d Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism, Bucharest, Romania Abstract: To be able to promote itself efficiently on the market, a destination, given the marketing perspective - has to be aware about the authentic and crucial elements of its own as being the only way to transfer, virtually and materially, of what it has best - the social-cultural and artistic (which, fr om a tourist perspective, represents its perceived image, along with psychological and artistic image of the destination). Hence without a detailed knowledge of this aspect, the promotion leads to a presentation of a distorted image of the destination which, in time, can distort the socio-cultural of the inhabi tants of that region. To build the image of a destination (a notoriously long and complex process), begins with the need to profoundly understand tourists' complexity of expectations (both functional and psychological) and, on their basis, to use these as attributes of the destination in order to improve attractiveness. In Romania's case such an aspect gains more import ance due to the fact that, after the 1989, young generation, an important population segment, seem to register a continuous and dangerous process of identity erosion, which over time could result into disconnecting from the essence of the Romanian spirit, not being able to unders tand or even ignoring sense of belonging, sense of identity, heritage and tourism heritage.