Some may say that promoting travel to rural Transylvania and more broadly to Romania will actually have a negative effect, as mass tourism had on so many other places on Earth. If we would fear that, we wouldn’t do it.
On the contrary, we see hope in tourism to safeguard livelihoods and heritage.
Threat for rural heritage
Looking at current reality and trends, rural life in Transylvania is slowly fading and rural heritage is at risk of being quickly lost. Urbanization spreads as it did in developed countries and replaces the traditional with the modern, in architecture, agriculture, crafts, traditions and ideology.
Most heritage conservation projects are costly and are required to be economically viable; tourism is considered a solution as it keeps alive the interest in conservation and generates the needed resources to continuously revive the heritage.
Threat for rural livelihoods
Every year more farmers give up traditional agriculture due to new legislation and fierce competition from modern, mass-agriculture. Having no other jobs, especially the young ones move to cities.
A solution for them is to complement traditional agriculture with tourism to earn a decent livelihood. When we look at cases like Rosia Montana we observe that the only proposed alternative to environmentally hazardous gold-mining is tourism.
Our approach
Our ambition is to contribute to the sustainable development of rural Transylvania by advancing heritage, nature conservation and rural prosperity through responsible travel in Transylvania and Romania.
Our approach is developed using the “The Natural Step Framework” and considering the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria.
The most important aspects of our approach are:
- Align with heritage conservation initiatives which rely on responsible travel for durability
- For accommodation, partner with pensions owned by locals who combine traditional farming with tourism, the buildings should respect traditional architecture.
- Served food is local and traditionally grown
- Obey the strictest rules in national parks and other designated areas in order to conserve nature and biodiversity
- Work with local providers of services thus keep the income locally
- Promote activities which do not require motorized machines and minimize transportation
- Provide opportunity for travellers to offset their carbon footprint from flying
As next steps, we intend to add more aspects to our approach:
- Provide only organic food. Traditional grown food is close to organic but it would require certification which is a complex process.
- Work together with guesthouses to achieve energy and water efficiency, wastewater and solid waste management and use energy from alternative sources
- Cooperate with NGOs and government organizations to provide capacity building and technological assistance to local communities
- Customize tourism activities for people with special needs and families with infants
- Get certified with international responsible tourism entities to confirm our sustainable approach to tourism
If you appreciate our approach to travel and would like to come for holidays in Transylvania, here are some itineraries that can inspire you, we can further tailor them for you: "Transylvania's castles", "Traditional crafts", "Photography workshop".
- See more at: http://www.viatransylvania.com/sustainability.html
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