Criteria for Romanian geniuses’ selection as source for a new heritage tourism product

Cultural heritage constantly evolves, contributes fundamentally to human development, and increases collective life’s quality. Cultural assets are considered a treasure that must be protected accordingly and passed on to future generations. Among tourism resources, material and immaterial assets belonging to famous people are essential for this industry and for promoting Romanian cultural values. In this framework, the purpose of the study is to identify criteria for selecting Romanian personalities of genius whose valuable works and achievements may augment the country’s cultural tourist heritage. The research method is based on the survey, which targeted the Romanian Academy members (RAMs) and the resident population (RP). Data analysis has been performed through qualitative-quantitative methods. The results show that identified definitions, criteria and nominalizations of Romanian genius personalities by the two groups of respondents have many similarities. For a specific tourism product built on the core of the Romanian personalities of genius, the study reveals four clusters: highly recognized people; averagely known people of genius, which includes contemporaries; remarkable people with landmarks developed in the last two centuries; and another, internationally visible, and known by specialists in a domain. These identified personalities may be reconsidered to expand the cultural heritage for tourism strategy, to develop a tourist package dedicated to the Romanian geniuses based on the capitalization of their achievements.


Introduction
As one of the most ancient forms of travel, cultural tourism is an important motivation for journeys across larger or smaller geographic areas, consumed by almost 40% of world visitors (Richards, 2018;Zhang et al., 2018). Its resources capitalize the human society and civilization's cultural assets, which were protected, and made known over centuries to following generations by various means (Rasoolimanesh et al., 2021), including simple journeys or the travel industry. Thus, tourism is a beneficial way to encounter and comprehend people's socio-cultural heritage (Mureșan et al., 2021).
Romanian cultural tourism counts on a large pool of resources, some related to Romanian personalities of genius' achievements in science, arts and technology, capitalizing on their immaterial and material values in museums and memorial houses. These personalities had a significant influence on the development, both national and worldwide, within the contribution of their works, inventions, masterpieces, and innovations in science, art, architecture, sculpture, painting, engineering, and medicine, which are not fully or adequately represented as landmarks (Nicolaie, 2015). As cultural tourism plays an important role in the image of a country (Light, 2007), helping in its promotion (Lights, 2000), and having high educational values (Dean et al., 2002), it is welcome and suitable to reconsider the importance of heritage related to genius personalities for tourism.
The question of genuine talent and genius has concerned many researchers. People have always been interested in women and men who displayed superior abilities (Gardner, 1982;Heller, 1991;Simonton, 2008). Since Aristotle and Plato, and later philosophers, artists, scientists, professors in different domains, psychiatrists, and psychologists have tried to explain what genius is, how it is revealed, and how this potential can be increased (Lambroso, 1895).
From an etymological perspective, genius comes from the Latin word gignere, which means to be productive, while historically, genius implies the ability to achieve something, to create something that cannot be measured with the IQ scale (Kelemen, 2014). Although etymologically genius comes from Latin, the meaning in ancient Rome was different than today. What we understand today by genius comes, instead, from the Latin word ingenium, meaning above-average natural abilities, which Spearman has defined as intellectual giftedness or intelligence (Kaukab & Zubia, 2015).
The Oxford Dictionary provides four definitions for genius in different contexts. Still, two are appropriate to this study: 1) unusually great intelligence, skill, or artistic ability; 2) a person who is unusually intelligent or artistic or who has a very high skill level, especially in one area (Stevenson, 2010). The term appears for the first time in Plautus, around the 3 rd century BC, indicating a protecting spirit held by every man, not entirely identical to himself, but strongly related to his personality (Celac, 2005). Lessing, in 1781, wrote about genius creativity, originality, and self-expression in the context of the spiritual education of the human race (Lessing, 1996), while Kant (1787), as a follower of the German idealism, stated that the genius appears as a link between the transcendent level of knowledge and the material world (Kant, 2009). In the same philosophical spirit, Schopenhauer (1844) defined genius as a human being with special creative powers, with a certain vision and capacity to see the world from a broad perspective through contemplation (Schopenhauer, 2018).
