CACTUS - Journal of tourism for research, education, culture, and soul

7

Authors: VIRGIL NICULA, SIMONA SPÂNU, CHRISTIAN HELL

This paper presents some opportunities for developing a new way to capitalize local resources through gastronomic tourism. Gastronomic tourism products incorporate environmental values, landscape, parts of the local culture, traditions, local cuisine, traditional costumes, local food and the rituals associated with the gastronomic experience - how foods are served and presented, ingredients, preparation methods. Identification of the culinary landscape tourist destination is one of the challenges of creating tourism products, in which an important role have the agritourist pensions from the five micro regions of Sibiu County. Gastronomy plays an indispensable role in promoting tourism at a regional and local level. Therefore, the creation of gastronomic tourism products is seen as a priority tourist destination that can offer experiences in this regard. Motivations of choosing tourist destination "Sibiu - European gastronomic region" are related to cultural and natural attractions, special events and festivals, food experiences in each microregion, gourmet connections, social interaction and emotional, but also other opportunities for recreation and entertainment. In order to organize and promote the gastronomic tourism in the rural areas of Sibiu, it is necessary the establishment of partnerships among tourism providers (households / farmers in the rural community), local authorities, other economic providers of tourism related services, travel agencies etc. Only by working together they can solve the major problems of development and promotion of this form of tourism in the context of socio-economic development of rural communities, with beneficial effects on local tourism. Without a general infrastructure development and tourist facilities, one cannot speak of a competitive tourism in either micro-regions or localities.

10

Authors: GRAZIA CALABRÒ, SIMONE VIERI

Thanks to its important naturalistic, historical, cultural and artistic heritage, Italy is one of the countries with the greatest tourist vocation in the world. Consequently, tourism is the most important productive sector in the Italian economy, with an impact just below 12% on GDP. During the long period of economic crisis that affected the major world economies, between 2008 and 2014, some parts of the Italian tourism, including seaside for example, declined. This decline, at an aggregate level, has been however balanced by the development of cultural tourism. About 37% of external demand is attributed to expenditures for holidays in art heritage cities, representing the most dynamic part of Italian tourism. Although with more modest absolute values, agritourism and food and wine tourism are dynamic parts of the Italian tourism too and, sometimes, they are linked with cultural tourism. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the development of cultural tourism, agritourism and food and wine tourism can be a single goal of economic policy aimed at creating new growth strategies in order to overcome the effects of the economic crisis. Organizing as a single economic system the different parts of Italian tourism can be the most coherent action in order to cope with the different development needs and potentialities of Italy, whose economic system is traditionally linked to the territorial values.

14

Authors: DIANA IONCICĂ, MARIA IONCICĂ, EVA-CRISTINA PETRESCU, ANCA ATANASE

The current paper tackles the thorny issue of cultural tourism in Romania, trying to ascertain whether there is an actual chance of promoting it successfully in our country, without further damage to an already endangered national cultural patrimony. The question is whether we were facing a dilemma with little chances of being solved to our advantage – namely, if the promotion of cultural tourism would pose a threat or present an opportunity to a domain in which, unfortunately, very little has been done in recent years. The goal of the paper is twofold – it is meant, on the one hand, as a strong alarm signal, a wake-up call as to the necessity of a coherent, well-funded strategy regarding the promotion of cultural tourism in Romania, and on the other hand as a cautionary tale – one that could envisage what might happen if such a strategy were incorrectly devised and applied. Some hints in that direction are unfortunately already at hand, amply visible when considering the current situation of some essential sites to our cultural and national identity. Some of the case studies we discussed include The Danube Delta, Dacian sites, Bucovina Monasteries, or the Old Town area in our capital, Bucharest.