Valentin Toader

The present paper investigates the point of intersection between wine tourism and urban tourism in 87 Romanian small towns. The presence of vineyards and wine-incentives represent distinctive features with the potential to become (niche) tourism attractions, therefore having the capacity to provide a competitive edge for these towns in a fierce and aggressive tourism market. For the current investigation, the research question is: do the wine-attractions related to these localities influence the tourist accommodation facilities and arrivals and therefore their position as wine tourism destinations? The research results show, with painful clarity, that the Romanian municipalities and towns related to wine-attractions do not use this differentiating feature in order to raise their profile as wine tourism destinations. Having wine-related attractions at their core, Romanian smaller urban localities could benefit from potential factors to regenerate their economic and social conditions through tourism. Most of them are presently ignoring this competitive advantage, seeming to have no dreams to become wine tourism destinations. Article History: Received: Mai 27, 2025; Reviewed: October 24, 2025; Accepted: December 2, 2025; Available online: December 18, 2025. JEL classification: L83, Z32

The examination of why people make journeys to sites of religious significance constitutes a fundamental research question within tourism studies. This inquiry represents a central theoretical concern that intersects multiple disciplinary perspectives, including anthropology, psychology, sociology, and religious studies, necessitating comprehensive analytical frameworks to understand the complex motivational structures underlying contemporary religious travel behavior. The contemporary phenomenon of pilgrimage has undergone a paradigmatic shift from traditional religious frameworks, demonstrating the influence of diverse sociocultural and individual variables. This transformation in pilgrimage conceptualization emerges from several contributing factors: evolving personal value systems and belief structures, technological innovations that improve information accessibility and interpersonal communication, and a growing interest in individualized searches for existential meaning and spiritual connectivity within an increasingly secular societal context. Whereas medieval pilgrimage practices were primarily anchored in religious conviction and penitential purposes, contemporary pilgrimage experiences exhibit significantly greater motivational diversity, reflecting the multifaceted nature of modern human complexity. The main objective of the present exploratory study is to examine factors that influence pilgrims’ choice of route difficulty on Camino de Santiago, using 272 valid responses from 331 collected surveys. Given the limited sample size, the research adopts an exploratory approach to identify preliminary relationships and patterns for future large-scale studies. The analysis employs PLS-SEM and multigroup analysis using SmartPLS 4 software. Given the methodological constraints, the findings should be considered indicative rather than definitive. This research offers both academic and practical value, providing theoretical contributions to pilgrimage studies while providing actionable insights for diverse stakeholders involved in Camino de Santiago route management and pilgrim experience optimization. JEL classification: L80, L83, Z00, Z39 Article History: Received: August 20, 2025; Reviewed: September 8, 2025; Accepted: September 22, 2025; Available online: September 29, 2025

Nowadays, the role of the sharing economy in tourism increases, the number of people involved as guests or hosts rising day by day. This dynamic generates a viable alternative to the traditional services, allowing tourists to customise their trips and enrich their experiences. This paper focuses on accommodation services, investigating the factors influencing the prices established by Airbnb hosts. Using structural equation modelling, the authors analyse the influence of different categories of factors (listing’s characteristics, hosts’ involvement, listing’s reputation, listing’s location, and rental policies) on the average daily rate. The results emphasise that the hosts establish the listing’s price based on listing’s characteristics and on their involvement – the owners managing only one listing and the ones charging a security deposit value more their involvement, while the other hosts focus more on the listings’ characteristics. The location of the listing counts for experienced owners, while for opportunist owners it has no importance. The listings’ reputation has a negative impact on the price, contrary to the conclusions achieved in other studies, an aspect that supports the idea that price determinants differ across regions.

This paper follows the already existing literature to address three main pressing concerns that Romania is currently facing with respect to sustainable development and economic growth, which has likely been impeded as a direct consequence of the ongoing sanitary crisis. The research questions of this paper were asked with the consideration of finding possible solutions to the current developments. These questions were “How will the global health crisis project on Romania’s GDP growth in 2021 and going forward?”, “To what extent can Romania face its current challenges with respect to the budgetary pressures?”. The research itself was conducted using the R programming language with quantitative data, namely quarterly GDP starting from 2005 Q1 onwards and its main objective is to simulate Romania’s GDP to answer the aforementioned questions. Therefore, this research is empirical in the sense that it derives the simulated data from real data which was taken from Eurostat. The main findings of this research were that Romania’s GDP could grow by a mean 3.2% in 2021, which is more conservative than the existing institutional forecasts made by the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the Romanian National Commission for Strategy and Forecasting, implying that the majority of the simulated outcomes have been in that respective range of values. Moreover, this research also finds that consumption is expected to increase by approximately 4.2% and that the budget deficit relative to GDP could go as low as to negative 7.8%. This paper creates value for future policymaking as it proposes solutions which could help Romania going forward. Thus, this paper creates value for not only the policymakers but the society as a whole.

