Search results

It is well known that culture is a catalyst for change, helping economies respond to societal problems and demands and that culture is where people turn to in moments of crisis. In this case study around designing and implementing evaluation methodologies/frameworks for Coventry UK City of Culture 2021, it is suggested that in English public policy and within publicly invested arts there is a maturation of thinking around recognising/measuring the public value of culture including its social value. The purpose of this paper is to chart the recent policy of justifying cultural expenditure with social value claims and highlight challenges for evaluating activity within Coventry UK CoC 2021 as a change in wider policy is taking place.

This paper provides creative insights into the design and implementation of the evaluation methodologies/frameworks for Coventry UK City of Culture 2021. The authors of this paper as the collective team undertaking the evaluation of Coventry's year as UK City of Culture 2021 bring first-hand experiences of challenges faced and the need for a cultural mega-event to evidence its value.

The case study aims to address the concepts of measuring value within cultural events and argues that a paradigm shift is occurring in methods and concepts for evidencing the aforementioned value.

The case study within this paper focuses on the build-up period to the UK City of Culture 2021 year and the thinking and logic behind the creation of the evaluation/measurement framework and therefore does not include findings from the actual cultural year.

It is acknowledged that there are papers examining measuring and evidencing the “value” of cultural mega-events, the authors bring real-life first-hand experience of the concepts being utilised by them on the ground in the delivery and evaluation design of Coventry, UK City of Culture 2021.

In this article, we discuss an innovative audience research methodology developed for the AHRC-funded “Beyond the Multiplex: Audiences for Specialised Film in English Regions” project (BtM). The project combines a computational ontology with a mixed-methods approach drawn from both the social sciences and the humanities, enabling research to be conducted both at scale and in depth, producing complex relational analyses of audiences. BtM aims to understand how we might enable a wide range of audiences to participate in a more diverse film culture, and embrace the wealth of films beyond the mainstream in order to optimise the cultural value of engaging with less familiar films. BtM collects data through a three-wave survey of film audience members’ practices, semi-structured interviews and film-elicitation groups with audience members alongside interviews with policy and industry experts, and analyses of key policy and industry documents. Bringing each of these datasets together within our ontology enables us to map relationships between them across a variety of different concerns. For instance, how cultural engagement in general relates to engagement with specialised films; how different audiences access and/or share films across different platforms and venues; how their engagement with those films enables them to make meaning and generate value; and how all of this is shaped by national and regional policy, film industry practices, and the decisions of cultural intermediaries across the fields of film production, distribution and exhibition. Alongside our analyses, the ontology enables us to produce data visualisations and a suite of analytical tools for audience development studies that stakeholders can use, ensuring the research has impact beyond the academy. This paper sets out our methodology for developing the BtM ontology, so that others may adapt it and develop their own ontologies from mixed-methods empirical data in their studies of other knowledge domains.

The academic library’s physical capacity and its service obligations to local users structured the traditional print collection. Largely freed of these constraints, the digital collection manager enjoys unprecedented freedoms but now contends with a collection susceptible to resource sprawl and scope ambiguity. This exploratory study aims to consider the possibility that intra-field social processes help to structure and routinize digital collection practice.

Lacking the constraints to which print collections are subject, electronic resource and digital library collections are more likely to reflect idiosyncratic institutional interests and therefore, to demonstrate significant variation. Evidence of homogeneity may suggest the influence of heretofore underexplored social structures. To determine the extent of such homogeneity, the author performed exploratory/descriptive content analyses on ten electronic resource collection development policies and six digital library collection development policies.

The data reveal among both the electronic resource and digital library collection policies significant uniformity. Content analyses demonstrate consistent themes (e.g. media, audience, selection priorities, etc.) and rhetoric. These findings lend support to the study’s central hypothesis regarding latent social structures. Analyses also reveal a set of unanticipated constraints unique to digital collection management.

Despite the breadth and maturity of literature addressing the Digital Turn in academic librarianship, relatively little attention has been paid to the social dimensions of collection management. This work represents an important corrective and suggests new theoretical approaches to the study of digital collection practice.

