Features of the Ski Area from the Romanian Banat

Abstract

The Romanian Banat is endowed with an important mountain area composed of the Banatului Mountains and the north-western part of the Retezeat-Godeanu Range, i.e. Ţarcu – Muntele Mic. The purpose of our paper is to make an account of the features of the two important ski areas within this mountain area: Ţarcu - Muntele Mic and Semenic. Their structure evolved over time according to the local and regional interest, but also due to more recent activities of the Romanian investors. Our research concluded that both ski domains have a great natural potential to sustain winter-sports and to further develop what today are two very small resorts. They have a low capability of attraction due to the small capacity of the pistes and to the fact that each resort has only two ski-lifts. In both cases the access is rather limited and as far as accommodation is concerned in both cases it is disproportional in relation with the provisioned capacity of the ski pistes. Having these aspects in view, we conclude that these resorts do not represent as yet a major attraction, especially due to the fact that there are undercapitalized and underdeveloped for the raising demand of the regional market for winter-sports. On the other hand in both cases projects have already been blueprinted by the aforementioned investors which are waiting to be undertaken for development.