DEMOGRAPHIC POLICIES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

This comprehensive study delves into enhancing European Union demographic policies through three key recommendations. First, it advocates for a more integrated approach, addressing challenges like declining birth rates, aging populations, and migrant integration collectively. Second, it emphasizes the need for enhanced coordination between European Union and member states' demographic policies to foster a synergistic response. Lastly, the study recommends increased civil society engagement in policy development and implementation, promoting inclusivity, transparency, and community-driven solutions. These recommendations aim to fortify the European Union's demographic strategies, ensuring they align with societal needs and aspirations

TOURISM SEASONALITY IN THE SPAS OF ROMANIA

The paper aims at presenting the seasonality as one of the most important elements that influences significantly the tourist activities. The research methododology deals with the statistical analyze of the basic indicators that define the seasonal flows – the arrivals of tourists, the overnight stays and the ratio between them and the average stay, having as main result the setting out of the tourist seasonality in the spa resorts in Romania. The interpretation of the results show that in these spa resorts the tourist season differs very little from the tourist season registered at the national level, the periods of the tourist season being approximately identical for of all three indicators. Further, the results show that in the case of tourists' arrivals, the seasonal tourism in Romania (May-September) is one month longer than the seasonal spa tourist season in Romania (June-September), in the case of tourists' overnight stays, the seasonal tourism in Romania (June-September) is identical with the seasonal tourism in the Romanian spa resorts (June-September), and in the case of the average tourists' stay, the seasonal tourism in Romania (June-November) is shorter by one month, compared to the seasonality of the spa resorts in Romania (May-November)

NATURE-BASED SUBURBAN LEISURE OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN THE ORADEA METROPOLITAN AREA

Over the past 15 years, the periurban area in the proximity of Oradea has been accredited as a place of great attraction for the urbanites eager to move to the countryside, taking advantage of the natural resources, numerically generous and possessing an ecological quality. On such a background, these urbanites or tourists have come into contact and continue to discover these natural resources from the point of view of their new qualities, namely people motivated to do thematic tourism. This study seeks to know in detail the potential of the 11 communes and their related villages in the Oradea Metropolitan Area (OMA) and what they provide for weekend-type activities or forms of tourism based on discovery and leisure. The researched area has various natural resources, but diversity is configured according to the environment and morpho-hydrography specific for the hilly, plain and hilly-plain contact area relief. The inventory of local resources (8 categories) prone to nature-based tourism is dominated by protected areas, rivers and lakes for fishing, deciduous forests and associated hay fields as well as the hilly relief in the eastern part of the area. The expression of the attractiveness of local nature for leisure tourism is given by the attractiveness index, which at the OMA level is 87.47 points, with an encouraging maximum of 11.67 points (out of a maximum of 25 points). The detail of the distribution and the natural resources attraction weight can be found in the four thematic maps

PERSPECTIVES OVER THE ECONOMIC TRANSITION AND DEMOGRAPHIC AGING IN EASTERN EUROPE

The countries of Eastern Europe represent a particular case from the demographic and economic point of view, as their demographic transition overlapped the economic development process. This represents a major challenge for the sustainability of their health and pension systems and has resulted in reforms and measures to support economic growth and increase the birth rate. Two categories of countries from Eastern Europe were analysed, Romania and Poland as representatives of the ex-Communist countries that joined the European Union and the Russian Federation as representative of the former Soviet Union. The Russian Federation experienced the most profound changes after 1990, being the only country in the Eastern bloc that is close to the generational replacement threshold, the only country with a positive migration balance, but also the only country with the lowest life expectancy

THE STRUCTURE OF MIGRATION FLOWS FROM ROMANIA TO ITALY (2008-2016)

In this article, based on data from Eurostat databases, we have tried, by applying mathematical methods of quantification of the migratory femomen to understand structurally this phenomenon. During the study, the resulting data revealed several statistically interesting situations. However, for an overall understanding of the migratory phenomenon in Romania, we intend in the near future to further elaborate such studies and for other destinations of the Romanian migrant population, such as: Spain, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland or the Netherlands, for which Eurostat databases are quite generous

THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS BETWEEN GLOBALIZATION AND REGIONALIZATION. CASE STUDY: WORLD TOURISM ORGANIZATION

The present study aims to analyze to international organizations in order to identify their role in shaping and supporting the concepts of globalization and regionalization respectively. The outlining of structural-functional features, the analysis of the objectives and the spatial-temporal distribution constitute the essential elements for revealing precisely where international organizations are positioned in relation to the aforementioned concepts

Oradea Metropolitan Area as a Space of Interspecific Relations Triggered by Physical and Potential Tourist Activities

Metropolitan areas provide many opportunities to spend quality outdoor leisure time as well as to discover many cultural attractions. Sprawl occurs in Romania quite rapidly, encouraged by the construction of ring roads around many cities and their expansion into metropolitan areas. The current paper aims to identify metropolitan tourism models based on which tourist flows can be sustainably reoriented within rural Oradea Metropolitan Area (OMA) given their the tourist potential level (i.e., very low, low, average, high). The tourist potential was scaled based on the Methodology for the Analysis of a Territory’s Tourist Potential, which stands as a law published in the Official Monitor of the 14th of June 2016. The study indicates that most tourist activity develops in the OMA southern part in Sânmartin commune, thus unsustainably capturing all tourist flows of the rural OMA. Natural and man-made tourist attractions’ territorial concentrations were emphasized in the communes from the south and northern OMA, but there are major territorial dysfunctions in terms of technical endowment and tourist infrastructure supply. The three emerged models refer to the medical–recreational and eco–residential wellness network, discovery eco-holiday, and co-visit and marginal community

Oradea Metropolitan Area as a Space of Interspecific Relations Triggered by Physical and Potential Tourist Activities

Metropolitan areas provide many opportunities to spend quality outdoor leisure time as well as to discover many cultural attractions. Sprawl occurs in Romania quite rapidly, encouraged by the construction of ring roads around many cities and their expansion into metropolitan areas. The current paper aims to identify metropolitan tourism models based on which tourist flows can be sustainably reoriented within rural Oradea Metropolitan Area (OMA) given their the tourist potential level (i.e., very low, low, average, high). The tourist potential was scaled based on the Methodology for the Analysis of a Territory’s Tourist Potential, which stands as a law published in the Official Monitor of the 14th of June 2016. The study indicates that most tourist activity develops in the OMA southern part in Sânmartin commune, thus unsustainably capturing all tourist flows of the rural OMA. Natural and man-made tourist attractions’ territorial concentrations were emphasized in the communes from the south and northern OMA, but there are major territorial dysfunctions in terms of technical endowment and tourist infrastructure supply. The three emerged models refer to the medical–recreational and eco–residential wellness network, discovery eco-holiday, and co-visit and marginal community