Performance Analysis in Tourism: Romania’s Competitiveness Among Central and Eastern European Countries

Tourism is a critical economic sector for many countries, making substantial contributions to GDP and job creation. Analyzing performance in this domain has become indispensable for understanding and enhancing its economic, social, and environmental impact while promoting the sustainability and competitiveness of tourist destinations. In the context of the prolonged coronavirus pandemic, the tourism field suffered the effects of a weakened economy and a heavily affected society. For this reason, countries and their tourism industries have been looking for ways to improve performance in this sector by trying to address salient determinants related to investments in this industry. This study employs the input-oriented DEA-CRS (Data Envelopment Analysis–Constant Returns to Scale) model to assess Romania’s tourism performance in comparison to 11 other Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. This analysis utilizes a dataset comprising three input variables and two output variables, with data corresponding to the year 2023. Half of the countries studied are deemed efficient, while only one is found to have a low level of efficiency in the tourism field. Following the analysis of the obtained results, four reference countries were identified, namely, Estonia, Croatia, Poland, and Slovenia. Practically, within the analyzed model, these four countries represent examples of good practices in the efficiency of the tourism industry for the other eight CEE countries.