The Promotion of Romania's Cultural and Tourist Heritage by the Means of the Websites of Specialized Restaurants

Our paper aims to present the results of an analysis concerning the relationship that can be established between the way in which public alimentation facilities contribute to the development of Romania's tourist industry. We have started from the assumption that the websites of the Romanian restaurants having a specialized menu are message carriers for the tourist offer of their hosting destinations. The analysis includes a number of 169 Romanian restaurants that are authorized by both the former Ministry of Tourism and today's Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism to provide a specialized gastronomic offer. From our point of view, only some of the Romanian restaurants can be associated with a cultural tourist product. These are the restaurants which offer: local, regional, or national food, and respectively, the Romanian wine-cellars. International restaurants are also included in our analysis, as they are sometimes considered attractive by foreign visitors. We have tried to identify the answers to several questions: Is Romania's cultural heritage promoted by the websites of specialized restaurants? Do restaurants focus on attracting foreign visitors? Does Transylvania enjoy a better promotion of its tourist potential through the local restaurants' websites than the rest of the country? The findings of our paper refer to three of our previous researches and rely on the findings of a thorough analysis of the websites of specialized restaurants.