During the evaluation of European Capital of Culture (ECoC) Aarhus 2017, the evaluation organisation rethinkIMPACTS 2017 formulated a set of “dilemmas” capturing the main challenges arising during the design of the ECoC evaluation. This functioned as a framework for the evaluation process. This paper aims to present and discuss the relevance of the “Evaluation Dilemmas Model” as subsequently applied to the Galway 2020 ECoC programme evaluation.

The paper takes an empirical approach including auto-ethnography and interview data to document and map the dilemmas involved in undertaking an evaluation in two different European cities. Evolved via a process of practice-based research, the article addresses the development of and the arguments for the dilemmas model and considers its potential for wider applicability in the evaluation of large-scale cultural projects.

The authors conclude that the “Evaluation Dilemmas Model” is a valuable heuristic for considering the endogenous and exogenous issues in cultural evaluation.

The model developed is useful for a wide range of cultural evaluation processes including – but not limited to – European Capitals of Culture.

What has not been addressed in the academic literature is the process of evaluating ECoCs; especially how evaluators often take part in an overall process that is not just about the evaluation but also planning and delivering a project that includes stakeholder management and the development of evaluation criteria, design and methods.

The impact of various factors on how TV sports audiences perceive sport event sponsors’ billboards around sports facilities has been the subject of extensive research. Despite numerous factors that impact the effectiveness of sponsor signage at sporting events, there has been a lack of research regarding the language used for such signage around sports facilities’ billboards. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effects of billboard advertisement language on TV sports audiences’ recognition, recall and search intention to sponsor signage.

This study employed an online experimental design. Participants (n = 925) were recruited from two linguistically different regions: Chinese and English. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: watching tennis video matches with billboard advertisements presented in either the Roman alphabet exclusively or in a combination of the Roman alphabet and Chinese characters.

This study revealed that although language cannot significantly impact audiences’ unaided recall of a brand, it does have a discernible effect on brand recognition and search intention among audiences. Additionally, people are more likely to search for brands in their native language. Participants from various regions tend to have different recognition rates and search intentions for sport sponsors.

This is the first manuscript examining the use of different languages in relation to audiences’ recognition and recall of sports sponsorship. It provides empirical evidence of the importance of carefully considering the language used in sponsor signage around stadium billboards to optimize the efficacy of sponsorships at sports events.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding for the social inclusion of disabled performers in a developing country to create awareness and improve policies/practices.

The study employed qualitative methodology, and data were collected through semi-structured interviews, site visits/observations and review of secondary data.

The data from different respondent groups showed the social inclusion should be reviewed at three levels: the state, society and individual. The review of existing policies revealed the neglect of the state regarding disabled people in general and even more so in performing arts due to the lack of enforcement of national and international agreements. Findings indicate that social inclusion of disabled performers is a minor issue, especially in a developing country where access to basic human rights and needs may be difficult. Amidst such difficulties, performing arts is not seen as a priority compared to other needs of disabled people and performers.

Limitations include the limited number of disabled performers who could be identified and were willing to participate in the study. Those working in venues/public offices were also reluctant to participate. The greatest limitation was the broad lack of interest in disabled performers.

In Türkiye, studies on disabled people tend to focus on basic needs like health, education and employment. None, to best of researchers' knowledge, explore the social inclusion of disabled performers. This is an original study because it collects and discusses primary data on this topic, revealing the state-level negligence/oversight, the apathy of society and the degree to which an individual with disabilities must struggle to participate in performing arts. Consequently, this study shows the difficulty of developing social inclusion, equality and diversity in an emerging economy for disabled performers to raise awareness and present grounds for further legal enforcement. Moreover, implications allow for a global understanding of social inclusion that moves beyond a biased or privileged understanding/critique of disability centered on the developed world.

Depending on the technological, economic and sociological developments seen in the global world, the needs of potential tourists differ, and alternative tourism activities are seen in the tourism sector, which has different dimensions. Film tourism is one of the alternative tourism activities that has become prominent in recent years, especially with the opportunities it offers to reach more audiences with the development of technology. The desire of potential tourists to see different components such as filming locations, actors and local facts of the films they watch turns into a need over time. This situation directs potential tourists' decision-making and purchasing processes for their destination preferences. This chapter aims to create a body of knowledge that will have a widespread effect on the relevant body of knowledge based on current data on alternative and film tourism. In addition, it aims to examine films' effects on destination preferences based on secondary data sources. This chapter, which is designed as conceptual research with descriptive analyses and document analysis, which is one of the qualitative research methods, is vital in terms of revealing general patterns based on new trends in film tourism, which is seen as an export element and has a significant effect on destination preference.

