Sustainable tourism management plans rely on relevant and consistent information about factors that can influence the decision to visit a protected area. This paper uses the choice experiment method to investigate tourists' preferences with regard to recreational trip characteristics in national and natural parks in Romania. An on-site survey questionnaire was administered to visitors. The multinomial logit model was employed to investigate the preference orderings of the identified groups of recreational users. Overall, results indicate that tourists gain benefits after visiting the parks. Main preference differences were found for information sources and location of campsites. Visitors who stated that the park was the main trip destination were willing to have access to more information sources, the marks on trails being insufficient. Camping is preferred only in organized places, expressing the concern for environmental protection. The results of this study have management implications, highlighting the importance of assessing tourists' preferences as a foundation for developing sustainable tourism strategies.

The rapid growth of adventure tourism is remarked all over the world, being considered as a modern form of tourism. This study attempted to investigate the preferences of experienced visitors of Romanian national and natural parks with the main focus on understanding what motives describe the three elements that define adventure tourism: physical activity, natural environment and cultural immersion, and what is the level of satisfaction regarding the quality of facilities and services. An online survey was filled in by 137 members of adventure tourism groups, being further grouped based on their experiences. Results indicate that experienced participants better appreciated the opportunity to be engaged in physical activity and to explore the natural environment. Cultural experience was perceived as similar by both groups. The level of satisfaction about facilities and services provided by the national and natural parks and adjacent rural communities was similar among groups, except for that about the existing information panels. Future development actions should address both groups to enhance their willingness to revisit the areas and increase the attractiveness of tourism in rural areas situated in the neighborhood of parks.

The Common Agricultural Policy is foreseen to suffer important reforms after 2013, which will greatly affect the farm's production environment. For the a priori analysis of such policy measures, there was built a recursive single period model adapted to the Romanian farming system. The positive mathematical programming method in use, proved to be in the last period highly applied in agricultural policies impact studies at the European level. Furthermore, the model was employed in order to test three different agricultural scenarios that were proposed by the European Commission as reform alternatives. The first policy option presumes to leave unchanged the current direct payment system while slightly changing the payment distribution pattern among Member States. The second policy option envisages substantial changes of the direct payment system that would be allocated only if farmers bring societal benefits. The last option consists in phasing out direct payments and provides limited financial support to farmers through the second Common Agricultural Policy pillar (rural development). All these options were investigated on the economical and financial data of 21 Romanian farms categorized according to the European classification system as mixed crops livestock farms. Results show that all these policy options have important effects on the farm revenue, in the sense that a decrease in the subsidy level produces important average gross margin falls. Soft landing approach in the first CAP pillar's reform is desirable especially for the Romanian agriculture that still presents important farm structural shortcomings.

No abstract