Tourism in Romania

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Corvin Castle in Hunedoara Hunedoara castle.jpg
Corvin Castle in Hunedoara
Peles Castle in Sinaia Castelul Peles, Sinaia - Vedere panoramica.jpg
Peleș Castle in Sinaia
Bran Castle in Brasov Castelul Bran2.jpg
Bran Castle in Brașov
Bucegi Mountains in Brasov Muntii Bucegi vazuti de pe Postavaru.jpg
Bucegi Mountains in Brașov

In December 2024, Romania's tourism sector had a 6.8% increase in arrivals at accommodation facilities, including hotels, apartments, and rental rooms, compared to December 2023. [1] in authorized lodging facilities, marking increases of 4.5% over 2023 [1] Overnight stays also rose by 4.9% during the same period. At border crossing points, Romania recorded 916,100 foreign visitor arrivals, while the number of Romanian residents traveling abroad reached 1,007,600. [1]

Contents

In 2024, the National Institute of Statistics reported that Romania recorded over 14 million arrivals [1] in authorized lodging facilities, marking increases of 4.5% over 2023 [1] and 7.7% compared to 2019, [1] with overnight stays reaching 30.2 million. [1] Early trends for 2025 continue to reflect strong domestic interest, particularly along the Romanian Black Sea resorts and in emerging sectors such as Ecotourism. [2]

The most visited cities are Bucharest, Constanța, Brașov, Timișoara, Sibiu, Alba-Iulia, Cluj-Napoca, Sighișoara, Iași and Oradea. Natural touristic attractions include the Danube, the Carpathian Mountains, and the Black Sea. The most popular destinations for tourists are the capital city Bucharest, Brașov County, Cluj County, Prahova County, Constanța County, Bihor County and Sibiu County. [3]

UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Romania

Administrative divisions of Romania Romanian license plate codes.png
Administrative divisions of Romania
Biertan (German: Birthalm
) Transylvanian Saxon medieval fortified church in Sibiu County, central Romania Kirchenburg Birthalm.jpg
Biertan (German : Birthälm) Transylvanian Saxon medieval fortified church in Sibiu County, central Romania
Slatioara secular forest near Campulung Moldovenesc in Suceava County, northeastern Romania Karpatenlandschaft bei Slatioara.JPG
Slătioara secular forest near Câmpulung Moldovenesc in Suceava County, northeastern Romania

Activities

Protected virgin beach at Corbu, Constanta County, southeastern Romania Corbu, Romania - panoramio.jpg
Protected virgin beach at Corbu, Constanța County, southeastern Romania
Bicaz Gorge Bekas-szoros.jpg
Bicaz Gorge
Letea Forest Letea0 cropped.jpg
Letea Forest

Major tourist attractions

Festivals

Electric Castle Festival in 2017 Electric Castle 2017 - Main Stage view.jpg
Electric Castle Festival in 2017

Statistics

Tourism in Romania
Yearly tourist arrivals in thousands [8]
Tourism in Romania

Foreign visitors by country

Most visitors arriving to Romania in 2022 and 2024 were from the following countries: [9]

RankCountry20242022
1Flag of Ukraine.svg  Ukraine 3,911,6173,292,747
2Flag of Moldova.svg  Moldova 2,655,6562,607,301
3Flag of Bulgaria.svg  Bulgaria 1,599,8681,538,805
4Flag of Hungary.svg  Hungary 1,267,033864,546
5Flag of Turkey.svg  Turkey 715,973728,255
6Flag of the United Kingdom.svg  United Kingdom 323,975231,741
7Flag of Poland.svg  Poland 247,683235,485
8Flag of Germany.svg  Germany 227,478379,910
9Flag of Italy.svg  Italy 224,541403,485
10Flag of the United States.svg  United States 118,349173,334
11Flag of France.svg  France 93,455195,619
12Flag of Austria.svg  Austria 81,65798,571
13Flag of Greece.svg  Greece 69,66793,196
14Flag of Spain.svg  Spain 52,903115,730
15Flag of Slovakia.svg  Slovakia 46,46844,697
16Flag of the Czech Republic.svg  Czech Republic 45,72246,390
17Flag of Ireland.svg  Ireland 41,21437,447
18Flag of the Netherlands.svg  Netherlands 39,40477,431
19Flag of Portugal (official).svg  Portugal 33,65141,095
20Flag of Belgium (civil).svg  Belgium 33,30666,121
21Flag of Canada (Pantone).svg  Canada 24,68749,693
22Flag of Croatia.svg  Croatia 24,53522,732
23Flag of Sweden.svg  Sweden 22,54541,991
24Flag of Cyprus.svg  Cyprus 20,56414,071
25Flag of Australia (converted).svg  Australia 15,78811,690
26Flag of Lithuania.svg  Lithuania 14,21315,788
27Flag of Denmark.svg  Denmark 10,75423,403
28Flag of Latvia.svg  Latvia 9,72510,589
29Flag of Slovenia.svg  Slovenia 8,1688,270
30Flag of Finland.svg  Finland 6,80010,282
31Flag of Estonia.svg  Estonia 4,1945,135
32Flag of New Zealand.svg  New Zealand 3,4102,462
33Flag of Malta.svg  Malta 2,0953,757
34Flag of Luxembourg.svg  Luxembourg 1,2312,599
Total foreign13,352,94012,696,800