Later, in the 19 th century, together with the development of psychology, genius was regarded as an individual with one or more innate abilities and talents. English psychologist Francis Galton (1869) used two classifications based on reputation and the natural ability of men, trying to statistically demonstrate that genius is hereditary. He reinforced the definition promoted by lexicologist Samuel Johnson (1755), who described genius as a man endowed with superior disposition. At the beginning of the 20 th century, along with the growth in interest and research in the field of psychology, the investigation and evaluation methods based on psychometric measurements came with a new perspective on genius, associated with a concept called the intelligence quotient (IQ) (Docsănescu, 2000). British psychologist Charles E. Spearman (1904) distinguished a g-factor (general) of human abilities that influences the performance of all human activities and other s-factors (special), which affect operationally only given conditions of a particular activity (scientific, artistic, sports, etc.). For Spearman, intelligence has a double meaning: on the one hand, the process of assimilation and processing of variable information for optimal adaptation, and on the other hand, the ability consisting of operational structures equipped with certain qualities (complexity, fluidity, flexibility, productivity), which ensures the efficiency of the conduct (Jensen, 1999).
We owe the quantification of intelligence to French psychologist Alfred Binet (1916), who developed a measurement scale for the mental age of children, created initially to detect the developmentally disabled. This scale was named firstly Binet-Simon Scale (1916). Binet considered that intelligence is the ability to explore the external environment, which a genius can reconstruct entirely from a completely different perspective out of small parts we all can sense. Lewis Terman (1925), a psychologist at Stanford University, revised the Binet-Simon scale of intelligence which became Stanford-Binet and was applied to make studies on people of genius.
Continuing Terman's work, the American psychologist Catharine Morris Cox (1926) conducted an original study over 301 eminent men born between 1450 and 1850, using the Binet-Simon and Stanford IQ scales to determine the genius coefficient, evaluating historical cases on their behaviour and performance in childhood and adolescence. Cox (1926) recorded a deviation ratio in her research which explains the peculiar case of Albert Einstein, who, as a child or as a student, had many failures but became the most brilliant researcher in the world. Cox's study identified brilliant minds with high IQ scores like Sir Isaac Newton (190), Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti (180), Goethe (179), Johannes Kepler (179). Later, she researched the relationships among IQ, eminence, and health, stating that eminence is a positive function of IQ, being, in turn, a positive function of mental health, but not of physical health (Simonton & Song, 2009).
Remarkable theories on intelligence continued with Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences (1983), which considered intelligence a biopsychological potential (Gardner, 1982). He classified ten types of intelligence (logicalmathematical, linguistic and spatial intelligence, musical, psychomotor, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, spiritual and existential intelligence), trying to explain the specificity of performance in a domain (2000). Gardner (1983) affirmed that few of these types of intelligence are captured by typical IQ tests, all being crucial to genius-level creative performance. Sternberg (1988), the author of the triarchic theory of intelligence, revealed the importance of analytical, creative and practical abilities. When researchers reflected on the nature of intelligence (biological theories), they believed that its origins are in the brain, where all thoughts arise, and consequently, intelligent behaviour can be traced back to its neurological origin (Sternberg, 2003). He stated that biological approaches to intelligence must consider two functional aspects: 1) why the intellectual abilities of individuals differ, and 2) how human intelligence works in general. Thus, in this brief review of the scientific approaches to geniuses, he remarked that no matter the domain, several characteristics are generally recognized: higher intelligence, creative powers, talent, over gifted intellectually. The conception of genius and the inquiry into its defining aspects first grew around people famed for artistic creation or scientific invention. Those who demonstrated geniality became typical representatives of various domains (arts, science, technology), and their works have been regarded as humankind masterpieces or assets with patrimonial values. This type of heritage constitutes the richest source of tourism and, through proper commoditization, may boost local communities' development, provide cultural education and diversify cultural tourism.
