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The electric and autonomous vehicles market is on an upward trend, a development driven both by general factors such as the orientation of global policies towards the transition to clean energy and the reduction of carbon emissions, the development of future technologies in the context of the digital era, but also by particular aspects related to transport and traffic safety issues. In parallel, we are facing an expansion of the electric battery market, but also of the new supporting technologies (e.g. 5G) and specific infrastructures. This paper proposes an analysis of the current state and prospects of the electric and autonomous vehicles market, the competition between manufacturers at a global level, but also a brief assessment of the preconditions of the sector development (5G technology, electric batteries, EV charging stations etc.). The main results show a significant concentration of markets, but also the favorable position of Asian countries, with China taking the leading role.

The electric vehicle (EV) industry was selected as a national priority in Made in China 2025 (MIC2025) industrial strategy and has benefitted, as such, from all the attention and support provided by the Chinese state. The development of this industry presented itself as a solution by which China could eventually outperform the West in the global car market, where it couldn’t manage to assert itself in spite of all the efforts made, because it had never been able to master well enough the internal combustion engine technology and its complex fine tuning. This paper looks at China’s progress in the emerging purview of the EV industry –which builds upon a newer, but simpler and more easily replicable technology –, keeping track of Chinese domestic market developments, in terms of supply, demand, prices, local actors, market segments and specifics and providing, at the same time, a brief view on the accomplishments attained, as well as on the risks and challenges China still has to overcome, in its race for global dominance in this field.

Despite the resilience shown in recent decades, tourism is one of the sectors most affected by the Covid-19 crisis: many businesses in this area have interrupted or diminished their activity in the last months, and the tourist flows have decreased drastically, especially for the international tourism, either due to objective factors– regulations and restrictions, or subjective ones – tourist behaviour. Europe is the biggest international tourism market, and the European Union includes one of the most important tourist destinations, but also countries or regions where tourism is a key industry. The real impact of the health crisis in this sector is still the subject of complex analysis, and the evolution of the pandemic and its effects still offer only the possibility of estimated assessments at this time, as proved by repeated revisions of the economic reports. Moreover, the real impact of this crisis is difficult to be quantified or decoupled from the evolution of the European economies as a whole and its contagion effects. In this paper, we propose an assessment of the vulnerability of the EU through the contribution and impact of the tourism industry in member states' economies. Based on the statistical data of World Travel and Tourism Council and own calculations, we examine the main factors that can influence the resilience of economies through the tourism industry: the direct and total contribution of tourism in GDP, the direct and total contribution of tourism in employment, the share of exports of tourist services in total exports, the share of international tourism in internal tourism consumption.

This paper proposes an analysis of the tourism competitiveness and of the correlations between its components and the general country competitiveness, tourism-specific macroeconomic indicators, international tourism flows- for EU member states. To achieve this objective, the authors use secondary data from the World Economic Forum (Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index, Global Competitiveness Index) and World Travel and Tourism Council (governmental investments, capital investments, international tourism receipts, and expenditures). The main results show that there is a direct correlation between visitor exports, on the one hand, and tourism competitiveness index, in general, respectively with natural, cultural and business resources, in particular, for the EU countries.

The main purpose of this research is to present a detailed comparison between the 1996-2001 Dotcom and 2014-2018 AI landscapes, by comparing the evolution of Dotcom and AI through a regression model aimed at testing the relationship between these two phenomena, which have similar characteristics, but also distinct features. In a period when the academic and the business environment discourse is focused on the potential effects of diminishing funding and interest in AI and even a bubble burst, our investigation demonstrates the contrary. Having in mind the strengths of the AI market and its interrelations with significant sectors of the world economy, our paper denies the hypothesis of a potential AI crisis, in spite of some hints that AI companies are in the early stages of high risk. Our paper brings also another novelty element related to a different type of Schumpeterian creative destruction identified in the case of AI. The big players present on the market are able to purchase the firms that Schumpeter suggested would replace the existing firms, therefore the creative destruction occurs in the case of start-ups, which are undertaken by stronger companies present on the market, even survivors of the Dotcom crisis, not vice versa.

