This chapter discusses final reflections the team has about the project and provides an overview of the report as a whole. It contains a set of final recommendations for the collaborators, as well as suggestions for future projects at the Bucharest Project Center. Additionally, this chapter names limitations the team realizes may have impacted their research.

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5.1 Conclusion

The primary results relate to trail users, local businesses with whom trail users interact, and the technology necessary to enhance the trail users’ experience. Survey results indicated that most trail users come from Europe, with the majority originating from Romania and Germany, and that the most frequently spoken languages are English, Romanian, and German. Additionally, results showed that people visit Sibiu due to its unique characteristics such as distinct nature, landscape, culture, and history. Interactions between businesses and trail users are overall very positive, especially for businesses that focus on providing opportunities for their guests to enjoy the trails. These opportunities both help promote the trails as well as improve the visitor experience. Lastly, the team evaluated the best types of reporting forms, hiking apps, and counting systems that the SCTA and Mioritics Association can utilize. Although it is difficult to measure technology’s impact on someone’s experience, the team’s findings show that it can certainly help influence it. If trail managers and users implement technology, the opportunity to maintain the trails more efficiently and to streamline planning a hike is promising.

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5.2 Recommendations

Based on the findings, the team developed a set of recommendations for the project collaborators to promote trails and enhance the trail user experience. These recommendations come from analyzing trail user demographics, successful business practices, and technology use along trail networks. They provide a path forward towards promoting and enhancing trail experience.

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5.2.1 Inform lodging businesses of strategies for attracting trail users

Based on interviews with lodging businesses, the team noticed that these businesses encouraged visitors to use the trails and succeeded at retaining repeat consumers. The team recommends that other lodging businesses that do not already do this start implementing this practice. This includes advertising Sibiu alongside their business as a beautiful location to explore the trails and experience the authentic culture and heritage. As described in section 3.2.1, the team developed an infographic describing trail users as a method of displaying everything a lodging business should know about promoting the Sibiu trails and how to enhance a trail user’s experience. This infographic is displayed below in Figure 5.1 in both English and Romanian and is split up into sections explaining key trail user demographics, why Sibiu is attractive to trail users, ways to promote the trails, and how to improve their experience.

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One of the most important pieces of information on the infographic is the second box explaining why trail users enjoy Sibiu. It emphasizes that Sibiu is a beautiful destination and that its spectacular landscapes and rich cultural heritage make it a unique location for trail users. To better accommodate trail users, the team suggests that businesses provide maps, first aid and boot repair services, bike rentals, a warning of possible issues encountered on the trails (such as encounters with shepherd dogs), and advice on how to stay safe. The team recommends the collaborators distribute this infographic to lodging businesses in Sibiu so that they can follow the presented recommendations and attract more trail users to Sibiu.

   

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Figure 5.1 Infographic for lodging businesses in English (left) and Romanian (right)

           

5.2.2 Develop a centralized reporting form for trail issues

Multiple trail guides and trail managers discussed the logistical challenges with reporting a problem on the trails. Using a reporting form that serves as input to a centralized system can organize and systemize the problem reporting process. This decreases the response time from trail managers, which in turn improves the trail user experience. To help achieve this, the team developed a set of guidelines for the construction of a reporting form.

Similar to the prototype layout of a reporting form (see Figure 4.5 in section 4.3.1), the reporting form should ask for the reporter’s name and email address followed by a set of questions regarding the problem. The reporter may select common problems, such as encounters with shepherd dogs, a blocked trail, or confusing signage, or they can describe a problem not listed. The finished form should allow users to attach their current GPS location, and give them the option to manually describe their location if they cannot or choose not to attach GPS coordinates. Ideally, the form should record the date and time of a submission automatically. However, it should still have a field for the trail user to express when they experienced the problem in case they are reporting a long time after the issue occurred. Finally, the reporter will have the option to upload images of the trail problem. This will help trail managers preview the problem and plan for any necessary future actions. Including these key features will make the future reporting form user friendly and will deliver all of the information needed to effectively resolve any trail issues.

The collaborators intend to develop a new website; however, website development was out of the scope of this research project. The organization that develops the website will want to provide the reporting form on the website and ensure that the form is mobile friendly. In the meantime, the team developed a simple reporting system using Google Forms (see Figure 5.2) as a temporary solution for the current tourist season until the collaborators build their new website.

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Figure 5.2 Temporary reporting form made with Google Forms

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5.2.3 Partner with a popular hiking app

The team recommends that the collaborators partner with a mobile app. From the results, a majority of surveyed trail users already use mobile applications while hiking on the Sibiu trails. Partnering with an app company to consolidate trail information into a centralized database will make information easily accessible to all trail users with a compatible device. Additionally, apps can draw in new trail users by adding and promoting new trails in their database.

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All of the researched apps have features popular with Sibiu trail users. These features include general trail information (length, elevation gain, difficulty, etc.), information on trail facilities (visitor centers, campsites, etc.), and a route planning feature. More information about particular app features and rankings is located in Appendix I.

