Comparison of cross-border shopping tourism activities at the Polish and Romanian external borders of European Union

Abstract

The purpose of the following paper is to debate the cross-border shopping tourism activities taking place at the external borders of the European Union in Poland and Romania. The work focuses on a comparative analyses of three borders from Poland and three borders from Romania. They had a similar history, underwent a period of political and economic transformation and both countries joined the EU in a short space of time. The research is composed from a theoretical and empirical approach. The theoretical research results show similarities in the evolutions of cross-border shopping tourism activities from both countries. The empirical research updates the situation of cross-border shopping tourism activities. The results show a different evolution of this kind of tourism activities, which has been more predominant at the Polish borders than at the Romanian border, mainly motivated by the stronger market differences existing between Poland and its neighbours, than between Romania and its neighbours. The economic motivators are still strong with a focus of customers on better price benefits and discount opportunities. The leisure elements, although not predominant are present, mainly in Poland, the customers being mainly motivated by the pleasure emerged from the shopping activity. In terms of shopping, the dominant role is played by the shopping, in their old forms (bazaar, local market or a transformed department stores) or their new forms (commercial centres or malls), increasingly incorporating also elements of leisure.