This article examines the effect of China's soft power projection through the Chinese media in Africa on the African audiences' perception of China's national image through a case study of the residents of Nairobi. It adopted Joseph Nye's soft power model and sought to address three fundamental questions : What is the extent and objective of China's media diplomacy in Africa? How has China's media “offensive” in Africa impacted African audiences' imagery of China? What are the implications, if any, of China's media diplomacy on the Kenyan public view of China?

This article used a mixed-methods research design, which deployed elements of positivism and interpretivism. It used a deductive approach and deployed the survey strategy, which entailed the collection of data from Nairobi city residents. The secondary data were collected from relevant academic literature sources. The primary data were analyzed empirically using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), while the secondary data were analyzed using discourse analysis.

China's soft power projection through the Chinese media in Africa is aimed at addressing the “misinformation” about China. China seeks its share of representation among the African public to correct negative perceptions of China. Kenyans had a generally positive attitude toward China. South Africa and Angola have “Fairly” positive perceptions of the Chinese media. However, this study did not reveal whether the perception was due to the influence of Chinese media. These findings implied that the African public's positive imagery of China cannot be fully attributed to Chinese media's influence.

This study is groundbreaking in that it is one of the few studies that have focused on China's public diplomacy in Africa and assessed the impact of Chinese media on the African public’s perception of China.

This paper aims to explore the impact of emerging technologies, such as virtual reality, voice search, artificial intelligence, robotics and the Metaverse on hotel sales, marketing and revenue optimization.

This paper uses a combination of articles published in Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology and industry case studies to examine the integration of innovative technologies in hotel sales, marketing and revenue optimization strategies, plus the role of fundamental practices in ensuring long-term success.

The analysis demonstrates that innovative technologies can significantly enhance customer engagement, streamline booking processes and unlock new revenue streams. However, this paper also highlights the importance of fundamental marketing practices, such as user-friendly websites, fast and reliable/mobile-friendly websites, search engine optimization, social media engagement, content marketing and data-driven revenue management, in maintaining a hotel’s competitive advantage in the dynamic world of hospitality.

The findings suggest that hoteliers need to strike a balance between embracing emerging technologies and maintaining traditional marketing fundamentals to remain competitive and drive revenue growth. This integrated approach ensures long-term success in the ever-evolving hospitality landscape.

This paper bridges the gap between academia and industry practitioners by providing practical insights and implications that can be applied directly to hotels’ marketing and operational practices. The paper highlights the importance of balancing innovation with fundamental marketing strategies, emphasizing the need for an integrated approach to ensure long-term success in the ever-evolving world of hotel sales, marketing and revenue optimization – as well as those same tools in a plethora of hospitality and tourism venues working alongside the accommodations sector.

探讨新兴技术（如虚拟现实、语音搜索、人工智能、机器人技术和元宇宙）对酒店销售、营销和收入优化的影响。

本文结合发表在《酒店旅游科技杂志》（JHTT）的文章和行业案例, 研究了创新技术在酒店销售、营销和收入优化策略中的整合, 以及基础实践在确保长期成功方面的作用。

分析表明, 创新技术可以显著增强客户参与度, 简化预订流程, 并开拓新的收入来源。此外, 文章强调了基本营销实践, 如用户友好的网站、快速可靠/移动友好的网站、搜索引擎优化、社交媒体参与、内容营销和数据驱动的收入管理, 在保证酒店在充满变化的行业竞争中维持优势的重要性。

研究结果表明, 酒店经营者需要在使用新兴技术和保持传统营销基本原则之间取得平衡, 以保持竞争力并推动收入增长。这种综合方法确保在不断发展的酒店销售、营销和收入优化领域取得长期成功。

本文通过提供可直接应用于酒店营销和运营实践的实际见解和影响, 弥合了学术界与行业从业者之间的鸿沟。文章强调了创新与基本营销策略的平衡的重要性, 强调了综合方法的必要性, 以确保在不断发展的酒店销售、营销和收入优化领域取得长期成功, 以及这些工具在众多酒店和旅游场所与住宿部门一起工作的多样性领域中的应用。