Annals of the University of Petroşani, Economics, 11(3), 2011, 255-262 255 CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE DESIGN OF SPECIFIC TOURISM PRODUCTS FOR THE TOURISM DESTINATION ROMANIA MONICA PAULA RAŢIU, AURELIA - FELICIA STĂNCIOIU, ANCA - DANIELA VLĂDOI, NICOLAE TEODORESCU * ABSTRACT: Romania, as tourism destination with its component micro-destinations (Muntenia, Oltenia, Banat - Crişana, Transylvania, Bucovina, Maramureş, Moldavia and Dobrogea), possesses many tourism attractions and at the same time has a real tourism potential. The fact that it is not included among the Europe’s „valuable” destinations represents a loss both for its inhabitants and for Europeans in general, too. One of the reasons is the lack of an image consolidated by identity elements or / and simply the lack of image that would represent the starting point for development of appropriate tourism products (developing a strategy). This paper proposes, starting from the image perceived by the inhabitants about their own destination – based on the example of Transylvania – to emphasize the importance and also the role of the destination image in developing the main directions of actions and, especially, in developing the strategy for the specific tourism products. KEY WORDS: tourism destination; tourism product; tourism destination image; strategy. JEL CLASSIFICATION: M31. * Lecturer, Ph.D., Romanian-American University, Bucharest, Romania, monica.ratiu@yahoo.com Prof., Ph.D., Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, stancioiufelicia@hotmail.com Assist. Prof., Ph.D. Student, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, anca.vladoi@gmail.com Prof., Ph.D., Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, teodorescu.nicolae@gmail.com