Pensiuni in Romania: Rediscovering and Reinventing the Countryside through Tourism

Rural tourism is a long-established practice in the industrialised West, but it is a comparatively recent and on-going development in postsocialist contexts. This thesis examines the development of rural tourism in Romania and draws on fieldwork carried out in one of the oldest and most popular destinations of the country, as well as in a newer and less visited location. As homestays are central to rural tourism, my research has an extensive focus on what happens with guesthouses and their owners. Countryside tourism is a practice grounded in a discourse that praises images of unspoilt nature, close-knit communities, material and cultural heritage and natural healthy food. Discourses about rurality also suggest that for city dwellers, village stays in their own countries can provide a way of getting in touch with their national identity, building, at the same time a sense of belonging. In Romania, such discourses are promoted by NGOs, state institutions and tour operators that aim to develop rural tourism. In spite of their efforts, in the destinations that I studied, rural tourism has strayed away from the ideal model. Instead of bucolic cottages inspired by the vernacular architecture of the region, hosts welcome their guests into large, modern villas equipped with state-of-the art amenities. Tourists too show a strong concern with material aspects of their accommodation, they rarely venture in outdoor pursuits and have little interest in notions of ‘heritage’ or ‘traditions’. My findings show that the lived experiences of local entrepreneurs have shaped worldviews that in many respects are at odds with the ideal models and best tourism practices promoted by various institutions. I also show how hosts and guests share similar notions of achievement and success and how this has turned rural tourism into a house-centred event. In explaining why discourses have little grounding in reality, I pay close attention to the economics of tourism, trying to understand guesthouses as businesses interlinked both with the wider forces of the market and with the socio-economic history of rural Romania. I show how the development of pensiuni was influenced by specific material and social constraints, arguing that a long history of living under oppressive regimes actually endowed locals with qualities that made them ready to embark on entrepreneurial pursuits. I also examine how kinship can be both a catalyst for growth and a factor that contributes to the stagnation or decline of businesses. Most notably, however, it was the unstable and burdensome legislative environment that had perhaps the strongest impact over the evolution of guesthouses, determining over half of the owners to stay in the shadow economy. My findings raise questions about the effectiveness and utility of many of the norms currently imposed on tourist entrepreneurs and I conclude by discussing a few ways in which institutions could respond better to the needs of guesthouse owners

Sentiment analysis applied to tourism: exploring the tourist generated content in the case of a wellness tourism destination