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Based on the team’s research, the collaborators should partner with Wikiloc as the primary choice because of its pre-existing feature WikiOrg that makes it easy for organizations to upload and promote their own trails.  AllTrails, ViewRanger/OutdoorActive and Komoot have similar features, but the team recommends AllTrails as the second choice followed by ViewRanger/OutdoorActive and Komoot respectively in order of their current popularity level amongst trail users in Sibiu County that the Romanian survey suggests.

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5.2.4 Contact counting system companies to track quantity and movement of trail users

There are two European based companies, Eco-Counter and SensMax, that offer counting system technology that the team recommended to the collaborators to track quantity and movement of trail users. Both companies offer infrared beam technology and sensor technology that fit the requirements for where and how to place the counting sensors on the trails. Since both companies sell to European countries, the collaborators could contact other customers to ask for feedback on the products. Being European based makes communication between the companies and the collaborators more convenient (e.g., faster response times, product service accessibility). If the collaborators decide to purchase one of these systems, they can then test it on a popular trail to start collecting data and assess the product. Hopefully, the collaborators will adopt a technology and have it in place for the large, anticipated influx of trail users Sibiu for Eurorando in September 2021.

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5.3 Project Limitations

COVID-19 challenged the team’s research throughout the project.  Since the team was unable to travel and see the trails in Sibiu County firsthand, this forced them to build a perspective of the area and situation through pictures of the region and discussions with collaborators and interviewees. If the team were in Romania for the project, they could have gained their own perspective, potentially leading to different and novel ideas to approach the problem. They also could have distributed their surveys in person to tourists and gained a higher response rate. Furthermore, the seven-hour time difference narrowed the ideal time frame for interviews and made scheduling more challenging, especially as the peak visitor season began in late April leading up to Orthodox Easter (May 2, 2021) and the team needed to schedule interviews with business owners. Interviewing on a Zoom call is a different experience than interviewing in person. It is more challenging to build rapport and ensure a comfortable environment for the interviewee. Finally, Internet communication reliability presents a set of challenges including poor connections or audio quality that can disrupt the flow and ease of interviewing.

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Another limitation the project faced throughout was the survey sample population. The first survey experienced a high response rate, receiving 106 responses from domestic Romanian tourists, but did not contain all the information the team desired. So, the team sent out a second survey in English hoping to target foreign visitors as respondents. However, this survey garnered only eight foreigners among 42 respondents. Consequently, our methods provided a very limited picture of the foreign trail user experience in Sibiu. Due to the low foreigner response rate, the team relied on information from the interviews and content analysis to understand their experience. This is how they determined that many foreign trail users tend to come from Europe, specifically Germany, and will often hire a trail guide since it can be difficult for a foreign tourist to plan a trip to Sibiu themselves. While this finding was valuable, interviews do not provide the complete picture of the foreign trail user experience and a larger survey sample population could have provided valuable information about that experience. Relying on content analysis is also not the best method to determine exactly who uses the trails because it is limited by the number of trail users that actually post blogs and videos about their experience. There are likely many visitors that do not post anything on the Internet when they take a trip to Sibiu.

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A final limitation was the small number of business owners the team interviewed and the lack of variety in the businesses. There are many businesses in Sibiu, but the team was only able to interview three owners. In addition to the small sample, the team only interviewed lodging business owners, but they are not the only businesses that trail users interact with. Trail users may also buy food and souvenirs from local restaurants and shops, but these businesses were left out of the project. The trail users that interact with these businesses may differ from those staying in accommodations and without interviewing these business owners, those trail users are left out of the picture for this project. Had the team managed to set up an interview with one of these business owners, they could have discovered even more ways businesses can cater to trail users.

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5.4 Future Research

There are several areas of further research that could become future projects at the Bucharest Project Center. As mentioned in background section 2.3, a reoccurring issue along the trails is that outside organizations and individuals use the trails for purposes other than hiking or biking. This was a common theme when the team interviewed trail guides and trail managers about common problems. Examples included logging organizations that clear-cut trees along the trails, aggressive shepherd’s dogs scaring and endangering hikers, and foreign landowners restricting access to the trails that lie on their property. While these problems clearly impact trail user experience, they were not within the scope of this project. Therefore, one possible project for future research could focus on investigating the impact of these problems for Sibiu trail user experiences and explore how to resolve them.

 

Future projects could also center around compensating for the limitations of this project. Because of the lack of foreign trail user responses in the surveys and conducting interviews with only accommodation businesses, the understanding of trail user experience is incomplete. There is not enough information about foreign trail users and those who interact with businesses that are not just for lodging. Creating a study focused on forming a better understanding of foreigners’ experiences in Sibiu and a broader understanding of how businesses (not just hotels) cater to hikers would expand on understanding the trail user experience in Sibiu, building on the goal of this project.

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Finally, because this project developed a reporting form for trail managers and an infographic for informing lodging businesses in the area, more research could focus around analyzing the impact that theses deliverables have on the actual trail users. It is useful to know whether the reporting form is resulting in faster resolution of trail problems or if trail users are noticing local lodging businesses catering more to them because of the infographic. Currently, the effects of this project are unknown and a future project monitoring the implications of the deliverables may lead to new conclusions regarding the effectiveness of these tools. If the deliverables have a positive impact in Sibiu, this could lead to the development of similar applications elsewhere to increase economic development and enhance the trail user experience.