Facilities for disabled travellers

Facilities for disabled travellers in Romania range from patchy to nonexistent. Anyone with mobility problems should go prepared and ideally have local contacts. Although it has made some slow strides towards disabled access since then, and new buildings need to be wheelchair-accessible, implementation has been very poor. In practice Romania remains by and large off-limits to disabled travellers. [10]

Industrial and creative tourism

Industrial tourism, as a niche of tourism in Romania and as a solution to the restructuring and disappearance of former large industrial sites (mining, metallurgy, heavy industry), takes on interest in the country still slowly, despite the country's join to the European Union in 2007. Even if presently the country is confronted with a long and difficult economic transition, it has a rich industrial and scientific history with many of the world's priorities and still has surviving authentic traditional crafts and rural communities. Limited to some geographic areas and not yet on a large scale, by the means of European funds and projects, a sustainable revival of the traditional sector is supported, which also implies creative tourism participatory activities. [11]

Against this big potential, there are relatively few entities, the majority being state owned, that are organizing, providing or permitting public visits, a main cause of this still being the weak implication and support of many public authorities. Meanwhile, the tourism stakeholders pay a relatively weak attention to the hard core of this niche (industrial heritage, technique, science and living industry), and practically there are not many package offers of this kind on the market, with some notable exceptions: ethnographic and wine tourism, also some rehabilitated industrial and forest narrow railways and steam engines still operating.[ citation needed ]

Primary attractions

Turda Salt Mine Salina Turda (panorama), Cluj, RO.jpg
Turda Salt Mine

According, [12] an industrial and creative tourism attractions web directory for Romania and some neighbouring countries, providing photos and short English descriptions of each objective, the main attractions open to the public are:

Infrastructure

There are 16 international commercial airports in service today. Overall, airports in the country were transited in 2016 by 16.4 million passengers. The largest number of passengers was attracted by Bucharest's Henri Coandă International Airport, which closed the year with a traffic of almost 11 million passengers. [13]

Romania also has a large network of railways, CIA World Factbook lists Romania with the 22nd largest railway network in the world. [14] The railway network is significantly interconnected with other European railway networks.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Turismul în luna decembrie 2024" (PDF). insse.ro. Retrieved 9 February 2025.
  2. Jifcu, Ionuţ. "Turismul românesc în 2024: Creștere semnificativă și tendințe favorabile pentru 2025". Gazeta Noua. Retrieved 22 February 2025.
  3. "Bihor, locul 6 în topul celor mai vizitate județe din țară".
  4. "Painted Easter eggs, a folkloric tradition in Romania | Photo gallery". www.webphoto.ro. 24 March 2010. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  5. "Mocănița Huțulca (Moldovița)". Județul SUCEAVA (in Romanian). Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  6. "Letter from the Danube Delta: discover the waterways and villages of Romania's remotest corner". The Calvert Journal. Retrieved 16 November 2018.
  7. "8 Unique Waterfalls Around the World". www.theworldgeography.com.
  8. "Global and regional tourism performance". www.unwto.org. Retrieved 12 June 2025.
  9. "Institutul National de Statistica : Calatoriile internationale inregistrate la frontierele Romaniei în anul 2022" (PDF). Insse.ro. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
  10. "Romania for disabled travellers". enchantingromania.com. Retrieved 10 December 2014.
  11. Merciu, C. (May 2010). "Tourist Capitalization of Industrial Heritage in Petrosani" (PDF). Geo Journal.
  12. Hegedus, Marius (November 2014). "Industrial and Creative Tourism Attractions in Romania". VisitFactories.
  13. "Topul aeroporturilor din România: Clujul face pasul spre 2 milioane de pasageri". monitorulcj.ro. 2 May 2017.
  14. The World Factbook, Country Comparison: Railways

Further reading