Towards a Sustainable Approach of Cultural Tourist Resources in the Oradea Metropolitan Area (Oma), Romania

Abstract

Metropolitan regions/areas are NUTS 3 regions or a combination of NUTS 3 regions which represent all agglomerations of at least 250,000 inhabitants (Eurostat, 2021). Oradea Metropolitan Area (NUTS3ID RO111) was established in 9th of May 2005 and has a total number of 251.570 inhabitants. The purpose of the association is to stimulate and support the growth and prosperity of the area, focused on the continuous increase of the quality of life. Besides the economic boost, OMA emerged from the need for space and leisure expressed by the core urbanites and although the periurban area is teeming with valuable cultural resources, the latter being the focus of the current study, they are little known by many of the Oradea residents. In this purpose the cultural attractions of the rural OMA were inventoried, analysed and stored in an online open-access database so that tourists can enjoy them and entrepreneurs in tourism can use them as focal points for further tourist infrastructure development. The analysis highlighted the OMA periurban area with the highest cultural attractions’ potential based on the National Methodology regarding the evaluation of the tourist potential in the basic administrative-territorial units.

Tourist Perception of the „night of the Museums” Event. Case Study in Oradea Municipality, Romania

“…Therefore, the main aspects targeted were the awareness of the event (by the people interviewed from the experience of taking part in previous editions) a nd its importance. Motivation is a complex mechanism structured from people's needs and desires with a direct impact on their behavior and actions (Stupariu, 2017;Stupariu and Morar, 2018;Tătar et al, 2018;Lee, and Kim, 2023: 34;Telbisz et al, 2023;Gaetjens et al, 2023). Studying the reasons (curiosity, free of charge, the need for cultural activities, spending free time in the most pleasant way) that led to the participation of the population in the Night of the Museums event was necessary from the perspective of substantiating the perception of this event at the participants' level.…”

Oradea Metropolitan Area as a Space of Interspecific Relations Triggered by Physical and Potential Tourist Activities

“…Thus the commune of Sânmartin has an average potential in terms of natural attractions, whereas Biharia has a very low potential. We are not going to insist upon these attraction features and the way in which the attractions scores were allocated, as they are extensively dealt with within the study of Tătar et al (2018) [57] and briefly summarized at the section Previous tourism research results of the constituent communes of the Oradea Metropolitan Area of the current study. The average of the rural metropolitan area is of 7.95 points which situates it at a low (towards average) score compared to the 25 value points granted to this category.…”

“…The current study synthesizes the results of previously published research papers on the topics of nature [57,58], man-made [59] tourist facilities and technical supplies [48], and tourist flow [60] within the rural OMA area, but its original value is that it makes a synthesis of all four categories of nature and man-made attractions and the tourist and technical infrastructure/facility, individually approached in previous studies. The tourist attractiveness ratings for each of these categories is displayed in Table 1.…”

“…The best tourist potential is held by Sânmartin commune for all the analyzed categories, such as natural and man-made attractions and technical and tourist facilities supply, which features an average potential, followed by Nojorid, Bors , , Biharia, Os , orhei, Sântandrei, Cetariu, and Paleu with a low tourist potential, and Giris , u de Cris , , Ineu and Toboliu communes with a very low tourist potential (Figure 6). This almost tourist-exclusive consumption in a proportion of over 93% [59], which is currently occurring in Sânmartin commune, shows that flows need to be dispersed more evenly among other metropolitan communes, and the current consumption is unsustainable. The other single commune where thermal waters are capitalized is Nojorid, which hosts an operational swimming pool park which also uses thermal water for bathing and cure purposes, but the demand gap between Sânmartin and Nojorid is still very wide; the latter registered barely 5153 arrivals during 2001-2020, whereas the former registered 2,791,492 arrivals during the same time interval [59].…”

“…The tourist potential is assessed in terms of the natural, man-made, tourist, and technical facilities perspectives and is meant to hierarchize certain regions over others and scale them into high, average, and low potential, thus strengthening the idea of a territory's competitiveness [1]. This model can be applied to any scale territory and it was used by Iat , u and Bulai (2011) [39] for assessing the tourist attractiveness of the historical province of Moldavia, Tătar (2009) [40] and for rating the attractiveness index of the territory found alongside the catchment area of Crisul Repede River of western Romania. Other models used in the Romanian literature for assessing the potential having as a base ground the aforementioned national methodology are those of Dezsi, Şt.…”