Tourist satisfaction in rural areas- a comparative study on rural areas from Romania and Hungary.

When it comes to tourists and their satisfaction, tourism researchers agreed upon the idea that a satisfied tourist may repeat his visit and recommend it to others, rather than a dissatisfied one would. Of course, satisfaction results form a bunch of factors that deal with destination image, perceived value and tourist expectations. This study tries to deal with tourist satisfaction in some rural areas of two countries, Romania and Hungary, as rural tourism is, nowadays, one flourishing sector. This comparative study will reveal satisfaction among tourists emerging from the study of some variables such as: the chosen area, the accommodation unit chosen (with several sub-factors such as parking area, playground, amount of money paid for meals and for accommodation, variety of the menu, auxiliary ways of spending time) and the intention of revisiting the area and recommend it to others. What this research tries to explain is the reason why some tourists are more satisfied than others, why some rural areas chosen for discussion are able to manage to comply with the expectations of tourists and others fail in this mission. Of course, the main characteristics of the areas are important and need special attention because they may influence tourist expectations on one hand and the organization and management of the owners of businesses, on the other hand. Rural tourism is implemented in different ways depending on the landscape, culture and traditions of the locals and also on the economic background of that particular area.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]