Administrative Aspects Regarding the Valorisation of Geothermal Waters for Balneological Purposes in Bihor County, Romania
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is original and interesting. However, the paper is also very descriptive.
In this context, my main suggestions or observations are:
Lines 28-29: In the abstract authors say: "... the interest in development was focus exclusively on the valorization of the balneological factor"
Please clarify. What do you understand as "factor"? resources? sector? attributes?
Line 30: Authors underline that: "It can be said that capitalist policy favorably....". Please clarify. Authors didn't analyze "policy" documents, in order to do this statement. Are authors considering "Capitalist policy" only based on public versus private administration?
Authors state: "we also performed the comparative analysis between the influence of the political regimes ....." Authors should present the variables that they discuss in order to do the "comparative analysis"
Lines 44-45: 4 geothermal deposits? Please consider a more clear format
Regarding section "2. Materials and Methods", it should be improved. For instance: (lines 79-83)) authors say "... reviewing each location .... analyzing the actual situation" Please clarify this paragraph. Are authors reviewing each location only through their administrative entity? and the "actual situation, is only analyzed through the variable "administrative entity" or are they considering other variables?
Line 86: Authors state: " ... we claim that the evolution ... is influenced by its administrative factor". The paper should include and analyze more variables (such as investment, number of hotel units, beds and rooms, ...) or should discuss other characteristics of administration (and not only the typology: Private versus public).
Lines 103-105: It's not clear. Please clarify
Line 118: Authors state: "... did not lead to investment but only to consumption". This statement is based on which bibliographic reference? Authors did not consider data regarding "Investment" or "investment typologies" or about consumption (residents consumption? tourist consumption? national tourists/international tourists?). However, it could be a good methodological option to consider and analyze statistical data associated with variables such as tourist investment and tourist consumption.
Line 119. Authors point out that "... they did not increase the capital, they increase wages and invented expenses". Authors should base this statement on statistical data about the variables enunciated. Simultaneously, authors should clarify what they mean by "invented expenses"
Line 137: Please clarify
Line 139: " ... some of these locations prospered ... with their development by adding modern accommodation structures". Please clarify. "accommodation structures" (Hotels? Other accommodation typologies? (for instance in the abstract -lines 29-30- authors point out "tourist resorts". it's not clear if authors are considering "tourist resorts")
Line 199. "... administrative risks...". Please clarify how did you conclude that there are "risks"?
Please clarify how did you conclude the following statements: "modernity of infrastructures..." "depopulation of villages": Did you analyze data about infrastructures modernity? demographic data?
Please include "source" in the figures and tables. (e.g. see figure 2 and table 1...)
Lines 211-212: Figure 2 should present some information regarding tourist facilities or tourist resorts (as referred to in the abstract and methodological section). It's important to underline that "table 2" is not in accordance with "figure2" because "figure2" point out (in its legend): "new tourists resorts with spa resources" and "localities with spa factors exploited" but "table 2" only point out spa 3 times while in figure 2, there are more. Additionally, when authors speak about "Spa resorts" and "spa factors", are authors referring to "spa facilities"?
Line 366: " .... comparative analyze". The authors should present more clearly which variables are they comparing. Are authors comparing only based on public versus private administration? if yes, authors should consider more variables in order to give a better characterization of their case study.
Line 378: Authors underline "in the dermo-cosmetic industry". However, in figure 3 this industry presents a modest relevance. Please clarify
Line 414: "... the improvements are consistent". Which improvements? Please clarify.
Line 289: "13 new tourist and balneo-climatic resorts". When authors say "new": are they "new" because they opened during the period 2020-2022 or are they "new" due to their recent "certification" as a tourist resort? Please clarify.
Line 427 (conclusion): "Proritazation of the sector ... ". Authors should discuss better how did they arrive at this conclusion. During the present paper, there are no consistent data that enhances this conclusion.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for reviewing the manuscript. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear researchers,
With a great pleasure I offer my review. Honestly, I appreciate the carried work and I must admit it is a very important research for the balneo and wellness area in Romania. Still, it needs more substance for being fit to MDPI. You will find my comments in the following paragraphs.
Overall
The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the main results, and major conclusions.
In the introduction, before starting the mentioned references, there is a need to add 7-8 lines related to the subject of the paper and write in general introduction. After that you should connect them with the references.
The irrelevant and unsuitable references must be removed.
The major downside of this study is the debate or Argument is not clearly stated in the introduction session. Hence, the contribution is weak in this manuscript. I would suggest the author enhance your theoretical discussion and arrives at your debate or argument.
The literature review is necessary for you to clarify the “contribution” of your study. In the current form, there are no pieces of literature to support your study. The author failed to present the study debates and failed to discuss the debates. In general, the author should present the specific debate for your study.
moreover -the name of the special issues is related to the sustainability. I would like to add a more express link between your research and the idea of sustainability.
