Tourism is a multi-faced activity that links the economic, social and environmental components of sustainability. This research analyzes rural residents' perceptions of the impact of tourism development and examines the factors that influence the support for sustainable tourism development in the region of Nord-Vest in Romania. Residents' perceptions towards tourism development were measured using 22 items, while their support for tourism development was determined using 8 items. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Principal component analysis grouped the first 22 variables into 4 factors, and the following 8 variables into 2 factors (sustainable development, destination development). Findings indicate that residents see tourism as a development factor. The natural, economic, and social-cultural environment as well as infrastructure, age, gender and education are factors that influence the sustainable development of tourism.

Agritourism is a complex activity, a chance maybe today to ensure both human health and the “health” of the environment and rural settlements in order to achieve a most wanted desideratum, the sustainability of the rural environment. The idea of this paper starts from the trend of the current period, meaning the strong emphasis on natural, organic, bio, in all human activities, health and environment, in a word, sustainability. The necessity of implementing the sustainability of activities, health and environment in rural areas, taking into account the agritourism field, was a subject pursued in the study, taking as area of study the mountainous rural environment, the reason of this choice deriving from the fact that the mountain area offers great opportunities for agritourism development, the practice of which is even necessary in the current period. The sustainability of agritourism on rural health and environment cannot be dissociated from the economic, social and cultural life of the community in which it manifests itself, and has a multiplier effect on all the domains with which it interacts. So the purpose of the paper is to follow the development of the agritourism field and, based on some present information, to make a future forecast for some specific indicators, to highlight the representative aspects related to the development and capitalization of guesthouses from a rural mountain environment through agritourism and to come up with a forecast for future transformations that need to take place in the studied area in order to support the sustainable development of the human environment through agritourism.

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The popularity of rural areas and especially the mountainous ones, as a possibility to spend the vacation has increased in most countries. Almost all mountain areas can provide great opportunities for the development of various forms of rural tourism, there being many examples according to which many mountain areas, through appropriate and effective strategies of capitalizing the resources through the forms of rural tourism, start from the pioneer stage to a real valuable alternative in socio-economic terms for the rural area. One of the concepts that are increasingly used is the "tourist village", its main issue, consisting in the return of the investment, an aspect that we will discuss in this paper. The paper presents an analysis of the way in which the occupancy degree affects the period of amortization of the initial investment. Concretely, in the case of the medium-sized tourist village, the minimum occupancy degree for the amortization of the initial investment, starts from about 25% for the investment without a loan, but subsidy in proportion of 50% and reaches at about 85% in the case of an investment with loan, for a period of 10 years, without advance or subsidy and with an interest of 7%. Initial investments were established for a holiday village in the Romanian countryside.Sustainability 2017, 9, 875 2 of 18 required by the city dwellers and tourists; travel of 30-50 km from the cities become competitive with long-distance journeys abroad; and most city dwellers prefer to spend leisure and weekend days in a quiet, green and clean environment.Rural tourism can be a source of income for the rural population. The traditional products and resources that can be capitalized through this form of tourism are: traditional architecture, traditional objects, folk costumes, folk sculpture, traditional folk instruments, folklore manifestations, various traditional gastronomic, and eco-friendly products; in other words, the specific rural way of life, with multiple benefits for all participants to this activity. In order for rural tourism to have a high value, it is necessary that the economic value of adjacent activities to take place at a high level, so for this reason a rural tourist village could help.The aim of the paper. The idea of this paper starts from the existence of numerous locations with tourism potential. Many of these locations can be found in the countryside, so the idea of rural tourism is brought to the fore. In other words, the aim is to combine local economic interests, the development of communities, with those aiming at the conservation of tourism resources. The motivation for choosing a tourist village is that it could be the center of generating profit when it "sells" rooms at a higher price than operating costs. The purpose of the paper is to highlight and study the concrete situation regarding the investments in developing a holiday village that contains 20 rooms, possibly located in Apuseni Mountains. The research objective is a tourist village built from scratch, so the purpose of the ...

Abstract:Water availability has become a problem in many countries of the world. Water scarcity can be economic or physical. Agricultural water use accounts for about three quarters of total global consumption; in many developing countries, irrigation represents over 90% of the water used. The purpose of this paper is to explore the willingness to pay for irrigation water among the farmers from the boundaries governed by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). During the field study, 236 farmers from KRG were interviewed. The collected data were analyzed for each of the precipitation zones of the area (secured (A) and non-secured rainfed (B)). The contingent valuation method was used to determine the willingness to pay for irrigation water. The following possible independent variables influencing farmers' decisions were considered: the bid amounts; evaluation scale of the water deficit; source of water for irrigation; cultivated area; education and age of respondents; main agricultural activity. In Zone A, the median willingness to pay of the farmers that used ground water for irrigation is 20.