Tourism spending represents only 0.9% of Romania’s economy and will most likely continue to fall below the global average of 1.2%, according to a study conducted by the international consultancy network UHY, which points out that Romania lags behind its European rivals, which, on average, have a higher level of tourism spending as a percentage of GDP (2.1%) compared to emerging markets (0.7%).<\/p>\n
In the last year, the growth rate of tourism spending in Romania was only 1.1% – up to 1.73 billion USD, from 1.71 billion USD in the previous year, compared to 2.2% in emerging countries.<\/p>\n
This percentage is significantly lower than Romania’s global economic growth rate, both for 2016 – 5%, and for 2017 – 6.9%.<\/p>\n
UHY studied 34 countries worldwide and analyzed the spending made by tourists in the last 2 years as a percentage of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Romania ranked 28th in the study.<\/p>\n
According to UHY, the main cause of the lower growth rate of tourism spending is that many European economies, such as Romania, fail to modernize their tourism infrastructure as quickly as emerging countries.<\/p>\n
However, the Romanian government has invested in improving the infrastructure around major tourist attractions, including the Danube Delta and Transylvania, the document states.<\/p>\n