Sentiment analysis applied to tourist-generated content through social media is one of the many sources of information for travellers in the case of a wellness tourism destination. The objectives of exploring tourist-generated content are to analyse the sentiments expressed on social media, in this research about wellness tourism destinations, based on destination reviews, and to identify the motivations that lead tourists to look for this kind of services in the Algarve destination The analysis of the hotel reviews exposes the tourist's opinion of the wellness destination and the grading of the infrastructural facilities and the acclaimed services in the categories of the tourist wellness destination. In attaining the objectives, quantitative approach methods were used to review 1,294 comments manually extracted from TripAdvisor and apply text mining algorithms to assess the sentiment expressed in the comments. The result shows that the three key extracted words frequently used by all categories of the component in the Algarve wellness destination are “bird”, “day”, “experience”, “Faro”, “fish”, “great”, “horse”, “love”, “market”, “massage”, “nice”, “old”, “park”, “Pinetree”, “place”, “relax”, “ride”, “spa”, “time”, “town”, “visit” and “walk”, also revealed some categories of a hotel into the services of spas and massage in the tourist wellness destination mainly satisfy the desire of the tourist. Exploring generated content with sentiment analysis helped to stimulate opinion on destinations with wellness facilities, revealing how the wellness of individuals at tourism destinations are generally satisfied based on keywords that illustrated opinions, shows diverse opinion, which shows that expectations are being met from the comments in TripAdvisor. It also widens the destination management organisation's (DMO) knowledge of the sustainability of destination infrastructures due to tourist views and opinions on destinations. However, generated review content which may be changed due to implicit factors, sometimes gives a psychological time frame view of the individual reviewer.A análise de sentimentos efetuada aos conteúdos gerados pelo turista nas redes sociais é uma das muitas fontes de informação consultadas pelos viajantes, permite visualizar os testemunhos de outros turistas que já visitaram os mesmos destinos. Através de avaliações efetuadas nas plataformas de social mídia, sobre infraestruturas existentes nos destinos turísticos, como no caso de um destino de saúde e bem-estar, permite estudar os principais motivos pelos quais estas regiões suscitam um sentimento mais positivo que outros, associado à experiência turística, com ou sem valor acrescentado pelos gestores do destino. A diversidade de opiniões, que por vezes é em função das expectativas que estão a ser satisfeitas, ou não, expressas através dos comentários gerados no TripAdvisor, podem contribuir para a sustentabilidade de infraestruturas de apoio ao turismo, que inclui, entre outras, instalações culturais tangíveis e intangíveis. Face ao exposto, os objetivos da presente dissertação são: (i) analisar o sentimento expresso nos conteúdos turísticos gerados pelos viajantes nas redes sociais sobre o destino turístico de saúde e bem-estar, (ii) avaliar o sentimento do turista sobre as componentes que caracterizam este tipo de destino e (iii) identificar as motivações que levam os viajantes a optar pelo Algarve, como um destino de turismo de saúde e bem-estar, que compreende dezasseis municípios com atrações e especificidades únicas. Para analisar o sentimento expresso nos comentários, foi necessário recorrer a uma metodologia própria de mineração de texto, cujo processo envolveu a recolha de dados, pré-processamento, extração de características, aplicação do algoritmo de análise de sentimento e por fim avaliação dos resultados. As avaliações foram extraídas manualmente e categorizadas em Número da Entidade (ID), Nome (Nome), Cidade onde está localizada (Cidade), País (País), Categoria (Categoria) Número de estrelas (Estrela) e número de avaliações (Número de avaliações). No conjunto de entidades foram considerados hotéis e infraestruturas selecionados pelas suas características: classificação e serviços turísticos adicionais prestados na área. De acordo com a revisão da literatura, as componentes consideradas e analisadas no que se refere a um destino de saúde e bem-estar foram dez, nomeadamente: Termas, Spas, Cuidados de corpo e mente, Turismo Médico, Ambiente Natural, Espiritualidade, Cultura, Enogastronomia, Desporto e Eventos. Neste contexto, foram identificados os hotéis e infraestruturas considerados como representativos de cada tipo de instalação que caracteriza este tipo de turismo e em seguida foram extraídos comentários do TripAdvisor. A seleção recaiu sobre as seguintes instalações: Caldas de Monchique (Monchique), Zensation - Body & Soul (Albufeira), Mercado de Loulé (Loulé), Moinhos Velhos Juice Detox & Yoga Retreat (Lagos), Old Town Faro (Faro), Pinetrees Horse Riding (Almancil), Ria Formosa Natural Park (Olhão), Swan Day Spa (Alvor) e Zoomarine Algarve (Albufeira). O pré-processamento envolveu a limpeza de elementos indesejados, transformação, tokenização, normalização e filtragem de texto. Na avaliação do resultado, a análise de sentimento foi também aplicada a duas dimensões (palavras extraídas e associadas em cada categoria), que foram comparadas com o comentário correspondente para determinar qual o sentimento associado a cada entidade considerada na investigação. Para atingir os objetivos, foram utilizados métodos de abordagem quantitativa para rever 1,294 comentários extraídos manualmente do TripAdvisor e nos quais foram aplicados algoritmos de mineração de texto para avaliar o sentimento expresso nos mesmos. O resultado destacou como as palavras-chave de comentários positivos: “bird”, “day”, “experience”, “Faro”, “fish”, “great”, “horse”, “love”, “market”, “massage”, “nice”, “old”, “park”, “Pinetree”, “place”, “relax”, “ride”, “spa”, “time”, “town”, “visit” e “walk”, Também, evidenciou que o sentimento associado a “spas”, “luxo”, “massage” e “sauna” obtiveram os valores mais elevados, no que se refere ao sentimento positivo. Os resultados expressaram de forma clara a aceitabilidade e popularidade perante os turistas, do Algarve como destino de saúde e bem-estar, onde se destacaram os termos “spas” e “cuidados de corpo e mente”, “ambiente natural” e “desporto” com desvio padrão de 0.4 e 0.3, com média de 4.7 par cada termo. Mostra que destinos de saúde e bem-estar com desporto (golfe), natureza e paisagem são características positivas neste tipo de destino. Além disso, as avaliações geradas durante os meses de inverno: janeiro, fevereiro, março, novembro e dezembro apresentaram valores mais altos. O estudo revelou, ainda, que algumas das categorias associadas ao destino de bem-estar turístico satisfazem o desejo do turista, principalmente, no que refere aos serviços de spas e massagem oferecidos pelos hotéis. A extração de comentários manualmente, apesar de ser uma limitação, concedeu ao investigador a possibilidade de confirmar questões relacionadas com a inclusão de taxas escondidas, com o tempo gasto no acesso à área de destino e às instalações turísticas, as atitudes do staff, prestação seletiva de serviços sem regras padrão, sem correlação entre o serviço anunciado e o prestado. A exploração de conteúdos gerados pelos turistas, em conjunto com análise de sentimentos, permitiu adquirir conhecimento sobre a perceção dos turistas sobre o destino, assim como revelou que o bem-estar dos mesmos nos destinos turísticos é geralmente satisfatório e expresso através de comentários diversos nas redes sociais que manifestam sentimentos, o que mostra que as expectativas foram satisfeitas. Para além disso, também permitem à organização de gestão de destinos (DMO) conhecer as potencialidades e desafios identificados pelos turistas. As categorias de instalações associadas a um destino de saúde e bem-estar, podem ajudar a melhorar a sua viabilidade económica através da gestão do sector turístico, contribuindo para o PIB, bem como permite identificar áreas que necessitam de especial atenção por parte dos governantes, como os eventos e o turismo médico. Contudo, o conteúdo gerado pelos turistas pode ser alterado devido a fatores implícitos, como a visão psicológica do estado do revisor individual ou o tempo que caracteriza o destino no momento. Assim, para futuros estudos, o processo de mineração de texto deverá ser efetuado de forma automática e em diversas fontes de informação, de modo que inclua mais instalações e constituído por mais comentários, especialmente no turismo médico que não foram analisados, uma vez que não existiam

