Search results

This study aims to examine the components and evolution of the Chinese wine festival market using the Dalian International Wine and Dine Festival (DIWDF) as a case study.

Adopting a longitudinal approach, survey data were collected from attendees of the first, fifth and seventh DIWDF in 2012, 2016 and 2018, respectively. Cluster analysis segmented attendees by wine and festival experience and consumption features. Comparative analysis was conducted to examine segment differences by demography, festival motivation, satisfaction and intention. Changes in segments over time were examined across the three times.

The following three clusters were identified: “wine-novice fest-newbies,” “occasional drinker fest-goers” and “wine-lover fest-enthusiasts.” Over the study period, the proportion of “wine-lover fest-enthusiasts” increased significantly while the percentages of the other two segments decreased, demonstrating the evolution of the Chinese wine festival market and their consumer impacts.

This study offers straightforward indicators of market value via consumption features for both wine businesses and festival organizers. The characteristics of the segments and their inter-linkage have important implications for developing product mix, targeting strategies, festival service design and market development.

This is the first known empirical research globally to investigate relationships among market segments both horizontally (differences between segments) and vertically (development over time) and to incorporate both wine- and festival-related consumption features.

This research aims to explore the strategies and tactics taken by five-star hotels to create and sustain competitiveness at difficult times, the role of innovation among the initiatives taken and the factors that influence managers’ decision in selection of coping measures.

The research was conducted in two stages. The first stage focused on textual analysis of online news reports on luxury hotels’ coping strategies taken between 2013 and 2018. At the second stage, expert interviews were carried out with 25 managers of five-star hotels to obtain richer information of hotels’ responsive measures. The qualitative data were analyzed by thematic analysis.

The results revealed that five-star hotels in China made adjustment in physical resource management, human resource management, marketing mix, operation process and external relations to maintain competitiveness during difficult times. A model of hotel resilience was developed based on the findings. Innovation was imbedded in the responsive measures throughout these areas. Managers’ selection of coping measures was affected by the hotel’s organizational culture, location, brand image and competitors.

The model of hotel resilience serves as a useful reference to plan and select strategies and tactics to respond to similar external challenges. Hotel managers are recommended to embrace a variety of innovations directed at both internal management and customer service during challenging times.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical research that systematically examines the measures taken by hotels during critical times to maintain competitiveness, linking these to contemporary post-Fordist operational trends.

The two year INHALE Project, begun in November 2000 at the University of Huddersfield, is one of forty‐four projects supported nationally by the JISC as part of the DNER (Distributed National Electronic Resource) learning and teaching development programme. This article describes the creation, design, utilization and evaluation of the project’s innovative interactive information retrieval skill materials.

Examines the links between world class manufacturing and the levels of worker competence required to achieve high rates of continuous improvement. First identifies the principles involved; second, shows how 82 plants in the UK East Midlands region approached the achievement of worker competences and how they did and did not link them with competitive strategy. Concludes with an outline of how plants can improve this key linkage. Data for this project were collected via 82 postal questionnaires which were followed up with interviews of the managing or manufacturing directors of plants. All the plants had over 100 employees per site and were manufacturing or assembly based.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges for policymakers at both the international and national levels in the twenty-first century; there is no exception for the tourism industry, which is one of the most highly climate sensitive sectors. Tourism researchers have continued to explore the relationship between sustainable tourism and climate change to develop a range of effective strategies for policymakers. This paper aims to review published literature in the areas of sustainable tourism and climate change.

The review maps sustainable tourism and climate change domains between 1996 and 8 January 2016. The review encompasses 95 published documents obtained from the Scopus database on 8 January 2016. The search terms were “Sustainable Tourism” and “Climate Change” combined with Boolean Operator “AND” in the “Article Title, Abstract, Keywords”.

The outcomes of this study are: Identification of trends in research and the most influential papers on sustainable tourism associated with climate change research; evaluation of the contribution of authors, journals and institutions in this area; and guidance for policymakers to develop policies to mitigate the impact of tourist activities on climate change.

The study provides a basis for communication between academics and practitioners by revealing the research trends in sustainable tourism and climate change and by categorizing the contents of prior studies to provide guidance for future studies.

