STATE, ECONOMY AND TOURISM - A POWERFULL RELATION

The complexity of tourism phenomenon, its social, cultural and economic implications, and the join of its elements needs to be taken into account by the governments, which understood that it can be obtained benefits from these activities. In theory and practice, one of the most important problems is the relation between state and economy. For two hundred years, Economics has been dominated by the controversy related to the economic role of the State, shaping a lot of theories. It is well-known the idea that the central pillars of Economics are Smith, Marx and Keynes. The first described the virtues of the liberal Economy, the second one described the contradictions that determined its fall in and asserted that it had to be replaced be economic planning, and the third one presented the solutions to avoid this fall in by the State intervention, in a managing economy.State; Economy; Tourism.

CITY IMAGE – AS TOURISM DESTINATION

Tourism is a competitive industry, even on a global scale. If access to a destination or attraction is too complicated, time consuming, expensive or not providing adequate capacity, even the most spectacular attraction will remain a secret to most tourists, as they will prefer competitive alternatives” (Smiths, 2003). And to continue this, it is considered that „that cultural differences and uniqueness are important if one wants cultural products to become a commercial success” (Lindenberg, 2004). When cultural tourists are looking to experiment or to improve their knowledge, the question is: “Which are the best strategies and practices to market that experience and knowledge for the cultural tourists” (Kantanen, 2005). This paper will be dedicated to presenting city tourist destinations, their marketing and market positioning, also to analyze the way in which potential customers’ perception is built and how the process can be influenced, and to analyze the way the tourist product is assembled.City, Tourism destination, Competitive advantage

THE ROLE OF URBAN MARKETING IN THE LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Urban marketing is an indispensable element within the strategies for economic development of the cities, contributing to the overall vision of the strategy. This helps cities to accomplish many objectives (attracting new national or international companies, consolidate industrial infrastructure, developing tourism, diversifying and improving transport and health services), while they have to maintain a certain level or to cut off public expenses, and to face the harsh competition to attract new investors. The biggest challenges for urban marketing are changes occurred in market structure and dynamics, which exceed the response capacity of the cities. The sole existence of a developed industrial infrastructure is not sufficient for a community to reach the development goals, marketing must create the image, the message to be conveyed to potential investors. Urban strategic marketing is the most adaptable and productive approach of the problems that the communities face. Urban marketing became an extremely important economic activity and, in some cases, the main source of local welfare. Inside clients – oriented marketing is not only a technical problem, of marketing technique, messages and targets, but also one defining the city development in terms of value system of the public.city development, urban strategy, city image, city identity

Employing the model of analyze of variance in the study of regional tourism development in the Black Sea countries

All efforts to be made as to analyze the tourism activity on the Black Sea countries are justified by the tremendous potential due to the natural and cultural resources that are largely miscellaneous and of high quality. Those features turn the Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Georgia and Turkey into attractive destinations for tourists. The main problem that occurs refers to the fact that the existence of some resources is not reason enough to make tourists choose such destinations. The system of the tourism statistic indicators has the purpose to characterize quantitatively and qualitatively, the process of the tourist activity and the causal relation between the factors that influence it. One of the main functions of the tourism indicators system is the characterization of the economic relation of Black Sea countries with other countries, of the efficiency of the cooperation relations in the frame of the international tourism relations. An attempt to draw up a coherent effective strategy for developing the regional tourism in the region of Black Sea in accordance with the market economy must begin with a realistic evaluation and analysis of the actual state of the tourism in the region and must have a starting point in a comparative analysis with the neighbourhood, from central and eastern Europe. A model of bifactorial variance analysis with regard to the issue of international tourism development in these countries is important for the economic and social policy, by sustaining the hypotheses about the existence of differences in average number of nights spent by foreign tourists in hotels and similar establishments between countries. This study aims at performing such evaluation using the data offered by the CESTAT Statistical Bulletin and the indicator selection and interpretation have taken into account the facilities of the actual information system. Thus, for such an analysis, data are depicted in a bidimensional matrix with r x s size and with xij elements which describe the average number of nights spend by foreign tourists in hotels and similar establishments, when one factor is on level i, i= (countries) and another on level j, j= (years). On the one hand, we analyze whether the differences recorded over the mentioned countries in the average number of night spend in hotels have statistic significance or not. In the other hand, we study whether the differences recorded over the years have statistic significance. A research into this issue can use the absolute total number of overnight stays of foreign tourists, but in order to ensure comparability of data and because there are differences between countries in number of bed-places, we proceed to turn absolute total figures in average figures. After computation for four years (1997-2000), for the countries: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Republic of Slovenia and Slovak Republic and for a type I error probability a=0.05, we find the values for Fisher-Snedecor test for statistic significance of the differences between countries: Fr-1;(r-1)(s-1)=F5;15=71.776>Ftab 0.05;5;15=4.62 and between years: Fs-1;(r-11)(s-1)=F3;15=0.02

TOURISM'S CHANGING FACE: NEW AGE TOURISM VERSUS OLD TOURISM

Abstract: Times are changing and so are the demands and expectations of the 'new' traveller, the search for different experiences, different adventures, different lifestyles has paved the way for this concept called the 'new tourism' Attention is being turned to exploring new frontiers or daring to go where traditional thought did not allow. "New" tourists however, are increasingly being seen to be environmentally sensitive, displaying respect for the culture of host nations and looking to experience and learn rather than merely stand back and gaze. "New" tourists are participators not spectators. Things that would never appear on the list of the "mass" tourist such as adventure, getting of the beaten track and mingling with the locals are now the foundations of the new tourist experiences. Responding to the shift in market dynamics towards a "New" style of tourist, a number of initiatives have or are likely to fuel the growth of experiential tourism, these include: network tourism initiatives; the development of interpretive highways; the explosion of interpretive centers;the latest trend towards regional base camps. A new era has arrived, and a new kind of tourism is emerging, sustainable, environmentally and socially responsible, and characterized by flexibility and choice. A new type of tourist is driving it: more educated, experienced, independent, conservation-minded, respectful of cultures, and insistent on value for money. Typically these tourists are turning away from travel and prefer to have a high level of involvement in the organisation of their trip.