Prospects of Wine Tourism Development in Drăgășani Region, Romania

The purpose of this study is to reveal the current case of wine tourism in Romania, one of the biggest wine suppliers in Europe and other parts of the world and to propose a number of measures that will enhance the experience of tourists during their visit. According to the International Organisation of Wine and Vine, the Romanian wine production in 2015 was 4.069 million hl, thus being the 13th largest wine producer in the world and the 5th on the European market. The study is focused on a region that has a great tradition in wine production, Drăgășani, situated in Vâlcea County, Romania, which sadly lost its charm after the fall of the communist regime. New stakeholders, including important officials from the Romanian government, have invested a lot of money in the area, but things do not go well, and hence there is plenty of room for improvement

Do consumers care about CSR in their online reviews? An empirical analysis

This research investigates how consumers assess hotels’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices when writing online reviews. The study explores the CSR discourse in online reviews over a 10-year period, high- lighting how CSR’s social and environmental dimensions relate to the main hospitality topics (experience, amenities, location, transactions, value). Based on a longitudinal automated text analysis covering 480,000 reviews across six European cities, the findings reveal that hotel customers have gradually begun paying more attention to CSR factors, particularly to social and environmental ones. However, the aggregate results suggest that the overall CSR consumer discourse is still very limited, although it does have important implications in terms of consumer emotions and hospitality dimensions

Mountain Meadows and Glades of the Carpathians - Type or Element of Landscape? The Problem of Delimitation and Typology of Mountain Pasture Landscapes

The typologies of landscapes of individual states that have ratified the European Landscape Convention do not include mountain pasture landscapes. Pasture landscapes in the Carpathians are preserved in a relatively good condition, although their spatial extent has considerably shrunk over the last few decades. The article demonstrates that mountain meadows and glades in the Carpathians meet all the conditions that allow them to be classified as a type of landscape, and thus they should be included in national typologies of landscapes. Firstly, they constitute a set of natural (non-forest vegetation) and anthropogenic (traditional shepherding buildings) objects. Secondly, they are a dynamic system in which natural, social and economic processes take place. They are also a source of stimuli, affecting different human senses and values and are a system that provides various real and potential services. The inclusion of mountain pasture landscapes in national typologies may provide a stronger basis for their protection

Recent Advances in Social Data and Artificial Intelligence 2019

The importance and usefulness of subjects and topics involving social data and artificial intelligence are becoming widely recognized. This book contains invited review, expository, and original research articles dealing with, and presenting state-of-the-art accounts pf, the recent advances in the subjects of social data and artificial intelligence, and potentially their links to Cyberspace

Sentiment Analysis: a Comparative Study of Online Booking Platforms Used for Spa Tourism in Northern Oltenia, Romania