The originality of this paper is in determining possible research gaps and thereby providing guidance for future study. The study also makes a practical contribution by addressing the topics of interest to policymakers.

Difficulties in defining stepfamily roles remain an important issue for its members. A potentially important factor in defining roles in the family is the identification with a particular gender type and how it relates to one's expectations about one's place in the family system. The purpose of this paper is to explore how gender typing processes inform our understanding of the stepmother role construction process, and its link with stepfamily adjustment.

Semi‐structured interview data from six androgynous and six feminine stepmothers were selected based on gender type identification.

Results from this analysis were analyzed using a phenomenological approach, and are presented with the intent to explore how gender typing processes inform our understanding of the stepmother role construction process, and its link with stepfamily adjustment.

Gender typing has not been studied in the context of stepmother families, even though research on stepmothers’ adjustment has highlighted the ambiguous nature of their role in the stepfamily. Additionally, while qualitative inquiry continues to represent the favoured paradigm in the emerging area of stepmother research, studies of this type remain limited in scope.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an insight into the purpose and development of responsible and sustainable tourism. Moreover, to present a critique of existing approach taken and to provide industry solutions towards key aspects, such as nature area tourism, eco‐tourism, and rural development/tourism.

In doing so, the paper will reconcile elements of responsible tourism and ecology within destination management. Whilst within a context of the tourism industry, the article will present a best practice approach for industry.

Sustainable and responsible rural tourism development is unachievable without the application of ecological thinking. Consequently, tourism ecology naturally helps develop the tourism of rural areas based on local natural, social and cultural resources. Nevertheless, it is also an expectation that actors of the system, i.e. tourists must continue an active and responsibly sustainable practice.

Sustenance of tourism is a double task: industry has to provide long‐term reservation and guarantee that entrepreneurs' input of capital will return and at the same time, improve their economic prospects. Sustainable tourism has to be endurable and economically executable on the long term, but at the same time, it has to be socially and ethically fair in relation to the host community.

This viewpoint presents an insight into tourism ecology from a variety of disciplines to form a rational approach to contemporary sustainable tourism.

Drawing on research in the worlds of advertising, magazines and fashion, this paper discusses how celebrities mediate between different fields of cultural production. By focusing on celebrity endorsements in advertising, it also outlines how film actors and actresses, athletes, models, pop singers, sportsmen and women mediate between producers and consumers via the products and services that they endorse. As economic mediators, celebrities’ actions have important strategic and financial implications for the corporations whose products they endorse. As cultural mediators, they give commodities personalities and perform across different media, linking different cultural fields into an integrated name economy.

The prediction of critical velocity at instability threshold for shell and tube heat exchangers is important to avoid failure of tubes as a result of flow-induced vibrations due to water cross flow. The flow-induced vibration in finned tube heat exchangers is affected by various parameters such as fin height, fin pitch, fin material, tube array, pitch ratio, fin type, fluid velocity etc. In this paper, an experimental investigation of fluid elastic instability in shell and tube heat exchangers is carried out by subjecting normal square finned tube arrays of pitch ratio 1.79 to water cross flow.

The five tube arrays, namely plain array, two finned tube arrays with 3 fpi and 9 fpi fin density, and two finned tube arrays with 3 mm and 6 mm fin height are tested in the experimental test setup with water flow loop and vibration measurement system. The research objective is to evaluate the effect of fin density and fin height on the instability threshold. The critical velocity at instability threshold is determined to characterize the fluid elastic instability behavior of different tube arrays. The vortex shedding behavior of the tube arrays is also studied by determining Strouhal number corresponding to the small peaks before fluid elastic instability.

The fluid elastic instability behavior of the tube arrays was found to be the function of fin tube parameters. The experimental results indicate that an increase in fin density and fin height results in delaying the instability threshold for finned tube arrays. It is also observed that critical velocity at instability is increased for finned tube arrays compared to plain tube arrays of the same pitch ratio. The design modifications in the outer box have resulted in further reduction in the natural frequency. This enabled to reach clear instability for all the five-tube arrays.

The research data add the value to the present body of knowledge by knowing the effect of fin height and fin density on the fluid elastic instability threshold of normal square finned tube arrays subjected to water cross flow.