Transport Accessibility as a Factor for Tourist Flow Augmentation. Case Study: The Romanian Health Resorts George GAMAN 1 , Bianca RĂCĂȘAN 1 1 Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, Centre for Research on Settlements and Urbanism, Cluj-Napoca, ROMANIA E-mail: gaman.george07@yahoo.com, bianca_racasan@yahoo.com DOI: 10.19188/07JSSP012016 http://dx.medra.org/10.19188/07JSSP012016 K e y w o r d s: transport accessibility, tourism flow, health resorts, Romania A B S T R A C T 1. INTRODUCTION The main purpose of this paper is to investigate if transport accessibility has any influence on the tourist flow of Romanian health resorts. In order to achieve this result, using several indicators (road quality, distance from a European road, railway station, the annual number of passengers and destinations served by an airport) we revealed the transport accessibility of each health resort taken under study. The next step was to perform several correlations between the values resulted from transport accessibility and indicators concerning the tourist flow, such as arrivals, overnights, tourist traffic density and the net use index of accommodation capacity. A similar study published in 2014, approached the influence of transport accessibility on accommodation structures of each Romanian resort [1]. Like the actual one, we outlined a method for revealing the level of transport accessibility by road, rail and air, then several correlations were made between the values resulted from level of accessibility and indicators regarding tourist accommodation structures (total number of accommodation units, total number of accommodation places, three and four star facilities, total number of hotels). The results showed that transport infrastructure has insignificant influence over the accommodation infrastructure of a resort. Regarding the actual situation of natural potential of Romania, namely the local bioclimate and mineral water springs diversity, landscape attraction, favourable location of health resorts, the motivations and Centre for Research on Settlements and Urbanism Journal of Settlements and Spatial Planning J o u r n a l h o m e p a g e: http://jssp.reviste.ubbcluj.ro Romanian health tourism represents a major chance of economic increase because it has all the necessary premises for development and for registering some of the most efficient revenues. Therefore, by using a complex methodology, we first aimed to reveal the current situation of each of the Romanian health resorts in terms of transport accessibility. Each type of transport communication system (road, railway and aerial) was analyzed by taking into account the connections to the European and national roads, primary and secondary railways, airports, aiming to pinpoint to what extent the level of accessibility of a resort influences the tourist flow. The second goal was to reveal if transport accessibility could condition the tourist flow towards the Romanian health resorts, by operating several correlations between accessibility situation and tourist arrivals, overnights, tourist traffic density, and the net use index of accommodation capacity of every Romanian health resort. The results highlighted that health resorts situated in the Carpathian area presented the lowest level of transport accessibility. However, the influence on the tourist flow of Romanian health resorts proved very low, since the development of these resorts depended entirely on the health factors provided by the area and the historical circumstances, since the specific nature of health tourism requires a more secluded placement. The exceptions enumerate the resorts situated on the seaside of the Black Sea, Prahova Valley, Transylvania and Crișana areas.