INDIVIDUAL FARMS AND AGRO-TOURISM IN ROMANIAN BANAT. A PARALLEL ANALYSIS

The specificity and diversity of the natural and anthropic patrimonies of the different regions can lead to the development of tourism and, as a result, to the sustainable development in those communities. Starting from the fact that Caraş-Severin and Timiş counties cover most of the historical region of Romanian Banat, thus preserving the traditions and multiculturalism specific to these regions (preserved in its rural communities), the research aimed for a comparative analysis of the evolution of individual farms and of agro-tourism in the two counties as a way of sustainable development and their advertise as tourist destinations. The results obtained highlighted, on the one hand, the existence and maintenance of an economic potential capable of ensuring the development of agrotourism, a process in full development in this region, and on the other hand the fact that, at least so far, the effects of agro-tourism on the stability of residents are barely visible. © 2020 EA. All rights reserved.


Introduction
Throughout historical evolution, peoples and civilizations have interfered by bringing together different cultures, ethnicities and beliefs that have lived more or less peacefully through the rise and fall of empires, that empires have failed to alter the cultural values of those communities. In this context, the historical province of Banat can be characterized, over time, by an area of interculturality and multilingualism (Dabu, The Banat Mountains constitute a significant tourist potential of this region, especially since there are a number of rural communities with specific anthropogenic potential on their area, which contributes to increasing the quality of tourist products (Danici-Patru, 2018). At the same time, traditional products specific to local communities, the important component of their culture, can be vectors of sustainable local development (Gheorghe, Nistoreanu & Filip, 2013).
Due to the specificity of tourist products, their immaterial character, tourist circulation depends fundamentally on the degree of awareness of tourists about the natural potential and cultural attractions of the area (Dinu & Dinu, 2017), advertising being a factor fundamentally influencing the behavior of the service consumer. On the other hand, through the positioning and specificity of this region, it can be a brand in Romanian tourism (Stancioiu et.al., 2011).
One of the most important roles in promoting Banat's cultural values belongs to the rural communities that still keep their customs and traditions unchanged.
In the conditions of increasing pollution and urban stress, holidays in the natural environment are increasingly preferred (Avram, 2016). The return to nature, the experience of life from traditional farms, is an effective mean of revitalization for urban citizens, especially from big cities.
Unfortunately, legislative imperfections and low political interest in rural areas have made the process of development and integration into the market economy system of small farms quite slow (Alexandri, 2014). A better perspective for rural communities began to be seen after the year 2000 when rural tourism, both concept and practice, began to make its presence felt.
Tourism as a phenomenon, by its spatial, economic, sociological, psychological, cultural, political and other connotations, has no counterpart in any other phenomenon of the modern world (Lakićević & Žarevac, 2014). In this way, in the last decades, rural tourism has evolved upwards, gradually becoming a means of economic development of rural areas (Ibanescu et.al., 2018, Sagić et al., 2019Durkalić et al., 2019) with positive results.Within it, agro-tourism came with significant offers to meet the needs of tourists with activities and products made in their own household (Marian, 2017). This is an important fact in ensuring sustainable development in those communities, on the one hand by capitalizing on local agricultural and non-agricultural raw materials, and on the other hand by creating jobs and revitalizing rural localities (Sima, 2016).
Considering that the rural tourism potential in Romania is still very little explored, a quantitative and qualitative increase of this form of tourism is to be expected (Pop, Coros & Balint, 2017).However, more attention is needed from the managers on regional sustainable development, given that in Romania differences between regions are deepening, among the causes being migration (Balan, 2018) so that Romania to be no more among the last places on the development index human beings (Zechariah, 2019).
Given these aspects, the main objective of the research was the parallel analysis of the evolution of agricultural production of vegetables and animals in individual farms in the West Development Region, focusing on Timiș and Caraş-Severin counties, and the evolution of agro-tourism highlighted through the accommodation infrastructure and the intensity of the tourist traffic, in the last 20 years. Also, in correlation with it, were analyzed aspects regarding the evolution trends of the population living in rural areas and the correlations between it and the intensity of tourist traffic in agritourism resorts.