1. Objective of the paper
It is not very clear what is the main objective of the research.
a. "The objective of this study is to carry out a survey regarding" - this is not an objective - it is part of the methodological framework.
b. "to highlight the importance of the administrative factor in the development and diversification of" - this could be part of the main goal of the paper.
2. Literature review
The literature review is missing or is based only on few studies which are related to Romanian territory. I strongly suggest finding relevant studies for this paper.
Your paper is based should have wellness development as a keyword and I suggest at least one paper which was published in Sustainability -
or
Global Wellness Institute. Understanding Wellness: Opportunities & Impacts of the Wellness Economy for Regional Development; Global Wellness Institute: Miami, FL, USA, 2019
or
Quintela, J., Costa, C., & Correia, A. (2017). The role of health and wellness tourism in sustainable territorial development.
3, Methodology - It is very unclear the design of the methodology, First, you use the term survey " to carry out a survey regarding.." but there is no description of the survey (how many administrative units, what where the questions etc.) Moreover - the design of the methodology is very poor - field work and bibliographic documentation is very confusing.
4. there is no presentation of the study area. as a geographical journal, I would expect to have at least some words for describing the area. Location, population, number of tourists, number of accommodations etc.
5. Results.
Most of the results are actually a description of some villages/towns from Romania. But the results are not based on your methodological framework.
6. I suggest taking into consideration also the level of development and size of the localitites as they seem to be more important factors than the political aspects.For example, I would use the Local human development index created by Dumitru Sandu to add more value to Moreover, some of the administrations had dedicated funds for developing the infrastructure (such as Rural development funds or Leader Funds). This should be a factor, too.
7. Conclusions and discussions should be more focused on the findings and also put together. Fo example - "Today, the use of IT technology and Web-GIS in particular is the most appropriate way to promote the balneological and tourist attractiveness at the scale of rural settlements." does nothing to do with the paper.
There are few paragraphs or expressions that should be double checked but overall the English level is very good.
4.3. Localities with antecedent valorised balneological factors
risks of unpopularity - lack of attractiveness
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for reviewing the manuscript. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have taken up a very interesting issue. However, I feel that the title of the article is too narrow. It does not mention new tourist destinations, which are analyzed in the research.
The research methodology is imprecise. The introduction mentions surveys, but research methodology does not.
The development of the balneological phenomenon is conditioned by many factors and the assumption that it is only the involvement of the administrative factor is probably a major simplification. I propose to list these conditions (there is a lot of research on this subject) and then justify why only this one was taken into account.
I have the impression that in the text instead of "thermal beaches" it should be "thermal baths".
Other remarks were included in the text in the form of comments.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
I have the impression that in the text instead of "thermal beaches" it should be "thermal baths".
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for reviewing the manuscript. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
No additional comments
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for reviewing the manuscript. We followed your suggestions and improved and corrected the article.
Please see the attachment.
Sincerely,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
The revised version is much better than the first version. Congratulation for the work that has been done.
There are still two major problem that I find it relevant to the study. There is no evident linkage between interviews and the results of the paper. Are there conclusions of the interviews? I couldn't find them in the paper.
Also I would like to add, at the discussion how does this paper relates with the relevant scientific international work that was cited in chapter 2. What is the added values of this paper in international context.
There are also some minor suggestion which will be stated below:
37-40 : Please consider rephrasing as it is difficult to understand the meaning of the phrase. In general, we propose shorter propositions/phrases!
86-87 – The objective of the paper is disconnected with the phrases used before. Please create a link between the context and the objective of the paper. Also please consider detailing the objective of the paper, as it is important.
139-130 – It’s not necessary, we are not Wikipedia here – (and occupies an area of 139 7,545 km2, between parallels 46024' and 47035' north latitude and meridians 21027' and 140 22043' east longitude ). We are rather more interested in seeing what is the advantage of localization in the North-East Romania?
I would include information about the demographic evolution, elderly indicators and tourism indicators. As you have presented in the literature review, there is a lot of relation with the tourism. Can you add 2-3 lines related to number of tourists and their main purpose visiting Bihor country?
142-145 – Is there any reference for this data?
152-153 – It is not clear how many interviews were made. (mayors, private administrators, locals – it could be 10 or 15). I would like to add as appendix the questions used in the interview.
216-221 – Please rephrase
447-448 - what are these important aspects?
524-526 – still, the article claims it used interviews . I would eliminate this phrase.
530-536 . Please use phrases instead of ideas. Ideas are good to be presented during an oral presentation. In a scientific article we use phrases.
There is a need to correct some minor English words.
The most important ones are the long phrases. I suggest separating them into smaller ones.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for reviewing the manuscript. We followed your suggestions and improved and corrected the article.
Please see the attachment.
Sincerely,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
