Comparative assessment of crises and recovery in the Romanian tourism market

The Romanian tourism industry has yet to prove that it is a resilient economic sector that can adapt to global crises. This study provides a contextual analysis of the sector's performance during two international crises – the global financial crisis (GFC) and the COVID-19 pandemic (C19). The main question is: How do tourism demand and accommodation supply in the Romanian tourism sector respond to global shocks, and what patterns of resilience or vulnerability do these crises reveal? Previous studies have focussed on tourist satisfaction and the differential impact of tourism activities after EU integration, but have rarely examined the resilience of the sector in the midst of two different global crises. The need for this research stems from its comparative nature — assessing the pre- and post-crisis periods of the GFC and C19 — thus contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the sector's dynamics. This work fills a gap in the existing literature and applies a longitudinal approach to assess Romanian tourism resilience, market confidence and response to economic and health-related shocks. The study applies a quantitative methodological framework and uses time series data from 2002-2022, with descriptive statistics, comparisons and trend analyses serving as the main pillars for interpreting the evolution of tourism demand, accommodation supply and occupancy rates. The analysis shows that the Romanian tourism sector has proven to be resilient, as operational capacity exceeded pre-crisis levels after the COVID-19 crisis, although demand fell sharply and has not fully recovered to date. Occupancy rates fell significantly during both crises and have only partially recovered.