Purchasing a tourist package for a specific tourist destination has become extremely easy and transparent through the diversity and continuously upgraded online booking platforms. Their content provides information through the reviews among tourists and hospitality managers, being, at the same time, opened Big Data for researchers or policymakers. Mining the reviews of two global platforms (Booking and TripAdvisor) and a national one (Turistinfo) the study aims to analyze the tourists’ sentiments and emotions experienced in a balneary destination such as Northern Oltenia, Romania. The research addresses the overarching question of wheth-er positive sentiments dominate in destinations led by spa tourism, and consequently, which emotions are definers? For this purpose, 10,945 online reviews, from 2018 to 2020 for 248 ac-commodation units of the studied area were collected and processed in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 17.0) and Geographical Information System (GIS). The key findings in-dicate that most travelers are satisfied with tourist destinations, sustained by the dominance of positive sentiments (82%) associated with a high rating score (8.9) and ‘joy’ and ‘trust’ emotions. Mostly positive sentiments are linked to the quality of five- and four-star accommodation units, but also to the intimacy of the small family’s business, the spatial framing in the landscape, and the friendship of the hosts. At the same time, the repulsive aspects draw attention to some problems of the state of the indoor or outdoor environment and the price-quality ratio. The re-search demonstrates the effectiveness of leveraging electronic word of mouth as a valuable re-source for stakeholders in the tourism industry. This approach enables a swift and sustainable assessment of tourist satisfaction, providing valuable insights for accommodation service pro-viders to make informed decisions

Culture, Heritage and Territorial Identities for Urban Development

From the 1970s onwards, many towns and cities have experienced deindustrialization processes, while seeing a gradual growth of tertiarization and diversification of services, including cultural ones. With the different, both positive and negative, effects introduced by new cultural interpretations of cities (e.g., culture in public spaces, cultural and creative industries, culture as marketing tools, cultural commodification, etc.), the concept of culture has become increasingly associated with urban image and identity. In finding solutions within regeneration processes, policies often rely on tools from the cultural and creative fields. Additionally, built material and immaterial heritage can have significant roles: e.g., by converting heritage sites and buildings through cultural projects or new functions, or capitalizing on specific traditions and place memory for local identity and place attachment. This SI focuses on cultural approaches in connection with urban development and gather contributions from various research fields. It addresses researchers and academics from social sciences who are interested in topics such as: cultural activities and their role in urban development; cities (re)constructing their identity; culture as a relevant component of current spatial planning policies; urban strategies, attracting creative people; urban image, heritage and culture; culture, local memory and local identities; heritage and industrial culture; subcultures within cities and processes of urban change

A tale of three villages:Local housing policies, well-being and encounters between residents and immigrants

This article examines how the location, function and quality of immigrant accommodation facilities, regulated by local housing policies, shape the perceived effects of immigration on the well-being of residents and immigrants in three villages in the Netherlands. Drawing on semistructured interviews with local government representatives, residents and Romanian and Polish immigrants, we show how the different locations of the immigrant accommodations condition social interactions between residents and immigrants and, in this process, reinforce social hierarchies and inequalities. We illustrate how, sometimes unintentionally, spatial policies prepare the stage for conflicts to arise between immigrants and residents, shaping the latter's experiences of migration irrespective of the behaviour of the former. For immigrants, the location of their accommodation sets the limits to what they can do in terms of private behaviour and social relations, exposing them to social control and evaluation

Selection process of sustainable indicators for the Algarve Region—OBSERVE Project

The selection of indicators for the Observatory of Sustainability of the Algarve Region for Tourism (OBSERVE), poses challenges, namely which indicators are relevant to stakeholders and how to assure that information is available. To support the selection of the environmental, sociocultural, economic and institutional indicators, an engagement process was designed and applied, which included meetings with stakeholders, a workshop and an online survey. The results showed that both workshop and online surveys reflected, in general, similar opinions, thus allowing the selecting of the sustainable development indicators for the Algarve region. Additionally, the results showed that nearly 75% of the indicators can be obtained from national statistics and, therefore, can be used on the OBSERVE project, assuring a quick flow of information. As limitations, it is important to mention that the other 25% will need further development, in order to provide data for indicators, like carbon management and client satisfaction. With this approach, the observatory will survey and evaluate the sustainable development of the region (status and trends), based on indicators that answer to the strategic needs of system's main users, with social and economic implications, i.e., public institutions, economic agents, tourists, local communities and residents.ALG-01-0246-FEDER-027503info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio