Review Reports - Tourism and Cultural Heritage in Beiuș Land, Romania

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

A very interesting article and fitting to the journal's profile - worth publishing. However, before publication, it is necessary to:

- complete the missing chapter on the theoretical basis of the study using the rich scientific achievements in this field of science, indicate the conceptual framework of the study;

- explain the importance of the presented results of the study - for science itself, for the region, etc., how the results compare with similar studies by other authors;

- explain why such a method of evaluation was chosen - what are the other methods?

Author Response

Comments from 1 Reviewer

Point 1:

A very interesting article and fitting to the journal's profile - worth publishing. However, before publication, it is necessary to:

At the beginning, we would like to thank the reviewer for the substantive criticism, comments and suggestions enabling the improvement of the entire text. Thank you for your time and the review of our work.

Point 2:

- complete the missing chapter on the theoretical basis of the study using the rich scientific achievements in this field of science, indicate the conceptual framework of the study;

- The subject of the study was placed in the context of international research, indicating the conceptual framework of the study.

Point 3:

- explain the importance of the presented results of the study - for science itself, for the region, etc., how the results compare with similar studies by other authors;

- The discussions aimed at explaining the importance of the results obtained for science, by relating them to similar studies; (Cap 4. Discussions).

Point 4:

- explain why such a method of evaluation was chosen - what are the other methods?

- Section 2.2 explained why such an evaluation method was chosen.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

heritage-1736937-peer-review-v1

Tourism and Cultural Heritage in Beiuș Land, Romania

The paper is interesting but it has several serious flaws that will require a full reworking an resubmission.

The literature review section of the introduction is very limited to Beiuș and Romania and does not provide a wider, international perspective that would have been expected for a paper like this. But even then, there appear to be more studies to be considered that deal with Beius

Line 84 needs a reference

Line 93 needs a reference

Line 159 refer to table1

Table 1 The justification for the selection of X1 to X7 has not been adequately provided. Why these variables? What about cultural landscape concepts? Gustatory heritage?

Lines 286 to 317 are essentially unreadable and should be relegated to a table

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

The paper has a fundamental problem that needs to be addressed. The authors variable X1 assumed that all TAU are equally well researched. Yet, archaeological survey and recording activity will always vary and thus the data set will inevitably be biased . Further, variable X2 also assumed that architectural heritage sites are equally recorded and included in TAU. Yet such inclusion is often based on local political decisions. Any such bias will then flow through to the analysis. They authors are clearly not archaeologists and heritage professionals which explain this, but if they are, their approach is naïve.

There is a need to really qualify the data quality before the analysis is carried out.

Likewise, variable X5–X6 are not well defined. This needs to happen so that the reader understands what is included and what is not. As it stands, it is far too generic.

Variable X3 is drawn from the National Institute of Statistics . So far so good. But what does the NIS include in its data collection? What is eligible? To what micro-level ?

Variable X6 includes customs. But how can customs be quantified as n/365*100? The number of days a custom is practiced? This needs MUCH more discussion

MINOR ISSUES

Line 91: real estate (customs, music, beliefs... ‘real estate seems to be a weird term that is used here…intangible heritage?

The paper needs to be thoroughly edited by a PROFESSIONAL editor who is a NATIVE English-speaker. As it stands, the text is replete of spelling mistakes, grammatical infelicities, and awkward expressions

Author Response

Comments from 2 Reviewer

Point 1:

The paper is interesting but it has several serious flaws that will require a full reworking an resubmission.

Point 2:

The subject of the study was placed in the context of international research, indicating the conceptual framework of the study.

Point 3:

Line 84 needs a reference

Reference was introduced.

Point 4:

Line 93 needs a reference

Reference was introduced.

Point 5:

Line 159 refer to table1

The reference with table 1 was established.

Point 6:

Table 1 The justification for the selection of X1 to X7 has not been adequately provided. Why these variables? What about cultural landscape concepts? Gustatory heritage?

Regarding gustatory heritage, this can be found in data included in variable X6 Festivals and fairs, because of the fact that gustatory heritage represents a custom and food traditions, being manifested periodically during certain holidays or in certaind periods during the year (a given example: Easter Egg decorating festival represent an event, so belongs to variable X6, but represents also the gastronomic resurse handle by artists, included in variable X5).

Point 7:

Lines 286 to 317 are essentially unreadable and should be relegated to a table

Table 2 was created for this purpose.

