Cătălina Ancuţa

Tourists are central to the vitality of any destination, as their behavior shapes its image and growth. Understanding the factors that drive repeat visits and recommendations informs strategic planning for sustainable destination development, strengthening the competitiveness of emerging destinations. This study examines the determinants of tourists' behavioral intentions in Timișoara, Romania, designated as the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) in 2023. Using the cognitive-affective-conative framework, the research investigates the impact of travel motivations, perceived quality of destination attributes, and satisfaction on tourists’ intentions to revisit and recommend the destination. Data were collected within one year of Timișoara’s EcoC designation from 682 foreign tourists and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to assess the relationships among the key constructs. Findings indicate that perceived quality of destination attributes - particularly food and drink, the urban environment, and accommodation strongly drive tourists' behavioral intentions, while travel motivations related to the city’s cultural heritage exert an indirect effect. These insights offer actionable recommendations for city planners and destination managers, highlighting the importance of strategic investments in tourism infrastructure and enhancing visitor experiences. This study contributes to event tourism research by providing a model for baseline assessment of emerging cultural destinations and by demonstrating how the cognitive-affective-conative lens can be applied to a city undergoing significant tourism transformation, offering an unexplored perspective for future research on event tourism and destination management.

The article aims to evaluate the heterogeneous nature of the regional space of Romanian Banat, perceived as a developed region. The method is based on the complex paradigm of the concept of territorial disparities, which includes other concepts such as development, territory, spatial equity. The elementary disparities are analyzed by studying three categories of variables: social, economic and of life standard. In order to reveal the intraregional behavior the presented methodology used data from two census – 1992 and 2002, which permitted an analysis in two key moments: little after the change of political regime and respectively, after 1o years of transition. Global disparities are studied by calculating a global development index; according to it two types of areas were established: advantaged (above the regional average) and disadvantaged (under this average). The study of the territorial disparities – both elementary and global ones – and of their dynamics 1992-2002 led to the establishment of a territorial model.

Composante principale du territoire roumain, l’espace rural ne joue pas un rôle majeur dans le système national. Le communisme l’avait réduit à sa composante agricole et lui avait confisqué sa fonction autorégulatrice. Les changements survenus depuis 1989 n’ont pas réussi à le réhabiliter : affecté par une crise démographique, il reste économiquement marginalisé. Les négociations en vue de l’intégration du pays à l’Union européenne ont amené une révision de cette position. Cet article analyse les financements SAPARD et tente de répondre à quelques questions. Où se localisent les communautés rurales les plus réceptives aux offres de financement ? Comment a évolué la réponse aux offres du programme SAPARD dans le temps et dans l’espace ? Les investissements sont-ils dirigés vers des productions agricoles de base ou bien s’insèrent-ils dans des circuits agro-alimentaires plus élaborés ? L’étude des données démontre que la «géométrie variable » du monde rural roumain a été renforcée : les aires dynamiques ont consolidé leur compétitivité, tandis que les zones en difficulté ont été affectées positivement, mais de façon limitée. Les programmes nationaux et européens à venir devront tenir compte de cette évolution différenciée.