Buletin USAMV-CN, 64/2007 (-)

ISSN 1454-2382

ANALYSES OF TOURISTS PREFERENCES ON RURAL TOURISM

ACCOMMODATION FACILITIES IN ROMANIA
Arion F., Iulia Muresan

University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine,

3-5 Mănăştur St., 400372, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, email: felixarion@usamvcluj.ro

Key words: rural tourism, accommodation facilities, categories of comfort, touristic capacity,
overnight spendings, number of tourists, statistical analyze

Abstract: The paper tries to offer a comprehensive analyze of the tourists’ preferences for different forms
and categories of comfort of rural tourism accommodation facilities in Romania, at a previous moment of joining
to European Union. Based only on official data of the National Institute for Statistics of Romania, it were
computed and analyzed on the same time, the rural accommodation facilities on categories of comfort, the
touristic capacity in rural area, the number of tourists and the overnight spendings in rural area capacity and the
average increase rate for all those indices.

INTRODUCTION

A simple look at the official data offered by the National Institute for Statistics of
Romania in June 2007, the arrivals of tourists in Romanian accommodation facilities on the
first semester of the year 2007 reached the level of 2994.1 thousands, knowing an increase of
no less than 14.9% comparing with the one of the same period of the year 2006. More than
three quarters (meaning 76.9% of the total number of arrivals) were Romanians, the rest of
23.1% coming from outside of Romania. This structure is extremely similar with the one
registered last year (76.8% arrivals from Romania and 23.2% from abroad). [1]
The overnight spendings of tourists into official touristic facility accommodations
cumulated on the first semester of the year 2007 a number of 7953.4 thousands, with 11.9%
more than the similar period of the previous year, while 80.2% were Romanians and the last
of 19.8% being form outside of the Romanian borders. [1]

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Paper is focused on the analyze of the touristic indices in rural areas: the rural
accommodation facilities on categories of comfort, the touristic capacity in rural area, the
number of tourists and the number of overnight spendings in rural area and the average
increase rate for all those indices, based on the publications of the National Institute of
Statistics of Romania. For making the necessary computations, were selected the main
traditional accommodation facilities in rural area, according to the legislation [2], which are
rural touristic boarding house (having a maximum of 10 rooms and no more than 30 beds
with special places for preparing and serving the meals), and agrituristic boarding house
(having between 3 and 10 rooms, and where the owners live and assure food and raw
materials mainly from local sources). Nevertheless, those are not the only places where a
tourist can spend the night on rural areas, but the other forms of accommodation (situated on
rural areas and offering the similar services with the previous ones), such are campings and
houselet-type units, rustic hotels, touristic villas and bungalows, motels, school camps and so
on, have only a very limited share, so they were considered not to be very significant for the
analyze and they were not included.
There are some important notes to be specified about the data used for the analyze.
Firstly, the total number of facilities, of tourists or of overnight spendings is purely computed
by summing the respective data for the two main categories mentioned before (rural touristic
boarding house and the agrituristic boarding house). Secondly, the flow of records used for
analyze starts with the year 2001, for being easy to make a clear distinction between the two
types of classification on categories of comfort (on stars and on flowers). Thirdly, were
eliminated the data that seems not to be correct from the series of data (like classification of
rural touristic accommodation on stars and not on flowers). Fourthly, there were not available
data for the years 2005 and 2006 for the agrituristic boarding house, so they have to be
eliminated from the analyze. Fifthly, the figures of average increase data that appear on the
following tables are computed and not obtained from official data.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The first issues to be take into consideration is the physical number of the touristic
accommodation facilities existing in rural area, and, being important from the point of view of
the analyze, their share of categories of comfort and the computed average increasing rate for
all categories (see Table 1).