Point 8:

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

Regarding the data of variable X1 Archeological sites, there were collected data from Ministry of Culture, form The List of Historical Monuments in Romania (mentioned the source in table 1). The archeological sites from this source are already classified as historical monuments and valued at international/national and local level. It is well known the fact that this List do not contain all the possible sites or working ones. Nevertheless, gathering data from this source seems reasonable, considering the evaluation of cultural heritage study aim and not inventory and prospecting. It might be a study theme comparison between official sources and the territorial potential, in order to protect and introduce them in official list.

In this case, we preffered to collect the informations from official sources of decidents authorities.

Point 9:

Further, variable X2 also assumed that architectural heritage sites are equally recorded and included in TAU. Yet such inclusion is often based on local political decisions. Any such bias will then flow through to the analysis. They authors are clearly not archaeologists and heritage professionals which explain this, but if they are, their approach is naïve.

Variable X2 Architectural Monuments collects its data from the same source as Variable X1, but in this case the location of architectural monuments is well known, because of their relative recent dating (the oldest monument is dated from century) and their territorial physical presence as partially integral or as a ruine form inside of the settlements. Candidacy and selection of these objectives for historical monument status may represent decisions interfering with opinions of politicians or community leadership people. But nevertheless, this source offers the official informations and these monuments are accredited and establish as elements in local or national cultural heritage.

Point 10:

There is a need to really qualify the data quality before the analysis is carried out.

The quality of the data was qualified before performing the analysis.

Point 11:

Likewise, variable X5–X6 are not well defined. This needs to happen so that the reader understands what is included and what is not. As it stands, it is far too generic.

Table 2 shows what every variable defines.

Point 12:

Variable X3 is drawn from the National Institute of Statistics . So far so good. But what does the NIS include in its data collection? What is eligible? To what micro-level ?

The source of Variable X3 is Ministry of Culture and National Office for Heroes. Data corresponding to variable X3 are obtained at settlement level. In this case, the values used in this study are calculated at TAU level.

The same with variable X4 Museums, collections and public libraries, provided from NIS is at settlement level, and the museums and collections are those at national, regional, county level and local level (cf. Legii nr. 311 din 3 iulie 2003, art.14-15).

Point 13:

Variable X6 includes customs. But how can customs be quantified as n/365*100? The number of days a custom is practiced? This needs MUCH more discussion.

Variable X6 Festivals, fairs and customs include data referring to customs and traditions practiced at festivals or fairs. Semantically, customs and festivals are two different terms, but in this case, between these two can interfere confusions, because most of the festivals are organized in order to practice a custom in a specific period of year.

In this case, already publicly valued customs by the authorities responsible of their periodic and cyclical organization were considered. Collecting informations about either unpracticed or endangered customs and intangible heritage would represent prospecting and inventory actions, in order to increase the awareness among authorities and community and to introduce these elements in the already practices circuit and touristic valued. This aspect does not belong to the objectives and aims of this study. There is an option to avoid the confusions and eliminate the word customs from de variable title.

Point 14:

MINOR ISSUES

Line 91: real estate (customs, music, beliefs... ‘real estate seems to be a weird term that is used here…intangible heritage?

Indeed, this translation is not the best suited for this paragraph, given the necessity of the use of specific heritage domain terminology. Intangible heritage is the best suited form of translation here.

Point 15:

The work was edited by a native English speaker.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The implemented changes have made the article's concept and structure understandable. Perhaps the discussion on the importance of this type of research should be extended further.

Author Response

Comments from 1 Reviewer

Point 1:

The implemented changes have made the article's concept and structure understandable. Perhaps the discussion on the importance of this type of research should be extended further.

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your support in improving this study.

The study was also improved by introducing some explanations (rows 300-311; 436-466) and refining the bibliographic references.

Good health and success in everything you do!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have carried out some revison of the original manuscript, but have done so only in a very limited fashion. The authors need to fully address the concerns raised during the first review round. A major revision is still required.

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Initial review: The literature review section of the introduction is very limited to Beiuș and Romania and does not provide a wider, international perspective that would have been expected for a paper like this. But even then, there appear to be more studies to be considered that deal with Beius

Authors’ response: The subject of the study was placed in the context of international research, indicating the conceptual framework of the study.

Review comment round 2: Thank you for providing an introduction. As it stands, it is a summation of general approaches which is fine as a first paragraph. It reads as ‘tacked on” without any relevance to the paper that follows. What it still does not do is to contextualise the theoretical framing of the paper. This still needs to be grounded in the literature. As it stands the lack of framing makes the paper unacceptable. A major revision is still required.

