STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON EXPERIENTIAL TOURISM AND TRANSFORMATIVE TOURISM.

Over time, the way people have practiced tourism has evolved, the reasons being both income growth, increased mobility due to globalization, but also a change in thinking or changing priorities in terms of living. In this way it has gone from the simple leisure in tourist destinations, to more complex concepts such as ecological tourism, slow tourism, experiential tourism, and now to the concept of transformative tourism, which during the Covid-19 pandemic it seemed to be even more current than before, considering the fact that this moment was considered to be one of resetting, of rethinking the way in which humanity will continue its activity and life. Therefore, in this paper the purpose was to analyze the way in which experiential and transformative tourism have evolved worldwide, but also the ways in which these forms of tourism can be developed for the benefit of tourists and destination countries. The research methodology involved the bibliographic study of the literature, the collection of information from domestic and international databases, their processing using statistical indicators, their interpretation and the formulation of conclusions on the development prospects of these forms of tourism. The data analyzed in the work show that tourism in general recorded losses during 2020 and 2021, and that, in turn, transformational tourism recorded losses. The advantages of transformational tourism are real, they bring numerous personal benefits, but also related to environmental protection, contributions to the sustainable development of less developed areas. The conclusions we reached demonstrate the fact that there are different forms of transformational tourism, both in the world and in Romania, but they are not sufficiently regulated. Their development could contribute both to the sustainable development of tourist areas, but also to the promotion of a tourism that is much closer to the aspirations of the new generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]