Table 1. Rural touristic accommodation facilities on categories of comfort (number)

Types of Categories of Year Average
accommodation comfort 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 increase rate
Total classified
3266 3338 3569 3900 4226 4710 7.59 %
on stars
5 stars 7 8 10 10 14 53 49.91 %
4 stars 92 100 125 168 219 251 22.22 %
3 stars 332 362 427 584 830 990 24.42 %
2 stars 1206 1323 1479 1661 1780 2084 11.56 %
1 star 1080 1052 1080 1057 1030 955 -2.43 %
Total unclassified 549 493 448 420 353 377 -7.24 %
Total classified
536 682 781 892 956 1259 28.74 %
on flowers
5 flowers 0 0 0 0 0 7 n.a.
4 flowers 2 2 0 18 22 33 75.18 %
3 flowers 39 52 0 89 142 192 37.54 %
2 flowers 346 449 0 597 652 906 21.23 %
1 flower 149 179 0 188 140 121 0.42 %
Total 193 221 266 431 956 1259 45.51 %
5 flowers 0 0 0 0 0 7 n.a.
Rural touristic 4 flowers 2 2 0 17 22 33 75.18 %
boarding house 3 flowers 18 23 0 60 142 192 60.54 %
2 flowers 126 144 0 282 652 906 48.37 %
1 flower 47 52 0 72 140 121 20.81 %
Total 343 461 515 461 n.a. n.a. 10.35 %
5 flowers 0 0 0 0 n.a. n.a. 0.00 %
Agrituristic 4 flowers 0 0 0 1 n.a. n.a. n.a.
boarding house 3 flowers 21 29 0 29 n.a. n.a. 11.35 %
2 flowers 220 305 0 315 n.a. n.a. 12.71 %
1 flower 102 127 0 116 n.a. n.a. 4.38 %
Reference: [3]
 It can be seen that, generally, there are, for almost all categories, a positive trend, the
number of physical facilities increasing almost every year. But, most important, the trend is
much more significant for the accommodation with higher level of luxury (the of average rate
of increase of 5 stars accommodations being almost 50%, comparing with actually a negative
value of the same indices for 1 star accommodations and unclassified accommodation, the last
one having a negative value of more than 7% during the analyzed period of time).
Nevertheless, the trend is even more accentuated for the accommodation from rural areas (the
ones classified on flowers), the total value of more than 28% of the average increase rate
being provided by a level of almost 76% for the same indices for the 4 flowers
accommodations and, respectively, less than 0.5% for 1 flower accommodations (but the last
value is affected by the lack of information about the evolution of number of agrituristic
boarding house for the last two years).
Based on those observations it can be shown two facts: that the physical number of
touristic accommodations in Romania increased over the last 6 years (and the ones from rural
areas even more dramatically) and that the increasing trend is much more accentuated for the
more luxury ones. The possible reasons include, for sure, the increase of the net revenues in
Romania and, consequentially, the possibility and the openness for spending more for
relaxation and entertainment.
But simply numbering the touristic accommodation facilities is not sufficient for
expressing the potential of accommodation for tourists in rural areas, being necessary to look
over the touristic capacity on the same categories of comfort previously analyzed – meaning
the number of touristic places, excluding supplementary beds that could be used if necessary,
registered to the last official document of the facility (see Table 2). Touristic capacity gives a
more comprehensive image of the total accommodation potential (expressed in places-days)
of the analyzed area.

Table 2. Touristic capacity in rural areas on categories of comfort (number of place-days)

