5.3.

Data Analysis
The researcher has faced the first limitation with the third question of the questionnaire. There
is a contradiction of the general political, environmental review within the questionnaire. A
nationality variety was non-existing, with 100% Romanians completing the survey. The result
is in contrast to:

the business owners' answers, which say 55% their guests are Romanians (Q3)
to Romania's official foreign arrival average, which is 25% of the overall tourism, as
researched in the PEST (INSSE, 2016).

This fact is due to the period when the research was carried out. Concept hotel owner says:
"Romanians [...] come for the traditions, this would be a first one", and Christmas time in
Maramures is "well known for its well kept traditions" (Carp, 2013b). On the contrary,
foreigners come during summer and seek adventure, as per our business owners and the most
frequent visitors are from the E.U. (58%). The percentage is close to Romania's average as
presented in the environmental review (63%) (INSSE, 2016).

The second aspect involves guest preferences. Set of questions 5&11 from the questionnaire
show that during Christmas, the majority of the respondents travel for leisure, regardless of
their companion (Figure 15).

Figure 1 - Questions 4&5

For a leisure stay, one would expect longer stays, but in fact, business owners say that their
guests stay for a short period of time, as shown in Figure 16 (Q11 interview), even more, they
claim that tourists are there "not to stay in the pension, they like to wander around" (Q5
interview).

Figure 2 - Interview Q11

Lo (2010) explains this phenomenon is happening due to the lack of offerings. The more
themed a hotel is, the more positive emotions it should create, and under these circumstances
the degree of guests loyalty ought to be increasing why not, their desire to stay longer (Lo,
2010; Bitner, 1992). In contradiction, the concept hotel owner states that she met only once a
Japanese tourist (lone traveller) who came all the way from Japan just to experience sleeping
in a train, rare fact, and only for one night, like most of her tourists. Might this be because the
themed hotel does not provide a variety of facilities, nor the comfort offered by the 4* hotel,
where the owner claims that his property is unique because it offers 5 pools, therefore we can
assume that this might be a reason for guests to stay longer and to relax.

Question 6&7 assess the interest of the tourists according to their knowledge of the region. As
100% are Romanians, it is disappointing to know that only 55% are acquainted with the
traditions of the area . All of the respondents target seeing the Steam Train and all business
owners agree on the same, that this is our most important touristic attraction (Q4 interview).
The second most visited places are the wooden churches, and as Maramures is known for the
importance of the religions (Carp, 2013b), as mentioned in the PEST, one can argue that the
respondents are indeed familiar with the culture, but believe they do not have sufficient
knowledge.
Figure 3 - Questions 6&7

It is interesting, that the tourists who know the traditions, are the ones also visiting them
(Figure 18). Through the concept of the hotel, the author is willing to create the desire to
manifest an exploratory behaviour (Bitner, 1992)

The fourth set of questions of the interview is focusing exclusively on the feasibility of the
project from a design perspective.

Figure 4 - - Questions 8&9&10

With 100% interest in the concept, the author is assured that both Bitner's and Lo's (2010)
theories are proven right in this case. Even if location is more favoured compared to design
(55% listed location and price as the first factor they look at, when they book, compared to
44% which have listed design as a major factor), close to 90% of the respondents consider
that the design of the hotel would make their trip more authentic. Stipanuk (2006) predicted
that the design will be the next "buzz-word", taking over the spotlight of the location, which is
not necessarily true from the respondents' perspective, but as the master plan for infrastructure
is developing (Zetea, 2014 as cited in Portalul National de Administratie Publica, 2014),
according to the PEST analysis, the respondents might not find location as important as they
did before.

On the same design note, hotel owners consider that having wooden structures is what they
only need in order to have an authentic designed hotel, which is misunderstood, because it
does not apply to a holistic perspective, which involved more cues of the design (Bitner,
1992). Only the train-hotel owner understands the concept of authentic, where she says her
hotel design is kept as close to the original as possible, with little, but necessary interventions.
Still, they all consider that their facility's design is the reason for guests to stay there, as one of
the pension owners says: "these generations post everything online, so the facility better look
good". Gilmore and Pine's idea (2002, p.89 as cited in Lo, 2010) says that the core of an
experience hotel is definitely, design, as well as the train-hotel owner, who believes that on a
scale from 1-10, 10 is how much a guest would appreciate such a concept, because "the tourist
seeks as much as possible the specific of the location. [..] this is the secret of each
destination".

Following the model of Bitner (1992), the last pair of questions is aiming to provide a short
description of the limited comfort to be offered and to evaluate if it would still be important if
the experience is to be authentic.
Figure 5 - Q11&12

As the chart from above shows (Figure 20), 44% of the respondents consider comfort a very
important factor of the accommodation. The same respondents, when explained where the
lack of comfort of this concept would come from, they would very much give up on comfort
to experience an authentic trip. Not even one respondent said that comfort is too important,
that they would not give up on it under the presented circumstances, therefore this limitation
of the proposed concept can be disregarded when applying Bitner's Servicescape model
(1992), or even integrated as a present cue, which the researcher is aware of, as being
incomplete, but accepted by the population.

The answers of the respondents come into contradiction to 3 out of the 4 interviewees
opinion, who regard the Romanian tourists as more "finicky" than the foreign tourists. They
state that the level of comfort expected by the Romanian market is "highest at the lowest
prices" and that foreigners "settle for less". Moreover, as pension owner 1 beforehand stated,
foreigners are more interested in the concept of authenticity, when visiting an area, in
comparison to Romanians. If the foreign market is more interested in the concept and also less
finicky, further investigation must be done in order to obtain these answers, but according to
this primary source (business owners), the project would apply to both markets.

5.4. Conclusion
This chapter presents the information obtained by the researcher from the investigated
population. The findings present the actual numbers and percentages of the answers, whereas
the analysis is combining the two population's answers and applies them to the theories
discussed beforehand. The comparison and contrast of the information led to the achievement
of the fourth and last objective, which is to evaluate the findings based on the secondary data.

The study consists of some limitations discussed further, but as a whole, the author is positive
that the concept of the hotel will be a success. No other hotel is so complete in traditional
design to offer an authentic Maramures experience, as the other hotel owners state that having
wood as a structure is enough. The respondents, both knowledgeable and not knowledgeable
about the area's culture and traditions are interested in staying in such a hotel. Moreover, the
limitation of comfort from the Servicescape model has been completely overcome, as the
Romanian tourists answered that, in order to experience authenticity, they would give up on
comfort and the business owners said that the foreigners are less picky and prefer authenticity
more than Romanians. This concept would therefore apply to any target market. The
feasibility of the project has some limitations, as mentioned in this chapter. The next section is
dedicated to the limitations.