ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT PER CAPITA AND POPULATION EMPLOYED IN HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS IN ROMANIA

At present, the tourism industry is not one of the strategic domestic industries of the Romanian economy. Accounting for 3-3,5% of GDP, tourism doesn’t have a significant impact on the country’s economic and social welfare or on the environment. However, we can argue that tourism accounts for a larger share of GDP, since figures do not take into account business or special interest tourism, or other additional industries. We believe that tourism can be sustainable only if it conveys positive effects on the development of an area, region or country, while the defining objectives that can be drawn from here are that: tourism helps strengthen and diversify the economy, provides local inhabitants with substantial benefits, focuses on long term prosperity instead of short term benefits and can avert the collateral effects that are harmful for the domestic, regional or local economy. One of the priority objectives of the national strategy in the field of tourism is increasing the employment rate in the tourism industry, as this proves to be an important factor that contributes to an increased quality of live and particularly augments the role of the tourism industry in the development of GDP.