Ștefan DEZSI¹, Mărgărit-Mircea NISTOR², Titus Cristian MAN³ & Raularian RUSU^1
1Babeș-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, 5-7, Clinicilor Street, 400006, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, e-mail: stefan@geografie.ubbcluj.ro, rrusu@geografie.ubbcluj.ro
²University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Department of Chemical and Geological Sciences, Santa Eufemia Street, No. 19, Modena 41121, Italy, e-mail: renddel@yahoo.com
³Eastern Wyoming College, 3200 West C Street, 82240, Torrington WY, USA, e-mail: tman@ewcmail.wy.edu

THE GIS ASSESSMENT OF A WINTER SPORTS RESORT LOCATION. CASE STUDY: BELIȘ DISTRICT, WESTERN CARPATHIANS

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The role played by the tourism infrastructure in the territorial development of specific areas remains debated, especially for the small municipalities located in marginal areas. This paper suggests an analysis model which predicts the best location for the planning of a ski resort. This model was tested and applied in Beliş District – Western Carpathians. The relationships between environment, natural heritage and resources for the six settlements comprised in Beliş District were analysed using GIS and specific spatial analysis methods. The analysis included four steps: (i) the setting up of the spatial database; (ii) the computation of the closest distance to localities, tourist attraction points and possible ski-tracks; (iii) the reclassification of the raster data; (iv) the combination of the datasets using raster calculator. Using Digital Elevation Model (DEM) analysis and vertical aerial photographs, several hundred possible ski tracks distributed among twelve areas in Beliş District were identified. The results show that the south-central part of the studied area represents the ideal territory for the winter resort location. The main contribution of this work is the proposal of a methodological approach that may be applied to different mountain areas.