Types of Categories of Year Average
accommodation comfort 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 increase rate
Total in
51882465 50752061 51632254 53988640 54978838 56499904 1.72 %
Romania
Total classified
460570 512338 696872 1233427 2528316 3188350 47.25 %
on flowers
Total 5 flowers 0 0 0 25767 25767 28027 4.29 %
4 flowers 5128 6286 19357 69669 119493 162173 99.53 %
3 flowers 127051 165945 235115 338487 578916 818927 45.16 %
2 flowers 775599 901455 1125371 1446457 1545243 1919127 19.87 %
1 flower 197946 196819 234654 277395 252743 260096 5.61 %
Total 460570 512338 696872 1233427 2528316 3188350 47.25 %
5 flowers 0 0 0 25767 25767 28027 4.29 %
Rural touristic 4 flowers 5128 6286 19357 68693 119493 162173 99.53 %
boarding house 3 flowers 60756 80880 121030 226339 578916 818927 68.24 %
2 flowers 282526 323995 439371 771036 1545243 1919127 46.69 %
1 flower 112160 101177 117114 167359 252743 260096 18.32 %
Total 645154 758167 917625 898581 n.a. n.a. 11.68 %
5 flowers 0 0 0 0 n.a. n.a. 0.00
Agrituristic 4 flowers 0 0 0 976 n.a. n.a. n.a. %
boarding house 3 flowers 66295 85065 114085 112148 n.a. n.a. 19.15 %
2 flowers 493073 577460 686000 675421 n.a. n.a. 11.06 %
1 flower 85786 95642 117540 110036 n.a. n.a. 8.65 %
Reference: [3]
 It is relatively normal, having in mind the data from the Table 1, that the values of the
average increasing rate for all analyzed categories have a positive trend. Even more, it
can be observed the fact that the accommodation from rural area known a much more
positive trend (the the average increasing rate being more than 47%, comparing with
the one of less than 2% of the average increasing rate of the all accommodation
facilities) and the fact that the bigger is the number of flowers – as categories of
comfort – the bigger is the levels of this rate. This proves again the decreased offer,
over the analyzed period, for less comfortable accommodations in the favour of the
most luxurious one, even if the price is, normally, therefore, significantly higher.
Another aspect that can be revealed from the first two tables is that touristic capacity
increased higher that number of accommodation facilities, meaning that the new
registered accommodations have a bigger average touristic capacity than the older
ones from rural area. That is a consequence of the fact that the owners of the new
accommodation facilities in these are opted for a bigger number of available beds for
tourists, taking advance in that way of the economy of scale.
But the available touristic capacity is useless if it is not visited by tourists, an
evolution of the number of tourists – meaning the number of tourists checked-in on rural
touristic accommodation (the staying overnight of any person travelling for non-remunerable
reasons out of his/hers at least 12 months residence town), being shown in Table 3. The same
two trends presented before can be easily observed from this table. In it interesting to see that,
generally, for all accommodation facilities classified on flowers, the average increase rate is
relatively similar with the one of touristic capacity for the same period. On the same time, it
must not be neglected the fact that the number of tourists increased higher than the new
touristic capacity, and the main differences appear at the most affordable forms of
accommodation (1 or 2 flowers) where the number of tourists increased 6 and respectively 1.5
times more higher than the new touristic capacity.
Table 3. Tourists on rural areas accommodation facilities on categories of comfort (number)
Types of Categories of Year Average
accommodation comfort 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 increase rate
Total in
4874777 4847496 5056693 5638636 5805096 6216028 4.98 %
Romania
Total classified
41658 64811 89446 149104 170164 217020 39.11 %
on flowers
Total 5 flowers 0 0 0 0 887 1074 21.08 %
4 flowers 41 212 1135 8565 12884 17089 234.18 %
3 flowers 6552 11046 15717 29045 46315 63036 57.27 %
2 flowers 30019 44854 60526 93580 91328 116932 31.25 %
1 flower 5046 8699 12068 17914 18750 18889 30.21 %
Total 21244 32201 47444 96823 170164 217020 59.17 %
5 flowers 0 0 0 0 887 1074 21.08 %
Rural touristic 4 flowers 41 212 1135 8352 12884 17089 234.18 %
boarding house 3 flowers 2398 5380 8871 20549 46315 63036 92.29 %
2 flowers 15374 20962 30613 57672 91328 116932 50.05 %
1 flower 3431 5647 6825 10250 18750 18889 40.66 %
Total 20414 32610 42002 52281 n.a. n.a. 36.82 %
5 flowers 0 0 0 0 n.a. n.a. 0.00 %
Agrituristic 4 flowers 0 0 0 213 n.a. n.a. n.a %
boarding house 3 flowers 4154 5666 6846 8496 n.a. n.a. 26.94 %
2 flowers 14645 23892 29913 35908 n.a. n.a. 34.84 %
1 flower 1615 3052 5243 7664 n.a. n.a. 68.05 %
Reference: [3]
There is a last indicator that should be analyzed: the number of overnights stayings
(meaning any person registered to any kind of accommodation facility, no matter if
he/she physically spent the night there or not). The ration between this one and the
number of tourists accommodated offers an image of the average period of time spent
by tourist rural accommodations.
Table 4. Overnight spendings on rural areas accommodation facilities on categories of comfort (number)
Types of Categories of Year Average
accommodation comfort 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 increase rate
Total in
18121688 17276804 17844583 18500881 18372988 18991695 0.94 %
Romania
Total classified
88349 144135 225388b 321168 365967 459344 39.06 %
on flowers
Total 5 flowers 0 0 0 0 5312 5211 -1.90 %
4 flowers 155 785 1857 13534 22517 32791 191.80 %
3 flowers 11381 20539 36751 58309 84691 124370 61.33 %
2 flowers 65779 105353 156914 211966 215386 252903 30.91 %
1 flower 11034 17458 29866 37359 37444 44069 31.91 %
Total 40083 60123 103614 193361 365967 459344 62.87 %
5 flowers 0 0 0 0 5312 5211 -1.90 %
Rural touristic 4 flowers 155 785 1857 12942 22517 32791 191.80 %
boarding house 3 flowers 4681 9563 19110 39798 84691 124370 92.70 %
2 flowers 28178 39902 67065 117875 215386 252903 55.10 %
1 flower 7069 9873 15582 22746 37444 44069 44.20 %
Total 48266 84012 121774 127807 n.a. n.a. 38.35 %
5 flowers 0 0 0 0 n.a. n.a. 0.00
Agrituristic 4 flowers 0 0 0 592 n.a. n.a. n.a %
boarding house 3 flowers 6700 10976 17641 18511 n.a. n.a. 40.32 %
2 flowers 37601 65451 89849 94091 n.a. n.a. 35.76 %
1 flower 3965 7585 14284 14613 n.a. n.a. 54.47 %
Reference: [3]

