This research aims at identifying the role of social media in evaluating the attractiveness of a tourism destination, with special emphasis on the health safety of the destination. Consistent with this objective, a survey has been carried out on a sample of 675 Romanian social media users. The research results led to the development of a model based on structural equation modeling. The model includes nine latent variables that were structured taking into account different behavioral aspects related to the role social media has in travel planning, as well as for evaluating the health safety of a tourism destination. The main findings suggest that the trust in social media for tourism information made people become more interested in communicating through this means and to consider it more useful throughout the travel planning process. When choosing a travel destination, the more involved a tourist is in the decision making process, the greater the attention they pay to social media. The perceived usefulness of social media in travel planning has a significant influence on intentions to choose a tourism destination. As the importance assigned to the health safety of tourism destination increases, social media plays a more active role in travel by creating trust in this means in order to obtain sanitary safety information. People that intend to use social media for finding information on the health safety of a tourism destination are more likely to choose that destination for their vacation. The managerial implications of this paper regard the communication strategies adopted by tourism services suppliers or by some public authorities aimed at stimulating an efficient usage of social media so as to increase the buying intentions for tourism destinations.

This article examines innovation processes in forest recreational services on the basis of case studies in five European countries with differing institutional backgrounds of forest ownership and access rights. The analysis reveals that forest-related recreation services are developed under varying institutional conditions and on public as well as private land. Ideas for innovations in recreational services may come from within but often outside the forestry sector. Financing is provided from public and private sources. Both public and private spheres have important roles in providing natural, human and financial resources and usually a network of public and private actors are involved in innovation processes. Of particular importance are cross-sectoral interactions between forestry and tourism. related recreation services because the field is at an early stage of development. It is concluded that support should focus on providing ideas and financial resources for product development and on facilitating cross-sectoral interaction between forestry and tourism actors. A particular need is seen for development of models for durable interaction between land owners and tourism operators on a regional scale.

Abstract:In this paper we propose to highlight the tourism evolution and its intensity in the North-East region of Romania, compared to two regions with similar touristic potential from the Eastern European Union: Subcarpathia from Poland and Central Slovakia. We analysed if the EU attachment of Romania, Poland, and Slovakia had some effects on tourism development in the three regions mentioned. Issues arising from the analysis of the current situation of tourism will allow us to draw some sustainable development directions of tourism in the North-East region based on conserving and capitalizing the uniqueness of the area. We will consider the experience of the other two regions, trying to adapt them to the situation of the North-East region. Based on the analysis we have made, we consider that other countries can inspire us by authorities' initiatives in supporting tourism, good human resources training, entrepreneurship stimulation, and assistance in accessing financial resources, including EU ones.

The main purpose of this paper is to identify and explore the initiatives which the European rural businesses have deployed when coping with Covid-19 pandemic and to emphasize the impact of these initiatives for the further development of the rural business environment in post Covid-19 pandemic in Europe. Rural businesses contribute towards Europe's growth and prosperity and, furthermore, help to preserve the cultural heritage for future generations. Also, have a huge impact on the development of the rural areas, through their socioeconomic contribution: employment, suppliers, customers, business competitors. The Covid-19 pandemic has strongly influenced people's lives and business activeness of rural areas. The widespread pandemic has given rise to significant challenges for the development of rural businesses. In order to exceed these circumstances, have been launched certain initiatives for supporting rural businesses in the fight against Covid-19:websites collecting examples of initiatives deployed by rural businesses, online platforms that promote local products and drive-in services for selling local food.The results of this research underline the fact that all the initiatives focused their attention towards supporting and developing the operations of rural businesses during Covid-19 pandemic. Moreover, this type of initiatives can provide inspiration for forthcoming responses to global pandemic and other types of crisis.

This paper aims to illustrate in the context of the challenges of the Europeanization process what kind of cooperation models there exist between nature-based tourism companies and the critical stakeholder groups effecting the business activities and social sustainability of the companies. The following topics are part of our current research: which are the cooperation strategy; which are the management models applied in countries with competitive market and strong innovation policy; which are the costs of implementing innovation policies for cooperation strategies enhancing the innovation in nature based tourism services; which barriers avoid the entrepreneurship development and how innovative can be the firm management. We intend to analyze the importance of stakeholders and policy influence enhancing the innovation in nature based tourism service, in Greece, Austria, Finland and Romania case studies. The research will continue with a comparison between these cases, including the perspective of supporting entrepreneurship and regional competitiveness in Romania.

The financial motivation of the employees, at first sight, is considered the best method of stimulating the work of the employees. However, some studies have shown that employees are also motivated through non-financial means, such as equal treatment or recognition of merits. Although the economic literature offer strategies and analyses related to the motivation's importance in the success of the organisation, not all managers implement them efficiently. This article presents an analysis of the link between employee motivation and company performance, based on a statistical research conducted on 444 organizations from Romania. The factorial analysis presented is based on the KMO and Bartlett tests and the ANOVA analysis, combining the motivating elements of the employees with the turnover and profitability. The regression analysis of employees' contribution to achieving the organization's performance indicators is underlining the importance of the employees' motivation in order to achieve the targeted profitability. The conclusions of the paper emphasize the dependence of the performance indicators on the quality of human resources and on the level of their motivation. The motivation dimensions that manages to maximize the organisations' profitability are those concerned with increasing employee loyalty and increasing working conditions.

The research aim was to identify the training needs of entrepreneurs and employees within small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from the Suceava, Chernivtsi, and Bălți regions, to analyze the specific training practices in the cross-border area, and to identify the common features or the disparities. The research contains an exploratory survey, based on a semi-structured questionnaire that investigates the training needs in the SMEs and specific training practices with a comparative approach. The results relate to the challenges faced by transformation economies and by the specificities of SMEs from these remote areas. Additionally, the research connects the factors involved in planning and delivering training programs for employees in SMEs in this EU peripheral area with the weaknesses of the companies in facing the market competitive economy. The results of the survey disclosed some common features and specificities related to training needs, training responsibilities, and interests in the SMEs from this cross-border area. The discussions are relevant for different categories of stakeholders, at the micro-level, for the management of the companies, but also on a larger scale, in planning the new development programs for the labor market in the targeted areas.

Nature-based tourism is a rapidly growing industry sector providing new sources of livelihood for rural areas to diversify the traditional economies. Although innovativeness is an important element in the competitiveness of companies, the level of innovations in nature tourism and recreation services has not been reported as very high. The innovations in nature-based tourism typically occur not as a result of specific innovation systems, but rather 'between' the existing ones, and as a result of spontaneous, project-oriented cooperation of various public and private actors. These actors play a significant role in creating new ideas and cooperation is essential for their successful development. However, combining multiple actors to cross-sectoral networks is a challenge, particularly when small and micro-companies are concerned. By using case studies across Europe, this chapter aims to illustrate what kind of cooperation types exist between nature-based tourism enterprises and critical stakeholder groups affecting the innovation process, and how the cooperation is managed by innovation carriers. In addition, the chapter aims to illustrate what kind of influence different policies have had in this cooperation. The empirical data consist of 12 case studies from six western and eastern European countries (Austria, Estonia, Finland, Romania, Scotland and Slovakia). The results highlight the important role of informal cooperation in nature-based tourism innovation processes. This type of cooperation is supported mainly through horizontal rural and regional development policies. The results emphasize that the policy instruments with a bottom-up horizontal approach have an important role in enhancing innovation in the nature-based tourism sector.