Computational modelling of hybrid masonry systems

In this work we investigate the seismic strength, behavior, and performance of the hybrid masonry structural system. The computational modeling efforts aim to characterize the inelastic behavior of hybrid masonry panels. In particular, we study the influence of the boundary conditions (gap or no gap, reinforced or bearing contact zone), the story shear, overturning moment, and the influence of the panel aspect ratio. Several computational models with various levels of complexity are used in our study in an effort to identify the simplest model capable of capturing the salient features of these structural systems. A non-linear (plastic) constitutive model for the simulation of masonry is considered; this constitutive model is coupled with a damage mechanics model to simulate both the inelastic deformation of masonry in normal compression and tension and the damage due to cracking and micro-cracking. In what we call type I hybrid masonry, the masonry does not make direct contact with the beams or columns of the steel frame. The frame and the masonry are connected only through connector plates. The hybrid masonry provides many advantages, such as improving the resistance to seismic loads, impeding the extent of the damage in the masonry and so on. There is no gap between beam and masonry for Type II, so the masonry shares the gravity load with the steel frame and benefits from the vertical compression. Type III is an extension of Type II systems with the addition of connectors along the sides of the panel, which resist vertical shear forces. For Type II and Type III hybrid masonry, because the beam is in contact with the masonry, another very important aspect needs to be considered for the numerical simulation: we require a contact formulation capable of modelling the transfer of normal and tangential forces between steel and masonry. Preliminary computational results are presented in this paper that will be in the future correlated with laboratory test results from the large-scale tests done at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

Strategiile de patrundere pe pietele externe si importanta managementului bazat pe cunostinte in conditiile actualei crize economice globale

Abstract Current social and economic environment is in continuous change and transformation and adaptation to existing conditions are favourable, a painful adjustment to reflect loss of comparative advantage, particularly important for some communities. Global disruption which affected the whole economy in mid 2007 and then accelerated in 2008 and whose tentacles have spread and for 2009, would not have been possible without the rare coincidence of a series of setbacks and triggers on the market, some reflecting major imbalances in the global economy, others specific to the operation of sophisticated financial markets. The importance of foreign markets is even greater since most companies are engaged in a process of growth that requires them to find new business opportunities in other countries, as domestic markets mature. This paper highlights the priority role that knowledge management plays in foreign markets penetration problem in context of the internationalization of enterprises, in order to obtain the desired results.economic crisis, markets, strategy, knowledge

CONTRACTUAL FREEDOM AND FORMALISM IN THE CREDIT AGREEMENT

The credit agreement meaning is trust. It involves a psychological relationship between two or more persons, characterized by predictability the third one involving present or future action on the status of a particular person.This relationship is psychological, in a certain context, social relationship and may take legal meanings. If at the beginning, people borrowed food and tools, later borrowed money to buy everything you wanted. Financial lending institution has become very popular, creating a group of people who have dealt with this service. Over time, this community has turned into banks. Being originally a loan of money covered by the Civil Code, the credit is used daily by both individuals and by professionals, becoming an engine of capitalist society. Unprecedented expansion of this contract led to a strict control of public authorities and subsequent legislative interventions, the articles of the Civil Code is supplemented by regulations governing the progressive banking, legal interest, namely consumer credit. Under the credit agreement, the economic situation of the parties is not equal, one party is disadvantaged in comparison to the other, protecting the disadvantaged part of the legislature making it a target in credit operations. In French doctrine, consumer credit has been praised as “a contract of all pleasures”; but at the same time “an agreement of all risks”

MANAGING THE VISITOR EXPERIENCE ON ROMANIAN RELIGIOUS SITES: MONASTERIES ABBOTS’ PERCEPTIONS

For thousands of years, people have been travelling to places considered sacred to meet or to worship Divinity. Religion-motivated tourism is extremely important in many parts of the world. The aim of this paper is to investigate the issue of the religious tourism experience for a religion considered to be conservative and traditionalist in relation to other denominations. In order to achieve this end we distinguish the behavioural characteristics and motivations of the religious sites’ visitors through the abbots’ gaze. The research method of this study is a questionnaire based survey among more than one hundred monasteries’ superiors from different regions of Romania, places known as “holy or sacred” destinations for the Romanian religious people.visitor experience, religious tourism, religious site management, Romanian monasteries

Introducing New AdaBoost Features for Real-Time Vehicle Detection

International audienceThis paper shows how to improve the real-time object detection in complex robotics applications, by exploring new visual features as AdaBoost weak classifiers. These new features are symmetric Haar filters (enforcing global horizontal and vertical symmetry) and N-connexity control points. Experimental evaluation on a car database show that the latter appear to provide the best results for the vehicle-detection problem