As cultural tourism sites make a valuable means of cultural distinction and identity and tourism and cultural geography are interconnected (Earl, 2008), geniuses and their legacy create a major resource for new package tours. Many well-known worldwide heritage assets are generated by famous people (kings, artists, architects). Until now, no national concept related to a heritage package that includes genius personalities exists. There are concerns and initiatives in the generation of a tourism product linked to a personality, as it is the case of Alfred Einstein, which is capitalized through tourist landmarks in Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Japan, or the U.S.A. promoted by tourist companies or local administrations (Owen, 2012).
On this background, the present study is built around the two questions. First, who are the genius personalities from Romania who can be capitalized by cultural tourism? Second, could they be determined using the perceptions analysis? Thus, the research aimed to identify criteria for selecting those personalities who could be considered geniuses based on a quantitative investigation of the perception of two different samples of respondents to augment the cultural heritage and hence the tourist resources.
The main research objectives consist of 1) to analyse the perception of both samples to form a definition regarding genius personalities; 2) to establish, based on experts and public answers, specific criteria for classifying some personalities as geniuses; and 3) to identify, based on these criteria, a list with meritorious personalities which may augment cultural heritage and cultural tourism.

Methodology
To achieve the first objective of obtaining a definition whose content may be helpful for cultural heritage and tourism, the qualitative analysis of texts was applied, starting from corroborating approaches from literature with experts' statements and further with Romanian residents. For this, it was considered that the identification of the component parts of a definition, respectively the proxy genre (the relevant word of a definition) and the content, respectively, the features that confer the uniqueness (Enescu, 1976).
Following data organization processes to formulate a comprehensive definition in both samples' answers, finding keywords was performed, doubled by counting their frequencies. ProWord Cloud, an add-in from Microsoft Word, has been used to highlight word frequency in defining the term genius. The software program generated a word cloud commonly used as a visual representation of the frequency of words to explain concepts and express ideas. The more frequently the term appears in the analysed text, the larger the word appears in the generated image (Ramsden & Bate, 2008).
In the case of the second objective, a qualitative-quantitative approach was performed, grouping them by the logic of resemblance and difference of exposed criteria of RAMs and RP's answers.
The final list was obtained by unifying the fulfilment vs absence of the criteria on the nominated personalities in the two samples.
The study used two surveys; one is based on an interview of remarkable personalities, members of the Romanian Academy and the other of a random resident population sample from Romania. Both surveys were applied in the fall of 2019 via emails for the RAMs and using Google forms for the RP.
The interview consisted of five open-ended questions, established in a working group of geography and sociology experts involved in university teaching and research. Then, this was sent by emails to thirty RAMs, from which only ten answered, a number considered consistent (Morse, 2000). Otherwise, Creswell & Poth (2018) specified that there is not any specific number for the interviews; this may depend on the data saturation, type of research or characteristics of target people, aims of the research, etc.
The second survey was semi-structured and made up of two parts: one dedicated to the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents and another focused on three open-ended questions (1. Briefly define what a personality of genius is in your opinion; 2. Make a list of maximum 10 personalities from Romania that you consider geniuses; 3. Give at least one motivation to support your answer to question 2). The same experts were consulted for these questions as well. The sample size was about 135 persons, usually applied in mixed methods of investigation . All 135 respondents gave their consent to participate in the research.
The answers processing has been performed through specific tools using qualitative analysis and then quantitative (frequencies). As the collected materials in qualitative research are manifold and sometimes difficult to work with, the first step to reduce and process them is coding (Scârneci, 2007). Firstly, the coding process includes the respondents' anonymity (Matei et al., 2012). According to The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance (Law 363/2018) on the processing of personal data and scientific ethics, the academicians involved in the research were also coded. The coding was carried out as follows: "A" was used for "academician", and a number from "1 to 10" expresses the order in which the answers were received.
In the resident population survey, demographic data were also coded using the letter I and numbers (I 1.2….135 ). Secondly, coding was applied to the research materials to categorize data and develop the research, followed by the reconstruction of the structure of meaning by sequence analysis (Flick, 1998). These allowed the discovery of new ideas and meanings, similarities and differences (Strauss & Corbin, 1990;Scârneci, 2007). In the case of criteria validation, the similarity of contents exposed by RAMs were analysed. At each of these, the key sentences from the motivations of the resident population's choices that converge towards the criterion were highlighted based on the frequency of nominations.

