Analiza rolului serviciilor ecosistemice ale pădurii în strategia de marketing turistic a regiunii Bucovina [The role of forest ecosystem services in the tourism marketing strategy of region Bucovina]

The paper provides an analysis of the use of ecosystem services in the marketing strategies of accommodation facilities and tourism agencies promoting nature based tourism in Bucovina region. The territorial marketing of goods and services provided by forests is a marketing tool which links the local natural and cultural resources to a specific territory. Bucovina region is well known for its cultural world heritages, the painted monasteries, but are also tourism attraction of the region natural landscapes and the traditional gastronomic products. The study uses a qualitative analysis based on two online marketing surveys which have targeted 214 managers of accommodation facilities and 95 tourism agencies. Given the reduced rate of responses, the results of the study are interpreted from an exploratory perspective resulting in hypotheses which have to be further validated. The study indentifies that for the majority of the respondents the nature based tourism is perceived as a complementary form of tourism to the classical cultural one, even though its promotion potential is identified as very high. The natural “portfolio” of Bucovina region is not promoted using an integrated strategy, but rather as individual cases. The study also derives as a research hypothesis the fact that the visible degradation of the forest landscapes is likely to negatively impact the promotion of Bucovina as an eco-region