An analysis made by Prof. dr. Mihai Bulai – the vice-dean of the Faculty of Geography and Geology – “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași, shows that in the pandemic year 2020, Neamț County ranked three places higher than in the previous year, in Top 15 favorite counties in Romania, regarding tourist arrivals.

The analysis was based on statistical data made available at the beginning of February 2021 by the National Statistical Institute, on the following webpage: https://insse.ro/cms/ro/tags/comunicat-turism?page=1
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Therefore, Romanian tourists discovered Neamț, in 2020, as a destination that eases spending spare time and holidays in the middle of nature, being fascinated both by the beauty of the places and by the multiple leisure possibilities such as: trekking, horseback riding, climbing, kayak or boat trips on the lakes and light aircraft flying within AVIASPORT private aeroclub.

One of the many pieces of evidence is also the impressive number of tourists who climbed on Ceahlău in the summer of 2020, as was confirmed by the representatives of Ceahlău National Park themselves: https://www.visitneamt.com/2020/09/rush-hour-on-top-of-ceahlau-massif/

Since last year, in addition to the adventure and a lot of adrenaline, tourists have at their disposal in Neamț a number of certified routes, which include impressive cultural and historical heritage values. Following these routes’ path in Neamț (some recognized at a national level), tourists may discover Stephen the Great’s testimonies, traditions and ethnographic collections of these places, memorial houses – landmarks of the Neamț literature, Christian settlements – village treasures represented by the wooden churches or they can go on the route of the Holy Icons.

Going back to the above-mentioned analysis, according to Professor Mihai Bulai, “the 2020 pandemic year brings changes to the hierarchy of tourist arrivals, affecting especially the counties with an important percentage of business tourism (those counties where the tourist flow is concentrated at the level of the municipality, the county’s residence and where that municipality is both a business pole and a university center)”.

Therefore, if the situation for some destinations wasn’t at all favorable in 2020, because of the pandemic, Iași County lost one position, Cluj County and Bucharest City, two positions each, Timiș County remained constant. Ilfov lost even 9 positions in last year’s tourist arrivals rankings. But the most pleasant surprises are in the case of Neamț and Bihor counties. As a result, they had smaller decreases and instead, climbed three positions in the national hierarchy, because they didn’t depend on business tourism and tourists were attracted by other aspects that were specific to these two destinations.

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“Bihor has benefited from some tourism policies already implemented in the recent years through the Visit Oradea Association, and Neamț County has enjoyed intense online promotion in 2020, through the efforts of the Tourism Department of Neamț County Council, which manages Visit Neamț -website, FB page, mobile app-, concludes Prof. Mihai Bulai in the same study, which aims at analyzing arrivals in 2020, compared to the previous year.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic triggered an unprecedented crisis in tourism economy, the promotional articles posted on www.visiteazaneamt.ro and www.visitneamt.com web pages and on Social Media have had a considerable impact of more than 600.000 pageviews in Romanian and more than 300.000 pageviews in English. Therefore, the promoting of Neamț County reached in 2020 an impact of almost 1 million people, raising the interest of those who visited us last year, thus placing Neamț County on the 12 spot nationally.

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