Samples characteristics
The RAMs comprise ten respondents, nine with expertise in geography, philosophy, agronomy, informatics, history (2), doctor/medicine, mathematics and technical sciences.
The residential population validated sample includes 135 persons. By age, they belong primarily to the active population segment 25-60 years old (77%), 6.7% older than 60, and 16.3% under 25. In terms of education levels, less than half (43.7%) are post-graduated, 35.6% have university studies, and 10.4 % high school. Very few have completed secondary school (3.0%). Respondents are specialised or active mainly in education (43.1%), 10.4% in health care, 8.1% public administration or justice (5.2%), followed by media, retail, banking etc. Over half of them reside in a big city (57%), 11.1% in rural settlements, and 31.9% in towns.

Defining personalities of genius
The analysis of the personality of genius definitions started with the academicians' views, synthesized in Table 1. Thus, according to RAMs, the definition includes as the proxy genre the term "human being" and "talent and creativity" (A1) found in Lessing or Schopenhauer works, or "intelligence" (A2) highlighted by Spearman, or "high qualities" (A3), underlined in the Oxford Dictionary (Stevenson, 2010). In the sense of specific difference, several characteristics were added, such as "erudition" (A8), continuing with their "assets as pioneering in a domain" (A6), "which have positively and significantly changed humankind" (A4). Other terms often used to define genius were "scientific", "political" and "cultural" (A6, A7), to name their most mentioned career fields, as well as artistic and military skills (A7). The most frequent adjective that defines a genius's work is "extraordinary/outstanding" as an expression of the endowment with remarkable capabilities and of the valuable creations/discoveries/innovations (A1, A2, A6). There are definitions that express intellectual giftedness through the word "level" by which we understand the degree of skills development (A1). Others bring forward the term "ability" as an expression of capability, skill, and mastery (A1, A6) requested in specific fields. An unusual definition is associated with the term "superhuman", following the definition that a genius is "a kind of magician who anticipated world development", remembering Lessing's or Kant's theories regarding the genius's role in bringing novelty into humanity's evolution (A5) ( Table 1). Analysis of these definitions highlights keywords which differentiate the views of the RAMs, showing at the same time the idea they emphasized. Corroborating these keywords with the analysis of definitions given by the resident population, it can be seen that the majority of them define personalities of genius most often as people endowed with special intelligence (38.5%) and erudition (17.7%), which developed or brought innovation in a specific scientific, cultural and/or technical field (23%) ( Table 1). Even 7% of the population included in the definition the extraordinary abilities related to talent and creativity and their visionary capacity for a specific domain, and about 5% invoked or granted them divine circumstances ("God-given grace"). Others (11.1%) highlighted their work's originality or, in other words, the innovative spirit or masterpiece (8.1%).
ProWord Cloud of the definitions for the two samples illustrates, among many resemblances mentioned in the previous analysis, that RAMs focused on "scientific" and "exceptional" terms, while for RP, on "intelligence", the "field of expertise" and "IQ" prevailed ( Figure 1). Reassembling the data provided RAMs and reiterated by the resident population, a comprehensive definition of the concept of "personality of genius" is a person endowed with talent, intelligence, skills, the capacity of creation and exceptional cognitive faculties, whose scientific, cultural, literary, artistic, political and even military creations/works/actions, characterised by originality, profoundness and uniqueness, internationally recognised have facilitated the development, transformation and emergence of various domains that contributed to the evolution of humanity.

