Agritourism growth and CAP subsidies in Romanian rural areas

Nicola Galluzzo

Abstract: Since the 1990s, there has been a notable rise in agritourism enterprises in Romania owing to new tourism flows coming from various European countries. The predominant aim of this research was to assess the impact of financial subsidies allocated by the European Union on the growth of Romanian agritourism through a quantitative approach that seeks to identify which socio-economic variables have most affected it, and to assess, in addition, whether the advent of agritourism has lessened the incidence of permanent emigration from Romania. The analysis has been structured in two different stages. The first phase assesses the role that the financial subsidies allocated through the Common Agricultural Policy have played in the growth of agritourism; the second phase investigates the main cause-effect relationships which have acted on the growth of agritourism in Romania. Over the period 2007-2016, socio-economic variables have had an appreciable effect on enhancing agritourism, even if factors such as permanent emigration, people at risk of severe poverty, and productivity in the primary sector, have been the notable drivers in influencing the development of agritourism.

Keywords: emigration; FADN; PLS-SEM; poverty; rural development

Date published: 2021-02-16