Abstract:

The objective of this paper is the analysis of the Romanian paradox, on the one hand increasing statistics referring to the economical embeddedness of sport tourism, but poor measurable social and cultural impact of both phenomenons, on the other hand a global pressure trough international entities and European Union's long term strategies in policy making – all these have been encouraging to investigate the evolution of tourism and sport policy making in Romania before and after the year 1989, marking the fall of the communist regime. The study, based on a narrative approach, aims to present a short synthesis of the main tourism theory critiques an analysis of how tourism and sport tourism theories and policies are linked to each other in the Romanian context. Briefly reviewing the pre-1989 states in this paper, using a theoretical analytical approach, we undertake to examine also the post-1989 institutional and public policy structures responsible in formulating tourism strategies in Romania. At the intersection, we also keep track of when and in what context these strategies are targeting the sport as a part of tourism. The result of the analysis is a summary study aimed to capture the tourism-related public policy representations in Romania, all in a wider context.