontière: The future viability of cross-border cooperation, volume 33, pages 16-32, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    19. Dominik Porczyński & Dariusz Wojakowski, 2020. "Borderlands from the resilience perspective: Diversification of state borders in former Austrian Galicia," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(5), pages 793-813, October.
    20. Fabiano Compagnucci & Gabriele Morettini, 2020. "Improving resilience at the local level: The location of essential services within inner areas. Three case studies in the Italian Marche region," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(5), pages 767-792, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:vrs:quageo:v:41:y:2022:i:4:p:107-125:n:7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.sciendo.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.