The tourism industry in South-Eastern Europe: development and competitiveness

Abstract

Tourism, either as a timeless social phenomenon or as widespread way of entertainment, an attempt is made to establish itself as a concept just as it is in 1937, when is designated as the tourist the person who travels and stays for more than 24 hours in a country other than his own. However, a precise definition does not exist but can be mentioned as general characteristics of the individual or group travel (travel - accommodation - food) to a place other than permanent stay, short stay and return, as well as the visit to destinations for tourist and leisure or professional purposes or otherwise. Today, among other things, the technological development of transport means, the comfort of accommodation and specialized services provided a rapid increase in population movement for tourist’s reasons. The classification of tourism as a geographic phenomenon is based on the fact that it is closely related to the specificities of a particular space when is also perceived as a movement and as a lasting socio-economic activity. It is well known that global tourism is not homogeneous. This inherent characteristic is explained by objective preconditions such as: the geographic contrasts imposed directly linked to the distribution of resources and their degree of tourist absorption, capacity and attendance; quantitative and qualitative indicators of the developed structure of tourism; the spread of innovation in the industry, as well as by the manifestation of a number of other phenomena of a public nature, immediately or indirectly affecting its full development. On the planetary level, these differences on the ground place the basis of tourist regionalization of the world, representing a peculiar macro-frame of the original geographic presented in the structuring of the tourist area. As a rule, the term region is considered to be a geographical of the widest spatial order (as opposed to the area that primarily affects the administrative-territorial division - Autonomy), using mainly a macro-level for separating the largest territorial entities - geopolitical, geo-economic, physico-geographic. One of the shortest definitions of this term is "a particular kind of territory characterized by specific integrity". This integrity should be understood as genetic territorial unity, which naturally affects the common features of the morphological structure, climate or natural landscapes, but in the public sphere. The socio-economic aspect is expressed through a number of indicators of a public nature, as well as the degree of interconnection and interdependence in the economic development of space. Regarding the observed territorial homogeneity, it should be clarified that not always the economic geographic (or tourist) region overlaps with the physico-geographic, because in the first they take into account to a much higher degree the socio-cultural aspects of the environment, as well as its specificity in the international division of labor (sectorial and territorial). The regionalization of the geographical area is considered objective a process that results from the natural, historical and socio-economic material filling and development. This process is therefore traditionally qualified as one of the ways to explore the objectively existing one reality.