Regional economic development supported by sustainable tourism

The subject of sustainable tourism has been increasingly discussed in recent years because the
complex connection between the environment and the economy has been acknowledged, and
there is a pressing need for the integration of these two components, which means the
foundation on the premises of a deep and lasting development, which generates a positive
impact on society as a whole. According to the specialized literature, the paradigms in the
tourism industry are changing. This shows what are the challenges facing the tourism sector
today and requires special attention from the authorities and the economic agents involved,
who must guide this industry towards a sustainable development in the future.Taking these
findings as a starting point, we proposed for our research to highlight, in the first part, the
role of tourism on the regional development and secondly the measurement of the impact of
tourism, practiced intensively and extensively, on the environmental factors through a series
of qualitative and quantitative indicators, highlighted the fact that the damage of the
environment over time implicitly leads to the damage of the economic growth. The results of
the research allowed us to formulate, in the conclusions part, several directions of action to be
followed by regions with a well-developed economy as well as less developed ones, in order
to boost tourism activity in the new context of respecting the environmental factor.