Anca Gabriela Turtureanu, Prof., PhD,
Cornelia Elena Tureac, Associate Prof., PhD,
Bogdan Constantin Andronic, Prof., PhD
Danubius University of Galati, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Romania Galati

TOURIST INDUSTRY RECOVERS FROM WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS

Tourism has become an important economic engine on the global point of view , but is extremely localized. Due to geographical distribution and nature of labor intensive activities in tourism offers a wide range of employment opportunities for poor and vulnerable groups in developing countries, especially but not exclusively, in rural and remote areas. Tourism has suffered a lot during the global economic crisis, there was a decline of 4% of international tourist arrivals in 2009, and revenues from international tourism fell by 6% by 2009. To a new report "Euro barometer" survey on the attitudes of Europeans towards tourism emphasized that the tourism industry has passed the economic crisis confirmed by the indicators. Motivations of travel for 2011 have been to traditional tourist destinations (58%), while 28% wanted to discover new destinations.
One of the main socio-economic phenomena of our century is the rapid development and remarkable continuity of domestic and international tourism, both at Earth and at regional level. Tourism, as an economic and social phenomenon, has known an spectacular boom in the second half of the twentieth century.
Tourism has a significant impact on economies, societies and cultures of countries. Action to occur on many levels, from boosting economic growth to improve the social fabric of the upper turning natural and material resources to improve living conditions. Obviously, tourism contribution to economic and social progress, the intensity of its action differs significantly from country to country depending on its level of development and the policy pursued towards him.
Tourist industry in recent decades has proven that it can be an important element in the economic growth. The increasing number of tourists, tourism business growth, but also that this area is still a major employer in the labor market encourages positive evolution of the global Travel & Tourism sector. The contribution of tourism industry in global GDP is impressive 9% with only slightly smaller than the banking sector representing 11%, but higher than the automotive industry is 8.8%.
According to a new report UNWTO "2011 International Tourism Results and Prospects for 2012" during the 2011 tourist arrivals grew by about 4% to a total of 980 million. According to the report in 2012 will continue to grow, at a slower rate probably very close to one billion tourists. The increase in 2011 was 4.4% (980) million in 2011, compared with 939 million in 2010).
This figure is in itself very good, but considering the global context becomes even more valuable. 2011 was characterized by an impasse in the global economy that seems to recover in a series of events leading to political instability in countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and natural disasters, such as significant enough earthquake in Japan WTTC said in late 2011 as The debt crisis Euro-zone Continues unabated. With little political will, reforms implementation that would significantly have result in a permanent solution to the crisis, there is a risk on policy-makers that could be overtaken by Financial Markets. At the same time, the risk of recession in the USA has increased. The weak labor market to weigh on household spending continues, while financial stress has taken its toll on business confidence.
Speaking of arrivals growth in Europe is 6%, but the best results were registered in South Africa with 10%. Another interesting fact is that, contrary to what happened in previous years, growth was higher in economically advanced countries (5% in total) and in emerging markets (+3.8%) probably because of problems arising in Middle East and North Africa, which have slowed tourist arrivals and favored Europe. In Europe, tourist arrivals reached 503 million in 2011, despite economic uncertainty, ie 28 million of the 41 million international tourist arrivals recorded worldwide. In Eastern Europe, Central and part of the Mediterranean was an increase of 8%, while arrivals in the Mediterranean are due to change orientation flow of tourists visiting the Middle East and North Africa for the European Mediterranean area, have been also notice the growth in this area and in Germany, Scandinavia and the Russian Federation.
In Asia and the Pacific was the result of 6% of arrivals, an increase of 11 million compared to 2010 amounting to a total of 216 million international tourists, while North Asia and Oceania or experienced more modest increases (4% and 3% respectively), partly due to considerable decrease of tourist flows from Japan.
UNWTO estimated growth will continue, albeit modest, in the course of 2012. This growth is expected to be between 3% and 4%, with about 1 billion international tourists. Increases are expected in Asia, Pacific and Africa (with values from 4% to 6%), followed by America and Europe (from 2% to 4%). Also, it is expected that in 2012 Middle East to begin to recover some losses in 2011 (probably from 0% to +5%).
According to data compiled annually by the National Institute of Statistics of Romania's tourist industry evolved during 2006 - 2011 as follows:

As in volume, about 20% of tourists spend their holidays abroad, while 80% choose Romania. According to study IRES on "Holiday 2011, behaviors and habits", over 70% of respondents spent most holidays in the last 10 years in Romania. 15% of them say the most they have spent abroad, and 12% in both places.
The study "Holidays 2011 - behaviors and habits' shows that, after several years of financial crisis, Romanians reduce their aspirations in regard to their holidays: theywould prefer to go abroad rather than in Romania, subtract the number who go on holiday plane, decreases interest destinations in Western European countries, but increases to or Bulgarian seaside.
Tourism market is extremely fragmented, is still dominated by few large players, who own about 30% of the market and mainly active in the tourism business. In March 2011, the top 10 travel agencies changed (for figures from 2010) such as: (according to Mediafax), the top 10 out Kartago, J'InfoTours and Parallel 45, whose business has declined considerably.
Conclusions. In 2011, world tourism has emerged fully from the crisis, say experts unanimously. Trend of increasing profits and the number of tourists will continue over the next few years, and this year could be even set a new record for number of trips, reports World Travel Monitor Forum. As shown in the statistics world tourism industry activity increases in importance. The main index, tourist arrivals, is increasing, and sales in 2011 of 4.4% is significant.
According to the WTO officials, tourism is very important in emerging economies, tourism affects the entire economy by reducing debt, trade deficit and creating jobs. Besides the critical economic dimension, tourism is very important socially and culturally, favoring communication between different cultures, it can have an influence on mentality and geopolitical developments worldwide. About tourism in Romania it registered a significant growth last year, but not yet reached the 2008 level, we can say that has the following trends:

References

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