Data sources and methodology
The source of the main data series included in the analysis was the National Institute of Statistics of Romania (NIS, 2020), the online database (TMPOL, 2020) and it refers to establishments of tourist reception with functions of tourists accommodation, tourist accommodation capacity in function by type of establishment, macro-regions, development regions and counties, arrivals and overnight stays in the establishments of touristic reception, livestock, by animal category and crop production by main crop in individual holdings, number and mean age of permanent resident population from rural area and , last but not least, local expenditures for environmental protection. The variables used and their meanings are shown in Table 1.  The characteristics of the amplitudes of the distributions of the values of the variables included in the analysis also highlight differences between them. Thus, while the VP variable has an approximately normal amplitude distribution, LHS, LPT and PVA are leptokurtic type, the others are platykurtic type.
The main tools used in data analysis and formulation of conclusions were econometric modeling and correlation analysis. The ANOVA methodology and the F test were used to test the statistical hypotheses regarding the statistical significance of the regression models, and the bilateral t (Student) test was used to test the validity of the regression model parameters and the statistical significance of the parametric correlation coefficients and partial correlations. For both tests the null hypothesis is: the model (respectively the value of the parameter) is not statistically significant. The significance threshold used was α = 0.05 (95% confidence level).

Results and discussions
According to the objectives of the research, the analyzes focused on four aspects of the evolutions registered at the level of rural communities in the two counties that cover the vast majority of the Romanian Banat territory. These are: the evolutions of livestock and vegetable production from individual farms; the number of rural residents; development trends of agro-tourism and testing the existence of correlations between the structural evolutions of the rural population and the development of agro-tourism.

Individual farms -sources of income and basis for agro-tourism
During the analyzed period, both in terms of animal evolutions and vegetable production volumes in Caraş-Severin and Timiş counties, there were both similarities and particularities.
In   It is noticeably that in the next two years after 2016, all livestock, including poultry and bee families on individual farms, register a reduction from one year to another, both in Timiș and in Caraș-Severin.
The percentage of vegetable production both in Caraş-Severin County and in Timiș, in relation to their total production in the West Region, overall decreases during the analysis period. Thus, for Caraş-Severin the percentage of vegetable production in relation to their total production in the West Region, in 2018 compared to 2000 is reduced by 8

Low shares of the young resident population
In order to identify the structural changes from the point of view of the age of the resident population in rural areas in Caraş-Severin and Timiș counties, in the last two decades three age groups were formed: population residing in rural areas, aged 24-39 years (PVA), population residing in rural areas, aged 40-54 years (PVB), population residing in rural areas, aged 55-64 years (PVC).
Of the three age categories, in the analyzed period, in Caraş-Severin County (Figure 4  What made the two counties look like in terms of the age structure of rural residents is a negative phenomenon, this being the reduction of the percentage of residents in the age group 25-39 years. Thus, in the case of Caraş-Severin County, this age group reaches, in terms of amount, the first place in 2000, the last place in 2018, the reduction being 4.61 percentage points. In the case of Timiș County, the reduction was even higher, of 7.5 percentage points.
Reducing the percentage of the population of young rural residents has, both, present and especially future negative effects on the sustainable development of rural communities.