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Initial review: Table 1 The justification for the selection of X1 to X7 has not been adequately provided. Why these variables? What about cultural landscape concepts? Gustatory heritage?

Authors’ response: Regarding gustatory heritage, this can be found in data included in variable X6 Festivals and fairs,because of the fact that gustatory heritage represents a custom and food traditions, being manifested periodically during certain holidays or in certaind periods during the year (a given example: Easter Egg decorating festival represent an event, so belongs to variable X6, but represents also the gastronomic resurse handle by artists, included in variable X5).

Review comment round 2: The authors did not address this issue at all. In their response the authors comment on the last point I made (gustatory heritage) but ignore the main point I have raised.

The justification for the selection of X1 to X7 has not been adequately provided. Why were these variables chosen and how were they scored? Table 2 does some explanation here but not in terms of scoring. This is fundamental methodology and needs to be much better explained.

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Review comment round 2: where do cultural landscape concepts fit onto the selection of X1 to X7?

Surely this is a major asset, esp. in view of current European thinking on the subject matter?

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Initial review: Lines 286 to 317 are essentially unreadable and should be relegated to a table

Authors’ response: Table 2 was created for this purpose.

Review comment round 2: thank you. The terminology under “type of criteria” should be ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ in keeping with standard heritage theory. I am concerned that the authors seem to be unaware of the very basic terminology . Also the heading “type of criteria” should be rephrased. It is awkward.

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Review comment round 2: Table 2…churches are listed under X1 and X2. Why dual listing as this flaws the analysis ? Likewise, necropolis is under X1 but the various funeral monuments are under X3. Why?

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Initial review: METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES. The paper has a fundamental problem that needs to be addressed. The authors variable X1 assumed that all TAU are equally well researched. Yet, archaeological survey and recording activity will always vary and thus the data set will inevitably be biased .

Authors’ response: Regarding the data of variable X1 Archeological sites, there were collected data from Ministry of Culture, …. It is well known the fact that this List do not contain all the possible sites or working ones. Nevertheless, gathering data from this source seems reasonable,

Review comment round 2: that is fine, but this a severe limitation of the data set and must be discussed as a limitation. Failing to do so is methodologically unsound.

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Initial review: Further, variable X2 also assumed that architectural heritage sites are equally recorded and included in TAU. Yet such inclusion is often based on local political decisions. Any such bias will then flow through to the analysis. They authors are clearly not archaeologists and heritage professionals which explain this, but if they are, their approach is naïve.

Authors’ response: Variable X2 Architectural Monuments collects its data from the same source as Variable X1, ….

Review comment round 2: Again a severe limitation of the data set and must be discussed as a limitation. Failing to do so is methodologically unsound.

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Initial review: There is a need to really qualify the data quality before the analysis is carried out.

Authors’ response: The quality of the data was qualified before performing the analysis.

Review comment round 2: and where is the evidence? The authors need to show this

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Initial review: Variable X3 is drawn from the National Institute of Statistics . So far so good. But what does the NIS include in its data collection? What is eligible? To what micro-level ?

Authors’ response: The source of Variable X3 is …l. The same with variable X4 Museums..).

Review comment round 2: thanks for clarifying this in your response…but WHERE does it say this in the text? All of this needs to be added (may be as an Appendix). At the moment the methodology section is entirely inadequate

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Initial review: Variable X6 includes customs. But how can customs be quantified as n/365*100? The number of days a custom is practiced? This needs MUCH more discussion.

Authors’ response: Variable X6 Festivals, fairs and customs include data referring to customs and traditions practiced at festivals or fairs. ….

Review comment round 2: again… thanks for clarifying this in your response…but WHERE does it say this in the text? All of this needs to be added (may be as an Appendix). At the moment the methodology section is entirely inadequate

Author Response

Comments from 2 Reviewer

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your support in improving this study.

The study was also improved by introducing some explanations (rows 300-311; 436-466) and refining the bibliographic references.

Good health and success in everything you do!

Authors’ response: The subject of the study was placed in the context of international research, indicating the conceptual framework of the study.

Relevant information to the study in the chose area was introduced [row 300-311].

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Initial review: Table 1 The justification for the selection of X1 to X7 has not been adequately provided. Why these variables? What about cultural landscape concepts? Gustatory heritage?

Review comment round 2: The authors did not address this issue at all. In their response the authors comment on the last point I made (gustatory heritage) but ignore the main point I have raised.

