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In a society of abundance, complexity, uncertainty and secularisation, consumers seek extreme market offerings. They thereby avoid the grey middle ground and rather seek white or black, or rather utopia or dystopia, in their experiences. This consumer behaviour is coined the Polarity Paradox. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the Polarity Paradox on travel and tourism and specifically highlight how darker and dystopian type of tourism experiences can add value to the overall tourist experience.

The paper is based on literature and trend report reviews to support the direction of the Polarity Paradox trend and the opportunities it presents to the hospitality and tourism industry.

Travellers do not seek only beauty and happiness when travelling. Examples of the thrilling or dystopian side of the Polarity Paradox clearly illustrate travellers’ emerging needs to look for the extreme. In fact, new travel and hospitality experiences are all about originality and understanding that whether the experience triggers positive or negative emotions matter less in a market where consumers want to be “shaken up”, surprised, taught something or seek a deeper meaning. The difference with the past is that these same thrill seeking tourists, also seek “white” and chilling experiences and that demands a new approach to market segmentation.

Until now, the Polarity Paradox has been described as a general consumer trend. In this paper, the authors are the first to analyse its possible impact on hospitality and tourism and in detail describe that black, dystopian and thrilling experiences can be positive when they trigger emotions and reactions meaningful to the traveller. The authors further show that “playing it safe” will not be the future to build successful hospitality and tourism experiences. The examples explore how the hospitality and tourism industry can add elements of “dystopia” and by doing that actually add value to the overall travel experience.

Urban renewal is proclaimed one of the foremost priorities of the present Government. As such it constitutes an important part of the overall programme of economic regeneration, since it provides the physical matrix within which this is to take place.

This essay critiques the assertion that an appreciation of animal sentience necessarily runs counter to their exploitation as industrial resources. It is argued that the U.S. meatpacking industry has consistently engaged animals as sentient creatures in order to elicit behavior that enhances manufacturing efficiency. This discipline of animals in and around the packing plant is exemplified in Temple Grandin’s “humane” slaughter technologies. The author suggests that even as the representation of these innovations tends to obscure the role of labor in industrial meat production, they demonstrate that discipline is a cross‐species regime, recasting the packing plant as a continuum of violence.

The Imago group was developed in 2010 as a step-down group for members of the Winterbourne Therapeutic Community (TC) who had completed their treatment. This paper aims to review the usefulness of the group by reflecting on service user and staff feedback.

An opportunity sample of all current and ex-members of the Imago group (n=17) were approached and a mixed methods design was used to gain a wide collection of data. A self-report questionnaire was designed to access the opinions of members and staff about the Imago group. In total, 71 per cent of Imago members and 90 per cent of staff responded.

Results show that “staff being familiar”, “reconnecting with fellow ex-TC members” and alternating days were the top three most helpful aspects of the group, whereas “having at least 4 weeks away from the TC before attending the Imago Group”, “style of session” and “venue” were found to be the least helpful aspects.

Limitations of the study centre round data collection. There were comprehension problems with the instructions for completing the quantitative scale and a small sample size meant that interpretations were tentative.

The Imago group is deemed a valuable part of the service for many of the service users (and staff), helping to aid recovery and re-integration into life after therapy. Elements of the group which were rated as least helpful require more thinking about.

Moldova is one of the smallest constituent Republics of the C.I.S., with a population of just 4.3 million inhabitants. In agrifood terms however, Moldova has traditionally been one of the key “food baskets” for the rest of the former Soviet Union. Nowhere is this more marked than in the production of wine, with Moldova still supplying 20% of the total wine production of the former Soviet Union. In Central and East European terms the Moldovan wine industry is substantial; producing annually as much wine as Hungary and “Czechoslovakia” combined. This paper provides an overview of the Moldovan wine industry, highlighting key production and structural difficulties facing it as it attempts to gain access to hard currency earning markets outside the former Soviet Union. In particular, the problems caused by the recent reversion to the traditional monopoly‐monopsony structure within the Moldovan wine marketing channel are analysed. Suggestions are made for true liberalisation of the Moldovan wine marketing system, based upon three elements:‐ (i) De‐nationalisation, and a move to new private structures of ownership of Moldovan wineries; (ii) Modernisation of vineyard practices and production methods, driven by private incentive. (iii) The establishment of effective networks of marketing and distribution, based upon private wineries pursuing real markets.

The purpose of this paper is to document reflections on experiences of stigma and discrimination as described by predominantly black and ethnic minority (BME) service users in a high security hospital via a slow‐open therapy group. Service users from BME are known to have higher drop‐out rates and poorer treatment outcomes in non‐forensic therapy settings (Rathod et al.). Further, they are over‐represented in forensic services and often disengage, because their views and feelings are poorly understood (Ndegwa).

Thematic analysis was applied to a sample of electronically stored running records of group sessions, in which experiences of care, discrimination, hope, despair, and recovery were shared.

Over a three‐year period, 18 forensic patients participated in the group. Group members' reflections on detention, offending and illness were collected. Themes relating to isolation and distance, other barriers to recovery and strategies for coping “against the odds”, are illustrated via anonymised material from the sessions.

Stigma and discrimination are difficult concepts to hold in mind, and are therefore difficult to access. Nevertheless, their effects can be so all encompassing for patients in high security that hope is hard to sustain. The extent to which the themes generated by this sample are representative of those pertinent to others in similar secure settings is inevitably beyond the scope of this paper.

Service users can, and do, share ideas about possibilities for surviving despite their past. Their comments shed light on barriers to engagement for this potentially marginalized population, and possibilities for improving the capacity of the clinical service to hear their voices on an issue of such importance to their potential for recovery.

Specific attention to the perspectives of all service recipients on the impact of illness and their recovery is required in a modern health service, where inclusion is a guiding principle.

Interventions for addressing stigma for the most marginalized are infrequently described, but are potentially relevant for all.

The purpose of this study was to examine the dimensions of athletic star power associated with Generation Y sports consumption. Multivariate analyses revealed that athletic star power factors (Professional Trustworthiness, Likeable Personality, Athletic Expertise, Social Attractiveness and Characteristic Style) were positively (p < .05) predictive of the sport consumption factors (Event Consumption and Merchandise Consumption).

Guided by self-presentation theory and social role theory, this study examines the different strategies elite female athletes used in personal branding on social media before and after becoming mothers. Scholars have investigated the authenticity of female athletes’ frontstage versus backstage representation on social media for branding purposes, but this study further expands on existing literature to review how female athletes would present themselves in the same realm once entering motherhood.

Through a content analysis, researchers evaluated whether there was a shift in three elite female athletes’ (Serena Williams, Allyson Felix and Skylar Diggins Smith) Instagram posts and captions one year before their pregnancy and one year after motherhood. A total of 732 posts were examined and were organized into six main categories: athletic, professional, promotional, personal, motherhood and dual identity.

Results revealed there was a difference in the self-presentation strategies used by the three female athletes on their social media pages. Specifically, the researchers confirmed the presence of a combined role of athlete and mother.

The findings support existing literature on the importance and the challenges of “balancing” a third identity of blending being both a mother and elite athlete as one. Yet, the findings challenge the previous notion that women cannot continue to perform at an elite level and manage the expectations that society institutes of being a “good mother.”