Criteria for Romanian geniuses’ selection as source for a new heritage tourism product

Abstract

Cultural heritage constantly evolves, contributes fundamentally to human development, and increases collective life’s quality. Cultural assets are considered a treasure that must be protected accordingly and passed on to future generations. Among tourism resources, material and immaterial assets belonging to famous people are essential for this industry and for promoting Romanian cultural values. In this framework, the purpose of the study is to identify criteria for selecting Romanian personalities of genius whose valuable works and achievements may augment the country’s cultural tourist heritage. The research method is based on the survey, which targeted the Romanian Academy members (RAMs) and the resident population (RP). Data analysis has been performed through qualitative-quantitative methods. The results show that identified definitions, criteria and nominalizations of Romanian genius personalities by the two groups of respondents have many similarities. For a specific tourism product built on the core of the Romanian personalities of genius, the study reveals four clusters: highly recognized people; averagely known people of genius, which includes contemporaries; remarkable people with landmarks developed in the last two centuries; and another, internationally visible, and known by specialists in a domain. These identified personalities may be reconsidered to expand the cultural heritage for tourism strategy, to develop a tourist package dedicated to the Romanian geniuses based on the capitalization of their achievements.