CACTUS CACTUS J Tour Bus Manag Econ CACTUS – Journal of Tourism Business, Management and Economics 2247-3297 ASE Publishing House Bucharest, Romania cactus-2012-18 Research Article L83, O25 Tourism Sustainable Development and Regional Policy in North-West Region of Romania Stănciulescu Gabriela https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4791-1111 cecilia.stanciulescu@gmail.com Dodescu Anca https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0289-0217 Chirilă Lavinia https://orcid.org/0009-0007-3945-2564 Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania University of Oradea, Oradea, Romania University of Oradea, Oradea, Romania 15 12 2012 6 2 15122012 Copyright © 2012, The Author(s) 2012 The Author(s) This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

The paper presents research findings about the evaluation of the EU regional (cohesion) policy through Regional Operational Programme 2007-2013 for the North-West Region of Romania in the field of tourism sustainable development and promotion of tourism. The paper specific goals are to identify projects contracted and completed until 1.10.2012, to evaluate the regional impact of these projects through indicators achieved and to understand main barriers and problems faced beneficiaries from the North-West Region of Romania in the implementation phase of projects dedicated to tourism sustainable development and promotion of tourism. The paper concludes with recommendations in the elaboration and implementation of regional policy in Romania regarding tourism sustainable development based of the Regional Operational Programme 2007-2013 experience.

Keywords Tourism sustainable development EU regional policy Regional Operational Programme 2007-2013 NorthWest Region of Romania

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