The variables chosen in this study were established according to the study domains (cultural heritage, respectively tourism) in order to represent them as appropriately and comprehensively as possible in the geographical reality of the territory. The choise of variables was based on specialized studies with similar evaluation topics and methodology [see 19, 42, 43, 44, 45 from reference], on the authors opinions and experience, taking into account the limitations on the validity of statistical data. Their choice was random, but with constraints of reduce availability of statistical data and data from official sources.

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Review comment round 2: where do cultural landscape concepts fit onto the selection of X1 to X7?

Surely this is a major asset, esp. in view of current European thinking on the subject matter?

The concept of cultural landscape was not integrated in this study, the theme being focused only on the evaluation of the two field, cultural heritage and tourism infrastructure. The integrative analysis using the concepts related to the cultural landscape would represent the next step in research based on thi study, using bidirectional evaluation through socio-economic and ecological indicators.

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Initial review: Lines 286 to 317 are essentially unreadable and should be relegated to a table

Authors’ response: Table 2 was created for this purpose.

“Material” and “immaterial” terms are used in the base of basic classification of the national cultural heritage, the terminology being established by the national legislation [see 15 from references], respectively Law 182/2000 on the protection of the national cultural mobile heritage. These terms have been replaced in the text, in order to facilitate the understanding of terminology in the European and international context.

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The variables X1, X2 and X3 represent classes of historical monuments, taken from the List of historical monuments drawn up by the specialists from the Ministry of Culture [37]. Within the inventory of historical monuments, their evaluation is performed, which is based on the criteria mentioned below, in order to be able to later classify them into two large groups (A -national interest and B- local interest) and in other 4 groups, subordinated to them (1. Monuments of archeology, 2. Monuments of architecture, 3. Monuments of public, 4. Memorials and funerary).

The classification in the mentioned groups is made by weighting the values obtained by each monument to evaluation criteria such as: age (seniority) criterion, architectural, artistic and urban value criterion, frequency criterion (rarity and uniqueness) and memorial-symbolic value criterion.

Thus, a certain type of monument, e.g. a church, if after the evaluation it presents a high score at the criterion of antiquity (built before 1775 – exceptional score) and a moderate score at the other criteria, it will most likely be included in the first class of monuments: 1. Archaeological monuments, due to the large weight of (seniority) age criterion. This explains the membership in different classes of some monuments.

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Review comment round 2: that is fine, but this a severe limitation of the data set and must be discussed as a limitation. Failing to do so is methodologically unsound.

Regarding the limitations, the evaluation method limitations and the fact that the results are dependent on the quality of the input data have already been specified.

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Authors’ response: Variable X2 Architectural Monuments collects its data from the same source as Variable X1, ….

Review comment round 2: Again a severe limitation of the data set and must be discussed as a limitation. Failing to do so is methodologically unsound.

Regarding the limitations, the evaluation method limitations and the fact that the results are dependent on the quality of the input data have already been specified.

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Initial review: There is a need to really qualify the data quality before the analysis is carried out.

Authors’ response: The quality of the data was qualified before performing the analysis.

Review comment round 2: and where is the evidence? The authors need to show this

The quality of the data is limited by the statistical data accuracy. In this respect, no reference data were collected in order to determine the accuracy of the data used in this study. This step would have been in vain, given the strictly statistical nature of some data (e.g. numeber of tourists, accommodation units capacity etc.) periodically reported to the Institute of Statistics, an institution profiled on statistics. In the case of cultural heritage elements, they are included in the list of monuments through predetermined criteria evaluation [Order of the Minister no 2260 of 18/04/2008, regarding the approval of the Methodological Norms for the classification and inventory of historical monuments], at heritage element/object level by evaluators in the field of culture, subordinated to the Ministry of Culture. The authors of this article do not find opportune the decision to establish the quality of statistical data…

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Initial review: Variable X3 is drawn from the National Institute of Statistics . So far so good. But what does the NIS include in its data collection? What is eligible? To what micro-level ?

Authors’ response: The source of Variable X3 is …l. The same with variable X4 Museums..).

Rows 436 – 455.

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Initial review: Variable X6 includes customs. But how can customs be quantified as n/365*100? The number of days a custom is practiced? This needs MUCH more discussion.

Authors’ response: Variable X6 Festivals, fairs and customs include data referring to customs and traditions practiced at festivals or fairs. ….

Rows 456-466.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf