Gina Ionela Butnaru

Research on Tourists’ Perception of the Relationship between Tourism and Environment

Abstract More than any other field of activity, tourism depends on environment. Consequently, the environmental issues, among which destruction of biodiversity, pollution, global warming, waste increase, natural resources depletion, affect tourism as much as other global issues, like the economic crisis or the terrorism. We believe that the responsibility of lowering the impact of tourism over the environment belongs equally to all the participants in tourist activities.

Conceptual Approaches on Quality and Theory of Tourism Services

Abstract Quality is a factor of increasing the competitiveness and of realising the performances of the companies in the field of tourist services. Competitiveness and performance made the companies to be permanently concerned with the quality of the services they offered, so as to correspond to the customers’ demands. An important role for the development of the quality of services in tourism has the realisation of the degree of understanding the importance of quality by the management, and the level of resources necessary to obtain quality. The modern concept of quality expresses the involvement in its realisation of the entire personnel of the company, which implies the existence of a permanent preoccupation concerning training and improvement. Quality becomes everybodys concern, and each ones.

The Method of Ethnographic and Content Analysis in Determining Development Factors of Economic and Managerial Tourism Performance

Abstract This research work has the purpose to contribute to a greater awareness of economic and managerial performance in tourism. The research intends to identify the best application practices for the development of economic and managerial performance in tourism, with the purpose to obtain high economic results by the identification of the factors. The research is focused mainly on management. However, it also uses concepts derived from the technology of information on management, marketing and finance. For the method of ethnographic and content analysis in determining development factors of economic and managerial tourism performance, we took into account reference factors, obtained from the ethnographical content analysis.

Roşia Montana – Regional Impact☆

Abstract Rosia Montana has already become famous after the conflict produced among the opponents of Rosia Montana Project, initiators of the mining project, and the ones supporting the project. After the appearance of this project, several NGOs and foundations started to promote the tourist image of Rosia Montana, emphasizing the beauty of the area, also offering alternatives for tourist development in the community. The impact of Rosia Montana over the entire region and also over the whole country is related to the mining project proposed by Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMGC), which intends to realise the surface exploitation of several mountains. Though there are many tourist objectives in the area, historic monuments, the authorities support the activities of RMGC project, neglecting the environmental protection and tourist development of the region. In this article we will present the implications that this project has for tourist development in the community.

Alternative Method of Quality Evaluation in Tourism. Case Study Applied in Tourist Accommodation Units

Abstract In tourism, quality has two components: a) the quality of the service process; b) the quality level of the service itself, which is the real service offered and perceived by the customer. Quality could be evaluated by the consumer according to a number of factors, called reference factors. Therefore, the price or the classification category of the tourist accommodation unit, signalling, parking, diversity of propositions, service diversity, direct relationships (employer – customer) or indirect relationships (customer - customer), etc. are only a few of the reference factors analysed. Consequently, we consider that in the field of tourist accommodation units, the concept of quality involves the totality of the problems concerning the quality of tourist services, which is an extremely extended area where the tour operators’ (hotel managers’) points of view meet those of the consumers. In an extremely competitive hotel environment, hotel managers should find modalities to make their products and services better than the ones of the competition. Therefore, the specialists in this field, Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, Gronroos, Cronin and Taylor and others propose the use of efficient instruments to measure and to evaluate the quality (SERVQUAL, SERVPERF, etc.). In this work, after a rigorous selection and a critical analysis of the concepts, we proposed to establish an alternative method of quality evaluation in tourism, by the calculation of the global indicator of quality evaluation in tourism (GIQET), case study applied in tourist accommodation units.

The Pattern of Multiple Regression Analysis for Determining the Consumer’s Level of Satisfaction

Nowadays each individual assumes that the main goal of a firm is to make products and offer services that provide a high level of satisfaction to the consumer. The consumers are not indifferent anymore; their expectations regarding the quality and the comfort level have increased while they don’t accept medium quality products so credulous. Therefore is safe to affirm that the pivotal role of a business is the client, which can be defined through a complex net of demands, requirements and expectations. Observing as a starting point the problems confronting each consumer, we are proposing a research which aims to determine what is the satisfaction level and trust of the consumers from Iasi in the governmental bodies, when they have to file complaints to NACP (National Authority for Consumers Protection). These bodies have as their main function the protection of consumer’s rights and interests. This study followed two main directions in order to determine the problems that the consumers from Iasi are confronted with, when they purchase alimentary and non-alimentary products that is not according with the quality standard. In the same time we evaluated the effectiveness displayed by NAPC in solving the problems signaled by the consumers. The tool used was the questionnaire applied to a sample of 234 subjects. With the help of the results we determined the pattern of multiple regression analysis, going through a series of stages from the selection of the variables to the testing of the research hypothesis. The multiple regression method is known as a statistical procedure, which indicates the way that a dependent variable has influence upon independent variables, in a linear relationship; the usefulness of the method can be justified by the fact that is a part of the quantitative methods based on causal explanation of cause-effect relation.