Agro-tourism -a path to sustainable rural development
In the period 2000-2018, both the accommodation infrastructure and the tourist circulation at the level in the agro-tourist resorts, in Caraş-Severin and Timiș counties, evolved upwards and at a rather intense pace, which highlights an increase of the concern of the owners of individual agricultural exploitations to this new type of business.   and offers a very good approximation of the time evolution of ACF (coefficient of determination R2 = 0.982) . Also, the regressor b is statistically significant (Sig.t = 0.000 <α = 0.05) and highlights the fact that accommodation capacity in function of agro-tourism boarding houses increased on average with values between 20874 and 23994 places-days, the most probable value being 22434 places-days.    Source: developed by authors using SPSS However, the evolution trend of arrivals in agro-tourism resorts, in the period 2000-2018 is increasing, as in the case of accommodation capacity in operation, both for Caraş-Severin county and for Timiș, a fact highlighted by linear models CS_ACF and TM_ARV (Table 4). Both models are statistically significant (Sig.F is lower than the significance level of 5%) and provide a good approximation of the   In the period 2000-2018, the evolution trend of overnight stays in agro-tourism resorts in the two counties includes ascending trends described by the econometric models CS_OHS for Caraş-Severin county and TM_OHS for Timiş county (Table 5). Taking into account the values of the parameters F, Sig.F it results that each of both models is statistically significant. Also, taking into account the values of the determination coefficients (R2 of 0.885 in Caraş-Severin and 0.903 in Timiș) it results that this provides a good evaluation of the studied process, so that, with 95% confidence level, it can be estimated that during analyzed, the number of overnight stays in agro-tourism resorts in Caraş-Severin county increased by 33966 overnight stays per year, and respectively by 1630 overnight stays per year in Timiş county.

Correlations and non-correlations
The analysis also aimed to identify possible correlations between the evolution of accommodation capacity in operation, indicators of tourist traffic in agro-tourism resorts in Caraş-Severin and Timiş counties, and the evolution of the number of residents in rural areas, by the three age groups taken into account during the performed analysis.
For Caraş-Severin County, the bilateral correlation coefficients (Table 6)   The analysis of the values of the bilateral correlation coefficients highlights an aspect that requires a wider investigation. It's about that the correlations between the tourist traffic indicators and the population in the age group 25-39 years are negative (inverse correlation), while for the age group 40-54 years they are positive (direct correlation).
In order to elucidate this aspect, the partial correlation coefficients were determined between the accommodation capacity in operation, the tourist traffic indicators and the number of residences in the age group 40-54 years, given the constancy number of residents in the age groups 25-39 and 55-64 years ( Table 7), as well as the correlation between the same indicators and the residents in the age group 24-49 years, in the conditions of the constancy of the number of residents from the other age groups. In the case of residents aged 40-56, the results show, on the one hand, the existence of a direct correlation between the evolution of their number and the accommodation capacity in operation, and on the other hand the non-existence of a significant correlation between tourist traffic indicators in agro-tourism resorts (arrivals and overnight stays) in Caraş-Severin county and the number of rural residents in this age group. This result may lead to the conclusion that the development of agro-tourism facilities can contribute to increasing the stability of rural residents in the age group 40-56 years.
Regarding the age group 25-39 years, although there is a reduction in the intensity of the correlation between the analyzed indicators, the fact that the signs of correlation coefficients remain negative, indicating an inverse correlation, raises questions about the veracity of the link between those variables. It is possible that the downward trend in the number of rural residents in Caraş-Severin County is primarily the result of reduced birth rates and emigration than other factors.
In the case of Timiş county (Table 8), a first difference compared to Caraş-Severin county is that all bilateral correlation coefficients are statistically significant, indicating only direct correlations, but of different intensities, the lowest being recorded for the group of age 25-49 years, and the oldest for the age group 40-54 years. In order to eliminate the reciprocal influences between the age groups considered and the three indicators for evaluating agro-tourism in Timiş County, the partial correlation coefficients corresponding to each age group were determined given the constancy of the number of residents in the other age groups (Table 9). The obtained results lead to the conclusion that there are no correlations between the indicators analyzed in the case of residents in the age groups 25-39 years and 55-64 years.  Regarding the residents in the age group 40-54 years, it can be admitted the existence of a correlation of average intensity between their number and the accommodation capacity of the agro-tourism facilities in Timiş county for a 90% confidence level (α = 0.10) and have relatively strong intensities in the case of arrivals (75.9%) and overnight stays (88.5%) for 95% confidence level (α = 0.10).
These results could indicate that, in Timiş County, the agro-tourism is a factor of stability of the rural population, at least for the middle-aged population. With positive effects on the sustainable development of rural communities.

