Attractiveness and Competitiveness of the Romanian Carpathian Mountains Destinations: A study of Perception of Generation Y

Abstract

The Carpathian Mountains, an undeniable element of the Romania's tourism brand, have a great variety of attractions, accessed by over half of domestic visitors. At the same time, they are subjected by inappropriate development, which affects the supply and demand. Therefore, the study aims to analyze the perception of Generation Y (GY) regarding the tourism attractiveness and competitiveness in the Romanian Carpathians mountain units in order to identify a benchmarking of directions needed to improve the development of these destinations. The research is based on the survey method, applied to a sample of Millennial(s)/GY, processed in SPSSv.17 and evaluation using aggregate indexes. The results show that young tourists consider the attractiveness to be high for tourist resources and satisfactory for facilities. Performance of their experiences is influenced by outdoor relaxation, photos, and trekking activities. Despite some lacks regarding the winter sports facilities, accommodation, GY is still interested to visit or revisit different mountain units. Thus, the stakeholders must take in consideration the issues of facilities for winter sports, walk, mountain bike, and races events, to reshape and adapt all aspects related to the mobility, accommodation, promotion and quality of experiences in the Carpathian Mountains to meet much more to GY's expectations.

Consumer attitudes towards the mountain product label: Implications for mountain development

“…Nine items were selected to describe mountain attractiveness, as shown in Table 1. The item selection provides a structured representation of the multiple aspects of mountain attractiveness, in line with previously published analytical frameworks on mountain tourism (Matei et al 2019;Silva et al 2018). Cheng et al (2013) considered the destination attractiveness construct and explained it by testing several items, e.g.…”

Importance of environment quality in sustainable tourism destinations: the young tourists' perception

“…Manea et al (2013) focus on voluntourism, as a form of sustainable tourism, and consider that volunteer tourists in Romania are young people with the following qualities: friendly, responsible, educated, adaptable, and with initiative; attracted by new experiences in authentic places, and caring for people and nature. Matei et al (2019) find in the YG's perception an orientation towards natural attractions or outdoor activities in the Romanian Carpathians destinations.…”

“…The digital dissemination also acknowledged the skills of the YGT, known to be a consumer of IT products (Puisard et al, 2011). These two factors led to the predominance of female respondents (two thirds), an aspect closely related to the configuration of the specific channels employed by the questionnaire operator, but also to the greater willingness of this gender to respond in such surveys (Matei et al, 2019).…”

“…In the Romanian scientific literature, Matei et al (2019) deem that there is a deficit of research on the profile, perception and attitudes of the YG regarding domestic tourism, which entails the need to study the tourism phenomenon from the perspective of this consumer segment. The publications dedicated to the YG are few, and their topics are not very diverse.…”

Heritage advantages vs. economic constraints in the sustainable development framing: A study on social perception in Apuseni Mountains Natural Park

“…All these elements explain why the Apuseni Mountains were designated "European destination of excellence" at EDEN 2009 contest. The main tourist attractions, as a part of attractiveness (Matei et al, 2019) estimated by their density in GIS (Spatial analyst tools) present a concentration on a northwest-southeast alignment; their density is the highest in the northern communes of the park belonging to the Bihor and Alba counties, while scattered values occur in the communes lying in the Cluj county. Overlapping this distribution with the populated areas has allowed the authors to ascertain that the alignment of these attractions mirrors the most populated areas ( Figure 5).…”