Because the trend is quite similar between those two indices, it can be affirmed that
the average period of staying very slightly decreased over the time. It could be observed that
the average period of time spent is around 2 days, with a significant increase for the 5 flowers
accommodations where is around 5 days. That lead to the conclusion that on rural areas it is
widely used the week-end tourism, especially for medium quality accommodation, the luxury
accommodations being used for special occasions (such are honey moon or business meetings
and trainings).

CONCLUSIONS

It can be observed some ambiguous information among the ones from the National
Institute of Statistics of Romania, which, with no doubt, had a negative effect of the final
results of the analyze. For instance, there is no understandable why for the years 2004, 2005
and 2006 there are no recorded any 4 flowers rural touristic boarding house, but it exists a
touristic capacity for this category of comfort. And the examples can continue. There seems to
be necessary a much higher level of attention from the bodies that compute official data,
otherwise the results of any analyze could have different effects than the expected one.
There is quite obvious that the indices previous analyzed are close related among
them, the increase of number of touristic facilities being immediately followed by significant
increase of touristic capacity, and, respectively an increase of number of tourists and of
overnight spendings in rural areas.
An important issue to be revealed is the fact that the increase of the all indices seems
to be significantly bigger in favour of high class accommodation, the touristic demand
changed, and, at the moment, tourists opt for more than just “having a roof over the head”, but
searching for more sophisticated ways of spending the spare time. This is a quite an important
detail, that must be, and seems to be, kept in mind for the new touristic supply and offers.

REFERENCES

1. ***, 2007 – Comunicat de presă nr. 145 din 2 august 2007. Turism – luna iunie şi
semestrul I 2207, Institutul Naţional de Statistică, Biroul de presă, Bucureşti
2. ***, 2002 – Ordinul Ministrului Turismului nr. 510/ 2002 pentru aprobarea
Normelor metodologice privind clasificarea structurilor de primire turistice,
Monitorul Oficial al României, Partea I, nr. 582 bis din 6 august 2002, Bucureşti
3. https://statistici.insse.ro, Baza de date online a Institutului Naţional de Statistică,
Bucureşti, ultima accesare 10 august 2007