Conclusions
Sustainable economic development of rural communities cannot be done without paying attention both to the development of individual farms and to supporting the capitalization of their results. A good way to act in this way is the development of rural tourism and especially agro-tourism as much as it is a form of tourism increasingly in the options of potential tourists, nowadays.
In this context, the specificity and diversity of the natural and anthropic tourist potential in the Romanian Banat can become a tourist destination of first interest. Analysis performed on the evolutions of vegetable production and livestock in individual farms, as a basis for agro-tourism development, in the main counties of Banat (Caraş-Severin and Timiș), parallel to the evolution in the last 20 years of rural tourism in this region lead to the conclusion that in this region rural communities can become a tourist attraction of prime interest.
From the point of view of livestock, in the last two decades, it continues to play an important role in terms of the percentage in the total number of West Development Region amount, both in Caraş-Severin County and in Timiș County, even if the relations between the two counties fluctuated from year to year. As common aspects, during the analysis period, at the level of these counties, there were increases in the number of sheep and the number of bee families, and reductions in the number of cattle, horses and poultry. A differentiation was highlighted in the number of pigs that increased in Caraş-Severin county and registered a reduction in Timiș county.
From the point of view of vegetable production, there was a decreasing trend for Caraş-Severin and an increase for Timiș, in the period 2000-2018, while, compared to their total production in the West Region, the percentage of vegetable production is recorded for both counties a relative decrease.
The development of rural communities, and in particular of individual agricultural holdings, is closely linked to the evolution of the age structure of the population residing in rural areas as well as to the evolution of its average age. The analysis showed a tendency to reduce the number of residents aged between 25 and 39 years both in Caraş-Severin County and in Timiș, while for the age group 40-54 years there was an increase. Of course, these developments are mainly due to significant changes in the birth rate in recent decades. However, it must also be taken into account that part of the young rural population migrates to urban communities, further reducing the workforce in rural communities.
In parallel, the analysis of the evolution of rural tourism showed that the accommodation infrastructure, assessed by the accommodation capacity in operation, as well as the intensity of tourist traffic at the level of agro-tourism resorts, assessed by the number of arrivals and overnight stays in agro-tourism facilities, shows an upward trend, with a fairly sustained pace throughout the analysis period for both counties.
It should be noted that, for Caraş-Severin County, all three indicators analyzed are in the upper part of the value range corresponding to the entire West Development Region, while for Timiș County, the values of the indicators are lower, being placed in the middle of the value range corresponding to rural tourism in the entire West Development Region.
Starting from the results obtained regarding the evolution of rural tourism, there was analyzed the possibility of correlation between it and the number of rural residents from the three age groups included in the research. Given that the analysis of the two-way correlations between the indicators under analysis may lead to erroneous conclusions due to the multitude of influencing factors, there was used the partial correlation. The obtained results highlighted the fact that in Caraş-Severin there are no correlations between the analyzed indicators which means that, at least, until now, the development of rural tourism in this county has not led to a visible increase of jobs or to a stabilization of active population in rural areas. A different situation was highlighted in Timiș County, where a partial correlation was identified between the evolution of rural tourism and the resident population in the age group 40-54 years old.
The aspects highlighted in the paper about the evolutions and interdependencies manifested at the level of Caraş-Severin and Timiș counties in the period 2000-2018 considering the agricultural production of vegetables and livestock from individual farms, the population living in rural areas, the capacity and the intensity of tourist traffic in agritourism guesthouses, is on the one hand, the starting point for future research in this field, and, on the other hand, useful information in developing strategies for sustainable development of, both, rural communities at the level of Caraş-Severin and Timiş counties, as well as of the West Development Region.