Abstract JSSP

The Inside Story: The Construction of an Assessment Instrument of Cultural Specificity, Preservation and Suitability for Cultural Thematic Tourism

Simona MĂLĂESCU1
1 Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, Department of Human Geography and Tourism, Cluj-Napoca, ROMANIA
E-mail: smalaescu@geografie.ubbcluj.ro
Pages: 269-279

Abstract. Demographic growth and the climatic changes, the perspectives of hunger in the 21st century turn mountains into points of interest for food and human habitat. A new attitude is necessary, aiming at preservation of population and flora of mountain grasslands and hayfields, created during centuries, based on organic fertilizers, whose absence for only 7-8 years has led to irretrievable degradation. In the Romanian Carpathians a wide regression can be noticed: rural exodus, agriculture and zootechnics abandonment, industrial food monopoly, with ridiculously low prices for milk and meat, poverty, discouragement, the significant agriculture’s domination over the mountain eco-bio economy, with economic marginalization. The economic recession has seriously affected the mountains. Safeguarding is still possible, through specific ample measures. The differences between the mountain development rates of the West-South-East regions are too large. The weak competencies, as far as the knowledge of mountain specificity is concerned, constitute a real peril. A European mountain strategy and national mountain policies are considered emergencies.

K e y w o r d s: cultural tourism, tourism product design, thematic routes, cultural specificity assessment, cultural heritage








			The Inside Story: The Construction of an Assessment Instrument of Cultural Specificity, Preservation and Suitability for Cultural Thematic Tourism Simona MĂLĂESCU1 1 Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, Department of Human Geography and Tourism, Cluj-Napoca, ROMANIA E-mail: smalaescu@geografie.ubbcluj.ro Pages: 269-279 Abstract. Demographic growth and the climatic changes, the perspectives of hunger in the 21st century turn mountains into points of interest for food and human habitat. A new attitude is necessary, aiming at preservation of population and flora of mountain grasslands and hayfields, created during centuries, based on organic fertilizers, whose absence for only 7-8 years has led to irretrievable degradation. In the Romanian Carpathians a wide regression can be noticed: rural exodus, agriculture and zootechnics abandonment, industrial food monopoly, with ridiculously low prices for milk and meat, poverty, discouragement, the significant agriculture’s domination over the mountain eco-bio economy, with economic marginalization. The economic recession has seriously affected the mountains. Safeguarding is still possible, through specific ample measures. The differences between the mountain development rates of the West-South-East regions are too large. The weak competencies, as far as the knowledge of mountain specificity is concerned, constitute a real peril. A European mountain strategy and national mountain policies are considered emergencies. K e y w o r d s: cultural tourism, tourism product design, thematic routes, cultural specificity assessment, cultural heritage