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The public administration and the services it offers have an important role in the lives of citizens. The purpose of this research was to identify the factors that influence citizens' perception of community public services in order to improve and make them more efficient. In order to conduct the research we used a mixed-method approach. In the context of the quantitative analysis, the sample comprises 798 beneficiaries of public services from Brașov County. In the context of the qualitative analysis, the sample comprises directors of institutions that offer public services in Romania and people with decision-making roles at the level of Brașov County. The results revealed that the citizens of Brașov County have a positive opinion about public services, and that factors such as age, living environment and income influence their level of satisfaction with these services. Furthermore, the results of the qualitative analysis offered information about the measures that could be implemented in order to improve the public services. Given that the main measure mentioned by the respondents refers to digitization, we argue that digitization might be the key element in maintaining the sustainability of public services and in increasing people's satisfaction with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this short communication is suggested by the labour market that has become very unpredictable and it is difficult to say what it will look like in five, 10 years or even more. New jobs appear, while others disappear. And all this is happening against a background in which Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays an increasingly important role and it would be very difficult for us to imagine our lives without it, especially since robots save lives today. Technology has become a necessity, many jobs have changed due to robotics, and we must evolve and adapt with it, even though the new rules that came with the onset of restrictions and mutations in the labour market due to the new coronavirus pandemic that spread worldwide. The main idea reflects the possibilities reflected by the Singularity Hypothesis, as new intelligent technologies may alter our human lives and eliminate some jobs, change others and create completely new job categories, but as long as we know the opportunities are there for us, we need to be proactive by providing the skills for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first months of 2016 brought Romania a series of cases of suspect illnesses which attacked the babies from Argeş County. When the situation got worse and deceases started to happen, the authorities found themselves in the position to appease the entire population. Medical investigations revealed the cause of the illness - an Escherichia coli bacteria infection. Later investigations revealed the presence of this bacterium in a cow cheese lot, which was produced by a small milk processor from Argeş County. Pressed for public demands, the Minister for Agriculture, Achim Irimescu, released the press the name of the milk processor - Brădet. Since that moment, the manager of the factory started the communication with his public - mainly on the organization's official Facebook page. An immediate effect implied the messages going viral on the internet and the creation of a community of Romanians who have supported his cause from the beginning. This was the opportunity he created in order to save the company's future. Using the triangulation as a method of research, the purpose of this article is to present the crisis communication strategy which was adopted by Lactate Brădet in the presented context, in order to estimate the campaign's succes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To highlight the principles used in the design and development of a regional brand strategy we need to identify the disciplinary and the theoretical referential that would best fit the branding approach. This paper will address the main forms of branding: place branding, location branding and destination branding, as a specialized form of destination marketing. From the theoretical point of view, by identifying the fundamental and the management brand model, the regional tourism brand concept is regarded by positioning it in the category (the most general one) of place branding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of brand theory to destinations has grown in the last few decades, with the destination brand personality being a viable metaphor for creating and positioning destination brands. An often-overlooked tourism typology is geotourism; more specifically, volcanic tourism, since it can be a passive element of any tourism form or active nature tourism. However, its potential is relatively unexplored in terms of online branding. For this reason, the present study analyzes online brand image co-creation, using 300 websites related to three unique volcanic tourism destinations—Iceland, the Azores, and the Canary Islands. Three different types of sources (destination marketing organizations, commercial, and editorial websites) created these contents. The results demonstrate significant differences between the communication of the three destinations, with Iceland, where there is less aligned communication, most valuing geo elements in their communication, and the Azores, where all stakeholders communicate similar brand personality traits, displaying more aligned communication regarding brand personality. In the Canary Islands geotourism is less explored as a destination offer and is consequently less communicated. Acknowledging the different brand positioning and the parity and differentiation points among destinations with the same baseline offer—volcanic tourism—can be helpful for destination brand managers to reignite tourism and promote a unique tourism experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its real-life applications are among the most effervescent research topics of the last couple of years. In the past decade, stakeholders such as private companies, public institutions, non-profit entities, and even individuals, have developed and used various AI algorithms to solve a wide range of problems. Given the extended applicability and the disruption potential of this technology, it was just a matter of time until it connected to the field of cultural heritage. This paper presents the development of an intelligent conversational agent which was built to improve the accessibility to information inside a history museum. We present the cultural context, the application architecture, the implementation challenges, and the visitors' feedback. We created a smart virtual agent that interacts with users in natural spoken language. This involved the design and implementation of the artificial intelligence-based core responsible for understanding the Romanian language. A short survey regarding the tourist acceptance of the system was conducted at the premises of our partners, the Museum "Casa Mureșenilor" from Brașov, shows good acceptance levels from both visitors and museum staff. Given the flexibility of the implementation, the system can be used by a large array of stakeholders with minor modifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global urbanization brings the urge to identify the most intelligent methods to cope with the challenges arising in the modern society. Sustainable and smart cities are the new target for urban development; their representatives are being forced to identify and develop new strategies to increase their city's performance and ensure that it endures over time. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) contributes to this purpose. Brașov is one of the cities in Romania for which the process of modernization started years ago, and it is currently developing as a smart city. This paper focuses on the development of the city in terms of cultural tourism solutions by presenting a case study on the use of virtual reality with a mobile application and its evaluation on cultural heritage sites. The original contribution of the paper is to describe and analyze the quality of the mobile application by using a proposed analysis grid to identify the main elements of this app. The main findings suggest that the application may bring authenticity of experience through the lens of heritage preservation for further user engagement and participation in real-time, while suggestions are made for future enhancement. Implications are discussed for a) destination managers, b) for developers to improve the general quality of the mobile application in terms of design and features and to implement changes in the near future, and c) for visitors who engage in real-time and co-create experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Places have been promoting their attractions throughout history for almost a century now and place marketing started capturing the attention of economic researchers in the early 1990s. Although the globalized space has become a major interdisciplinary field of study in the past few decades, we still do not have a definite solution for measuring or predicting the changes it brings. The aim of this study is to propose an instrument to help scholars quantify the Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 components of the online presence of place brands and their spatial dynamics in a broader global context. By taking the 'space of flows' approach to frame globalization, we questioned whether geography is still destiny in the context of online place branding communication. To answer the question, we developed a category grid and applied it in the content analysis of 82 official country websites. We found that geographical position is still important in conditioning the adoption of Web 1.0, and does not make a significant difference in the adoption of Web 2.0. However, the strongest predictors of the adoption of Web 1.0 are not the ones related to geography, but to socio-economic inequality. It is therefore possible for the theorizations of the advantages of the 'space of flows' globalization to be suitable only for Web 2.0, Web 1.0 still being under the influence of the 'space of place'. We discussed the implications of adopting the network society theory in place branding communication in order to nuance the understanding of the transitions from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 in place marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]