Gabriela Tigu

Applying the Concept of Integrated Quality Management in Romanian Coastal Tourism

Quality in tourism-related services, like in services in general, is basically about balancing customer perceptions andexpectations. Successful service providers are able to meet and, whenever possible, exceed consumers needs andwants.For a tourist destination, IQM can be seen as a systematic quest for internal quality and external quality, i.e.economic improvement in the short term and local development in the long term. Internal quality is the value thattourists receive throughout the chain of experiences characterizing their visit from the initial information that theyreceive prior to departure to the ‘after-sales’ service. Internal quality has short-term aims. External quality means thedevelopment of sustainable tourism with a rational and renewable use of resources such as territory, energy, water,natural resources, the heritage etc., in order to prevent problems of congestion. The aim of external quality is one oflong-term equilibrium.The Romanian Coastal Tourism is having now a difficult time; the quality of tourism services is low, according thetourists and international tour-operators opinions. Considering the tourism potential and the big competition in thismarket, we will try to prove in this paper that the implementation of the IQM concept can improve the Romaniancoastal tourism image.