The tourism industry has been characterized by an extremely favorable evolution in the last decade. International tourism has seen ten years of uninterrupted growth in arrivals, often supported by all markets and regions. Tourism and related sectors have been severely affected since the beginning of the crisis caused by coronavirus, and as the situation escalates, there are clear signs that the impact will be greater than initially estimated. In this paper we aim to highlight the main elements of the impact of COVID-19 crisis on the tourism sector and what are the policy responses of the authorities, through sets of measures and recommendations, in order to mitigate the negative effects and preparing the industry for recovery. Despite the fact that the world's governments have taken a lot of measures with a wide range of instruments, the real impact is still difficult to be quantified and the speed of recovery depends on many uncertain factors.

The present study aims at identifying the interest of Romanian tourists for film-induced tourism. For this purpose, an online research was carried out between 5 October and 4 November 2017. The data was collected from 463 participants through a self-administrated questionnaire. In a word, our research has highlighted that 82% of respondents are interested in practicing this type of tourism and the natural landscapes presented in movies seem to be the main reason (44%). Most respondents (83%) believe that such a vacation should last between 3 and 6 days. The interest for practicing film-induced tourism is primarily influenced by the geographic region where respondents are living and by their place of residence (urban/rural). The main limitation of this study is that the sample was not representative at national level, but nevertheless, some interesting results were obtained. These results could be used, for example, to promote domestic tourism.

Europe, in particular the European Union, brings together the most important tourism’ destinations on the continent and is the most important travel and tourism market. The European continent consolidates its position as the most visited region in the world, as the 671 million tourists reported last year represents just over half of the total number of tourists worldwide. According to the latest report released by the World Tourism Organization, the total number of international tourists reached a record 1.322 billion in 2017, up 7% compared with 2016. In the given context, the present paper provides an assessment of travel and tourism sector in the eleven New Member States of the EU, located in the Central and Eastern Europe, in terms of wellestablished indicators of tourism industry, such as the competitiveness of the sector, the balance of payments in international tourism, or the impact of tourism in the economy. The research methods used will include empirical data analysis, testing correlations and cluster analysis. Thus, in the initial phase of the research process, a brief literature review will be conducted, followed by the latest statistical data collection, interpretation and aggregation for each of the eleven member countries. Then, in regards to the cluster analysis, this will be carried out through the STATISTICA software, using the k-means method, and starting from five main components: the tourism competitiveness index, the multiplier effect, the share of tourism exports, receipts from international tourism, direct impact of tourism in GDP.

In 1998 eight development regions were set up in Romania (North-West, North-East, South-West, South-East, South, West, Center, Bucharest and Ilfov), with a view to efficiently absorb the EU funds, in order to reduce the socio-economic development disparities. Tourism is an important sector of the world economy and also of the development regions, contributing to economic growth in less developed areas, which yet have a high tourism potential. The main aim of the present paper is the analysis of development disparities of tourism in Romania, by tracking the changes that have taken place since the moment of creation of the development regions, in the periods of pre-accession and post-accession of Romania to the EU. The research comprises a cluster analysis based on tourism supply and demand indicators in the regions and counties of Romania; the main hypothesis of the study is that the development differences of Romanian tourism have diminished after the accession, as within the regions there are counties with greater tourism activity, that may turn into engines of regional economic growth.

A major challenge for any organization, which happens once in many years, is related to business succession. Given the specificity of the tourism industry, the takeover of a business depends on the managerial capacity of successor. Leadership is considered one of the key success factors in the businesses and therefore of their transformation. Leadership is also very important when we talk about the relationship between the members of the organization and motivating staff within them. This paper proposes to establish which are the appropriate leadership key skills, competence and knowledge for micro and small enterprises managers, for successfully taking over enterprises, within Europe’s tourism industry. For a clear picture about leadership competences, we considered the following key characteristics: management successors set an exemplary standard to co-workers and give directions both professionally and personally, management successors implement the necessary changes, management successors are open minded to new ideas and know how to assess risks, management successors check compliance of colleagues with professional, social and quality oriented standards, management successors are giving feedback and support personal development, management successors resolve conflict with and between co-workers. The secondary objective of the paper is to test correlation between leadership knowledge, skills and competences for successful business succession. To achieve these objectives, we analysed and interpreted partial results of a quantitative research, based on an online questionnaire. The results of this research can constitute a foundation to further policy papers for the business environment in European tourism.

