CHARACTERISTICS OF HOLIDAY VILLAGES IN ROMANIA – TOURISM AND TERRITORIAL IDENTITY ORIENTED APPROACHES

The concept of “holiday village” has recently turned fifty. Holiday villages are found in non-urban areas, rich in nature-based and human-made resources. By implementing the planning principles of this type of accommodation, Romania has also developed its tourism supply over the past years, currently providing twelve holiday villages which are spread throughout the country. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of these holiday villages both from a tourism analysis perspective and in relationship with territorial identity. In order to achieve this goal, a series of quantitative and qualitative methods were employed, starting with the analysis of statistical databases in parallel with the review of bibliographic materials, and the observation and analysis of the official websites of these accommodation structures, respectively. It turned out that three counties (Brașov, Suceava and Tulcea) hosted 50% of the existing holiday villages in Romania, confirming once again the importance of local tourism potential derived from geographic location and cultural heritage. Based on various tourist needs and preferences, a wide range of activities and services both basic (accommodation and catering) and additional ones (entertainment and leisure, business, etc.), which became available for different groups of guests were also identified. Eventually, a multicriterial analysis, including aspects related to architectural elements, landscape integration and links to local or regional traditional values highlighted five levels of authenticity according to which almost half of the examined units established a stronger connection with the territorial identity of the geographical-historical regions, which hosted these establishments

The Tourism Development Strategy of the North-East Region of Romania. Myth or Reality?

Tourism development strategies play an increasingly important role, representing parts of those documents that aim to socio-economic development, undertaken at local, zonal, county, regional or national level. Frequently, tourism is viewed as one the best solutions for economic recovery, but without a detalied and realistic analysis of what territory offers from this point of view, this new trend for resolving the economic dysfunctions remains at a mirage level. The North-East Region of Romania, the fifth less developed region of the European Union, with a GDP per capita (in purchasing power standard) that amounted to only 34% of the EU-28 average in 2013, rushes to come with a development strategy for tourism, relying on “relief and environmental factors, diversity and beauty of landscape, cultural heritage”, strengthening the specific offers relying especially on mountain, cultural, and religious tourism. The present study uses multiple research methods (quantitative and qualitative analysis, graphical and cartographical representation of data, comparison) in order to establish the reliability of the concerned document and to provide solid arguments for the type of tourism that has the largest premises of affirmation in each county of the North-East Region of Romania

TOURIST IMAGE OF ROMANIA REVIEWED BY INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL GUIDES. COMPARATIVE STUDY: ENGLISH, FRENCH AND GERMAN EDITIONS

The number of tourists willing to benefit from a foreign country’s tourist services is largely determined by both general and tourist image of the chosen destination. Represented by the tourists’ way of perceiving and retrospecting to the area of destination, the tourist image is mainly influenced by a wide range of sources of information, reason for which analysing tourist informational materials about Romania is a must when it comes to examine it as a tourist destination from foreigners viewpoint. Hence, the article deals with three travel guides (published in international languages: English, French and German) that highlight the most relevant aspects related to Romania’s tourism supply, whose specialized presentation reflects on differential perspectives that potential tourists tend to embrace. The main purpose of this paper is to reveal what kind of information the investigated guidebooks consider relevant to share with the readers and how the authors of the three editions decide to provide it. Concerning the methodology that mediated this research, the methods that stand out regard observation, analysis, synthesis, graphic and cartographic ones which served specific objectives, likewise: identifying, analyzing and comparing the manner in which Romania could be seen by foreigners even without visiting to this state.</p

Tourism potential value assessment model for rural-mountain and boundary contact areas. Case study: Cluj County, the district of Ciceu and the balneal area of Bacău County (Romania)

This paper aimed to develop a specific assessment method focused on the tourism potential of the rural-mountain and boundary contact areas. Once elaborated, the model was employed within three appropriate territories of Cluj, Bistrița and Bacău counties (Romania), who’s investigated administrative units, were repeatedly ranked into hierarchical order according to the different tourist categories, invested with numerical values. In order to reach its goals, several objectives were assigned, from awarding the components of the primary and secondary tourism supply certain scores, proposing scales and calculating values, to comparing the results and identifying best rated tourism potential categories, units and areas. With respect to the research methodology, the most commonly used methods dealt with observation, analysis and synthesis along with comparison, cartographical, statistical and mathematical techniques. Therefore, main results regarded both proposal and testing the evaluation model, highlighting values and ranging territorial units in concordance with the tourist attractiveness power

Multifunctional composites and nanocomposites with applications in the aerospace industry

Polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) ,namely, nanoparticles dispersed in a polymer matrix, have garnered academic and industrial interest since 1990.This is due to the very attractive properties of nanostructurated fillers, as carbon nanotubes, laser synthesized nanocarbon and layered silicates; PNCs do not expand the performance space of traditional filled polymers, but introduce new properties, low volume additions (1÷5 %) of nanoparticles such as carbon nanotubes and montmorillonite providing properties and enhancements comparable to those achieved by conventional loadings (15-40%) of traditional fillers [1].Most important, tough, are value –added such as reduced permeability, flame retardant, increased resistance to oxidation and ablation. Also, the effect of carbon nanotubes on grain boundary sliding in zirconia policrystals as re- reentry shield, or thermal barrier [2]represents a matter of interest.Multifunctional composites are materials with carbon fibre or glass fibre as reinforcing networking in nanoaditivated polymer matrix.In aerospace technique these may be antistatic, antilightning, anti radar protectors, as paints, laminates and as sandwich structure. Though the most important application of nanocomposites is their usability in the engineered structural composites.The work presents a partial synthesis of researches performed in this field by the consortium INCAS, INFLPR, ICECHIM, Ovidius University within the CEEX Programme 2005