Criteria for nominations of the Romanian genius personalities
It is generally accepted that a definition means logical operations aiming to establish content for a notion (Enescu, 1976). In the case of the definition of a genius, this is specific to a person having remarkable qualities, content which may converge to the explanations, and which may be considered a starting point for establishing criteria of identification. According to the research objective, which aimed to identify the criteria for the selection of the Romanian geniuses, the analysis uses directly the answers of RAMs concerning their points of view (Table  2) and, indirectly, the reasons for the RP examples of personalities (nominations). Thus, in RAMs interviews, twenty-three criteria were exposed by nine respondents, and after analysing their similarities, seven clusters were obtained ( Table 2 in bold). At each of these, the keywords from the motivations of the resident population's choices that converge towards the criterion were highlighted, followed by extracting the frequency of nominations.  Criterion 1 (Exceptional creative talent) has been established starting from the first characteristic mentioned in the definition, namely the "intelligence/extraordinary talent" of a person of genius. It was mentioned by 30.3% RAMs (A1, A5, A6) and 12.5% of the RP. Among the population's answers, "brilliant minds" is by far the best narrative for C1 ( I 46 , I 49 , I 60 , I 62 , I 126 ). The two groups have in common the nominations for M. Eminescu, C-tin. Brâncuși, G.E. Palade and H. Coandă. The second phrase included in genius' definition was "the capacity of creation", synthesised in Criterion 2 (Unique creation/originality) and found in 5.1% of respondents' answers. The second criterion highlights aspects of "originality" (A10) and "profoundness and uniqueness" (A6), having similarities as examples: M. Eminescu (12.5%), T. Vuia (11.8%), C-tin. Brâncuși (7.4%), I.L. Caragiale (1.4%), E. Cioran (1.4%), and H. Oberth (0.7%).
The third criterion refers to the high quality of genius, including "exceptional cognitive faculties" summarised by A9 and 22.9% of RP. For this third criterion, the valid exemplifications in both samples are for M. Eminescu, C-tin. Brâncuși, and T. Vuia. The fourth criterion is linked to the international visibility of genius people, which was emphasised by the most significant percentage of the RP respondents (28.1%) and A2, along with its reformulation by A1 and A4 in "Worldwide recognized works". From the 96 nominations found in the population's responses, five personalities converged in the two samples. While respondents from the Romanian Academy are oriented both towards generally recognised values and contemporary personalities, the population tends to emphasise personalities who lived and whose names were consecrated in the collective perception ( Table 2).
The value added/brought to a certain field by a personality of genius is formulated in definition and captured in criterion 5 "The novelty in a domain or field", proposed by RAMs (A2, A4) and widely accepted in the perception of the population (26.6%). The convergence in the examples of the respondents and RAMs is evident, including both consecrated names throughout time and from contemporaneity.
The sixth criterion, "Romanian culture promotion/Nationwide achievements", which although formulated by two RAMs (A1 and A4), is more an implicit effect of the other criterion and really a motivation to capitalize on the values brought by these personalities. But, for 22.2% of RP respondents, this is an important reason for defining and selecting geniuses. They emphasise that "these Romanians made humanity evolve faster and better" (I 6 ), or "Because they are among the best-known Romanians, and they left a legacy to our country, things that will remain for many years and our descendants" (I 134 ).
Criterion seven refers to particular cases regarding the role of these personalities in the "School founder", and in the given examples, the RAM (A9) refers to the most important scientific leaders for the research of mathematics, history, geography, biology, geology, etc., but, for which, the population emphasizes some scientific aspects. E.g., "They redefined culture and civilization, changing paradigms of thought (literature, philosophy, law and legal logic, history), universal personalities in science (innovative contributions in medicine, creators of new schools in science)" (I 10 ).

Hierarchy of Romanian genius personalities
After synthesizing the data, 22 personalities were identified. Among these, six are in the top group of personalities which fulfils almost all validated criteria selected in Table 2, being nominated by both RAMs and the RP. It includes Mihai Eminescu, Constantin Brâncuși, George Enescu, Traian Vuia, Henri Coandă and George Emil Palade, laureate of the Nobel prize for medicine and Physiology in 1974. The second group of personalities fulfils four or more criteria out of seven, being nominated equally by RAMs and the population. It includes Mircea Eliade, a world-renowned historian, and I.L. Caragiale, a famous Romanian playwright whose international visibility is still relative. Two athletes belong to this group: Nadia Comăneci, who was unanimously and worldwide accepted as a phenomenon of world gymnastics, and Simona Halep, probably due to her influential position in the WTA in first place during the time when the interviews took place.