In a world of sustainable development, affected by a certain short-term liquidity distress, the economic actors are facing uncertainty since inadequate resource management and decision making can have significant effects over a country’s future economic and societal development. Therefore, the stakeholders involved in the decision-making process consider economic forecasts, based on variables that factor in recent developments, to aid them in the aforementioned process. If they did not, they would not have a greater understanding of a country’s performance indicators. Using past data, a set of analyses are performed, and economic models are built, with the scope of probabilistically determining Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The main objectives of this paper are thus, to assess Romania’s development since joining the European Union (EU) and provide a long-term macroeconomic projection, together with a comparison between the forecasted data and the country’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in order to realistically estimate their achievability. Furthermore, a set of scenarios have been built that aim at creating a clearer perspective of how the recent global pandemic might affect Romania. The data sets have been taken from Eurostat, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Commission, National Bank of Romania and the National Institute of Statistics; and a set of statistical tools have been used to fulfill the previously stated objectives, namely; Auto Regressive Moving Average (ARMA) for the short-term forecasts and Variable Autoregression (VAR) for the long-term models. The main results suggest a negative GDP growth of 4.95% for 2020 followed by a strong rebound in 2021. However, this figure will drastically be affected by how well or poorly the situation is managed. The European Commission anticipates a downturn of 6% in 2020 and a rebound 4.2% in the following year. This paper includes a sensitivity analysis as well, that attempts to eliminate potential forecasting biases. JEL Classification: E17, C53

Located in the southeast of Romania, Bucharest is the capital and the largest city in the country. Economically, Bucharest is the most prosperous city in Romania. During the last years, this city faced one of the highest growths in the number of hotels. Nowadays, due to the development of Internet-based technologies, the reservation process has changed; travelers can easily get information about the experience of other guests and also compare prices. The aim of the present paper is to analyze how prices for a hotel stay, in the city of Bucharest, can be influenced by some quality signaling factors, as star rating, online consumer’s ratings and the number of consumer’s comments. By using a multiple regression model for 3 to 5-star hotels in Bucharest, we identify, on one hand, the factors that have a positive influence on hotel room rates and, on the other hand, the factors that have a negative impact on the consumer’s willingness to pay. Our main results supply signals to hoteliers concerning the attributes most valuable for consumers which can lead to a higher room rate premium. JEL Classification: M15, M10, L83, L86.

Cultural events and festivals can have a significant and important influence on the development of local communities. Their utilization of the endogenous resources of an area means that these events, most often, have a positive impact on the local economy. Quite consequentially, they may also extend the socio-cultural opportunities of local citizens. However, their utilization of time and space does raise concerns regarding environmental impact. Therefore, it is imperative that stakeholders study their net impact on a region. This present paper examines the economic, socio-cultural, and environmental impact of the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF). With a history of 15 editions, the festival gathers, year by year, an increasing number of people in Cluj-Napoca. The growth of the event has had unmistakable and important effects on the city. The purpose of the paper is to analyze resident participants’ perceptions on economic, socio-cultural, and environmental effects. To reach this goal, an exploratory and descriptive research was conducted. Both primary and secondary data were used in the analysis, the questionnaire being the main tool used for collecting data about participants’ perceptions. The results emphasize the positive effects at the socio-cultural level. The festival provides multiple possibilities to spend free time in a pleasant way, it sustains the development of cultural life, and it improves the educational and the cultural level of community. Moreover, the festival does not influence, in a negative manner, the moral principles of the society and it does not generate an increase in crime rate. From the economic point of view, the festival has the capacity to attract investments and additional revenues for the local government, it sustains the development of the city infrastructure, and it creates opportunities for residents to develop new economic activities. Lastly, from the environmental point of view, the festival sustains the improvement of environmental issues, it does not generate important traffic problems, and it does not deteriorate touristic resources.