In Romania, a country of rich touristic heritage, the total contribution of tourism to the 2014 GDP was 4.8% and, according to the country report published by the World Tourism and Travel Council (WTTC), this contribution is expected to rise to only 5.1% over the next decade. Obviously, for an emerging economy with a high touristic endowment this current condition cannot be satisfying. In this paper we intend to accomplish a specific analysis of the tourism market evolution after its EU accession. Our undertaking starts from two complementary questions: How did the Romanian tourism market develop, following the country’s EU accession? Are there any tourism development gaps between the country’s counties? Our research includes assessments of both the touristic demand and supply by counties and the municipality of Bucharest, as well as of the county groupings resulted from a cluster analysis using 6 indices (2 for demand, 2 for supply and 2 aggregate ones). The assumptions we start from are that a positive impact has been induced on Romania’s tourism after its accession into the EU, but in terms of its regional development, major development gaps between counties still persist and even deepen.

Tourism is a key component of the world economy. Its total contribution to the global growth is considerable, accounting for 9.5% of the overall world GDP in 2013, when it attracted 4.4% of the total world investments it generated one of every 11 new jobs, and about 5.4% of the overall world exports. As it has happened in almost any other industry, a superpower like China has quickly turned into one of the most important players in the international tourism market, leaving an increasingly significant footprint in the field and having an important impact on its development. In this paper the authors intend, on the one hand, to look at China’s swift growth in outbound tourism, and, on the other hand, at Romania’s inbound tourism, trying to identify the ways by which Romania could seize the opportunity of becoming a significant destination for Chinese tourists in Europe and increase its export of tourism services to this country.

Essential component of the global economy, tourism industry is in a strong interdependent relationship both with other sectors, as well as with different qualitative components– competitiveness, sociohuman and environment issues. Result of the specificity of services, touristic consumption, both residents and visitors, is localized strictly to the meeting of supply and demand, so national receipts are consists of domestic tourism and visitor exports. Introducing investment in analysis, and also competitive tourism component, we propose in this paper to test the connections between tourism consumption, capital investments and travel and tourism competitiveness index. In order to achieve the objective, using the latest statistical data, there have been calculated and interpreted Pearson correlation coefficients, starting from the general hypothesis that there is a direct relationship between the variables analysed.

The tourism industry has known a sustained growth in recent decades, this sector taking advantage of the capacity to generate added value regardless of the type of capital input. The impact of tourism on the economy is indisputable, but the efficiency and the competitiveness provide a sustainable development of this industry. The EU enlargement, geographical and numerical, provides both-a diversity of tourism destinations and an opportunity for growth, considering widening of single market. This paper aims to assess tourism in the European Union, considering the impact and value of the tourism multiplier effect in economy, respectively efficiency and competitiveness of tourism. This paper proposes a classification of EU countries based on cluster analysis, using K-means algorithm.

Economic development, initially understood and seen as a growth, receives in the 21st century a human side component, decreasing quantitative in favor of qualitative. The tourism industry has experienced a continuous growth, based on natural resources, with adverse effects, and now it's time for efforts to move toward finding a balance between tourism and the environment. Thus emerged the concept of sustainable tourism and, in a broader sense, sustainable development of tourism. This paper proposes a theoretical crossing in the literature, following growth, development and sustainability wire against the background of the relationship between tourism and environment, offering two solutions - tourism niche orientation and social responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of medical tourism has been encouraged by travel agencies and mass-media, which describe the practice of traveling across international borders to receive healthcare services in an original way, where, due to availability and modern medical techniques, the necessity harmoniously blends with relaxation. More and more public persons state that they undergo medical treatments in foreign countries and then they become the image of the clinics which treated them. All these elements have succeeded to add so much credibility to this phenomenon that the future of medical tourism looks ever more promising today, some countries posting an annual increase of this kind of tourism of 30%; this means that medical tourism is, for sure, a part of the next level of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism industry is the strongest economy in the world. Romania is based on a high tourism potential. The economic crisis has also affected tourism, but the sector's characteristics made possible adjustments in order to maintain a satisfactory level of indicators. This paper aims to analyze the evolution of tourism's impact on the Romanian economy and a series of indicators of tourism traffic in the context of global economic crisis. The paper is structured as follows: an introductory, analysis of the impact of tourism on the economy, analyzing the evolution of tourism traffic indicators, forecasting based on linear trends and conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]