The third group consists of personalities who, in the population's opinion, meet all criteria but were not nominated as examples by RAMs. In fact, the population's responses are oriented towards personalities that are not mentioned in the first sample by RAMs. This is the case of Ana Aslan, who occupies the second and third places in terms of frequency in public opinion, Aurel Vlaicu (aircraft), Anghel Saligny (engineering), Herman Oberth (rocketry and astronautics) and in the field of medicine: Ioan Cantacuzino (cholera vaccine) and Nicolae Paulescu, known for his insulin discovery. Also included here are Nicolae Poenaru and Iustin Capră, who are appreciated for their technical inventions. They belong to different domains, and their works stand out both as nationwide as well as worldwide masterpieces. The fourth group includes examples of the genius personalities nominated by RAMs, showing great personalities in geography and literature (Figure 2).

Discussions and conclusions
The study investigates the perception of two samples of representatives, one of the highest scientific competencies and the other made up of ordinary people, aiming to capture the correct and satisfactory opinions about who are the personalities of genius in Romania, which would deserve to augment the country's cultural heritage, and subsequently cultural tourism.

RAMs RP
The variety of visions regarding the concept of genius, found in different fields of literature, were premises for identifying a comprehensive definition by joining the values of these outstanding personalities, which facilitated highlighting some criteria and composing the list with personalities, whose assets are valuable both for domestic and international tourists.
It is important to emphasise that, in the dictionaries definitions or those offered by other works, a genius is a person endowed with capabilities and qualities that exceed the ordinary people. For tourism, a genius' notoriety is related to the role in the development of humanity, and worldwide recognition is essential. Thus, the scored criteria targeted these qualities, and those related to the global impact of the personality of genius in the development of a field are justified. Therefore, it is about the usefulness of the following criteria: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Other topics mentioned in the proposed criteria could be considered as optional. A classification based on the role of these personalities in the promotion of the country (C6) was considered an effect of the others. Furthermore, C7 talking about the importance of a school founder seems to have much more of an additional or particular character. Thus, in the end, five of the seven criteria were validated.
The role of these criteria in identifying a list of personalities that meet these conditions and that could be (re)evaluated to capitalize them is indicative because the perception of the representatives of the highest scientific forum in Romania is different from that of ordinary people. Thus, RAMs reveal criteria of performances in a domain by setting up schools of science, technics or arts, in comparison with RP's suggestion of the IQ tests inclusion.
However, there are five personalities that have been fully validated: Mihai Eminescu -poet, Constantin Brâncuși -initiator of modern sculpture; Henri Coandă and Traian Vuia -pioneers in inventions that influenced the development of world aeronautics and George Emil Palade, whose role was certified by receiving the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1974. While for the first four personalities, tourism landmarks exist, in the case of the last one, his heritage is preserved within his field of activity. The other 7 personalities, except those with well-known tourist attractions (I.L. Caragiale, Herman Oberth, Aurel Vlaicu), need to be included in the capitalization process through museums or memorial houses.
The study reveals that Romanian people identified a substantial list of personalities which belong to humankind heritage, connected to the (inter)national values, tourism and culture. The abundance of such personalities should be an asset in the development of heritage and culture tourism in Romania.
This research does not exhaust the entire panoply of genius personalities from Romania, but it tries to create a methodological scheme based on the perception of experts themselves, through attestation and belonging in the halo of brilliant personalities, but also of the public, to demonstrate the value and size of this resource that can be moral and meritorious, but also useful for cultural and heritage tourism. One of the study's limits is the sampling procedures of the Romanian population. A randomized sampling could improve the results, getting closer to the reality of the socio-demographics of the country. For this reason, the next research will be focused on other methods aimed at clarifying the list with personalities of genius, the state of tourist attractions generated by them, the trends of visitors and the tourist infrastructure supply.