Public-Private Partnerships For A Sustainable Tourism Development of Urban Destinations. The Case of Braşov, Romania

Abstract

Considering that there are few success chances for isolated businesses, public-private partnerships represent the basis of tourism businesses’ sustainable development, aiming to attract increasing numbers of visitors in tourism destinations. Within this context, the main aim of the present paper is to identify tourism stakeholders’ intentions to participate in public-private partnerships for a sustainable tourism development of urban destinations. Focused on the increased importance of partnerships between tourism stakeholders, with the common goal of sustainable tourism development, a survey was conducted among the tourism service providers from the Romanian urban destination, Braşov. The research results outline the defi ciencies in the analyzed destination, which lead to a low notoriety of the destination’s management and marketing organization among local tourism stakeholders. In addition, the results show a low level of involvement of tourism operators in supporting the collaboration efforts of this organization. Based on the research results, a theoretical model was proposed for the identifi cation of the signifi cant factors which infl uence local stakeholders’ intentions to participate in public-private partnerships for a sustainable tourism development.

Keywords

• public-private partnerships, sustainable tourism development, tourism services providers, stakeholders, destination management organization.