Dobrogea as Romanian Tourism Micro-destination.docVIP

Theoretical and Applied Economics Volume XVIII (2011), No. 7(560), pp. 133-142 Dobrogea as Romanian Tourism Micro-destination* Aurelia-Felicia ST?NCIOIU Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies stancioiufelicia@ Nicolae TEODORESCU Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies teodorescu.nicolae@ Anca-Daniela VL?DOI Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies anca.vladoi@ Ion P?RGARU Polytechnic University of Bucharest pargaruion@ Daniel MOISE Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies moisedaniel@ Abstract. Dobrogea, known since antiquity as Dacia Pontica, after the name of the sea that was bordering it – Pontus Euxinus, is a region situated in Southeastern Romania and covers four counties of which two – Constan?a and Tulcea – belong to the Romanian territory. The celebrity of Dobrogea consists in its openness to the Black Sea, in Danube Delta (reservation of the biosphere that belongs to the UNESCO heritage since 1991) and in its archaeological traces that prove the existence and the continuity of the Romanian population next to “Turks, Tatars, Circassians, Macedo-Romanians and Greeks, Italian and Ukrainian, Catholic and Protestant Germans, Bulgarians and Russians, even Egyptians and Gipsy Muslims – a true ethnic mosaic” (Popoiu, 2010, p. 15). The conducted research refers just to the two Romanian counties and aims to highlight the role of the image of the historical region of Dobrogea in building its own brand and to identify its main tourist attractions and forms of tourism. Keywords: tourism destination; tourism micro-destination; destination image; regional tourism brand; forms of tourism; destination marketing. JEL Code: M31. REL Codes: 14F, 14G. * The paper is part of a research presented in detail in No. 2(555)/2011 and examines, from this perspective, just the Romanian territory of the historical region of Dobrogea.  134 Aurelia-Felicia St?ncioiu, Nicolae Teodorescu, Anc