On the way to strategic planning for tourism in Szeklerland
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14267/TURBULL.2026v26n2.5Keywords:
Szeklerland, tourism strategy, ethnic minority tourism, destination management, place branding, TransylvaniaAbstract
This paper interprets the professionalization of the tourism market in Szeklerland not only as a question
of product development or marketing, but also as a historical, legal and strategic planning challenge. The
argument starts from the fact that Szeklerland is a culturally and historically strong, yet administratively
non-recognized symbolic-informal region. Consequently, its tourism representation is simultaneously
a market-related, institutional and political issue. Based on tourism strategy, destination governance,
place branding and ethnic minority tourism literature, the paper argues that tourism may become
an instrument of visibility, self-representation and economic self-organization for minority regions
embedded in majority national environment. Relying on Romanian statistical data and the systematic
mapping of online tourism attractions, the study concludes that Szeklerland has considerable tourism
resources, but its competitiveness is constrained by the lack of formal regional recognition, institutional
fragmentation, weak cooperation networks and the absence of a shared meta-narrative. The paper
outlines the foundations of an identity-sensitive, multi-level and network-based tourism strategy.
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