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This paper analyses children's experiences of school or family visits to Hare Krishna eco-farms in Europe. The article evaluates the extent to which these encounters enable retention and recollection of memories and, consequently, trigger change towards more sustainable behaviour.

Participatory research, qualitative observations and theories of childhood memory are used to explore the nature of children's environmental encounters on Hare Krishna eco-tours.

Findings reveal that Krishna eco-tours offer a conducive environment for cerebral registering and future reminiscing through the following components: experiential learning of sustainable practices which are radically different to mainstream alternatives, sensory experiences, nature play and entertainment and freedom from everyday constraints.

The emerging literature on children's eco-tourism has largely focussed on market-related aspects and farmers' needs. In contrast, the authors’ conceptual framework, based on contemporary research in childhood memories, offers a tool to evaluate the impacts of eco-tourism from a more holistic perspective.

This paper is based on several years of ethnographic and desk-based research studying the Hare Krishna movement. The work is the first in a series exploring how segments of specific faith communities embrace dietary veganism and how this relates to the concept of transformational learning/change in the context of sustainability transitions. The focus is on how these communities embrace a plant-based diet representing different rationales and attitudes of learning in the process of organisational change.

I investigated Krishna practices extensively by visiting and volunteering in several of its farm communities in Europe. I used the mixed method of qualitative observations, participation, in-depth interviews and email interviews during a period of ten weeks spent in the communities altogether. I had not been in contact with Hare Krishna believers before the fieldwork.

Krishna veganism is analysed in the context of sustainability transitions by drawing on the concept of transformative (third-order) learning/change. Findings reveal an unexpected tendency to veganism despite the movement's worldview and radical commitment to dairy consumption. By calling into question their own collective dietary paradigm, the Hare Krishna community provides an exemplary case of third-order learning and change in an organisational context.

The paper invites scholars to include third-order learning into sustainability transitions frameworks while aiming to address the shortcomings of theorising levels of learning. The connection between Krishna veganism, third-order learning and sustainability transitions has not been put forward before.

The role of children and young people is not outlined in the sustainability transitions literature. The aim of this work is to illustrate the significance of young people's agency by showcasing Hare Krishna eco-farms organising cultural/eco-spiritual events. This work forms part of a wider sustainability study focussing on food in spiritual communities in Europe. Data were collected through observation and interviews on three Hare Krishna farms. The agency of children and youths and the significance of their presence at eco-events emerged as an unexpected theme. Findings show that Hare Krishna events in Europe are visited by a relatively high number of children and young people who learn about more sustainable practices through extracurricular activities. By describing the cognitive and experiential encounters, the authors draw attention to the significance of children's involvement in ecologically geared events in the context of sustainability transitions.

As there has been no research about specific Indian temples, the aim of this paper is to explore the role of technology and commercial factors at ISKCON temple in the National Capital Region, in enhancing the tourists' experience. ISKCON temple, New Delhi, has been the pioneer in implementing technology as a tool for augmenting spirituality and Krishna consciousness amongst visitors but it has been unable to excel in the same. Along with technology, various commercial aspects are also exclusively operative at the temple. This paper highlights the confluence of technology and commercial elements at the temple and their role in creating a satisfying visitor experience. The paper recommends changes that will help the temple's policy makers/management in developing superlative tourist experiences.

The paper explores a strategic question by interacting with the key stakeholders. More specifically, interviews with policy makers, temple committee members and devotees, have been conducted along with a questionnaire which has led to data collection from the customers.

Identified gaps in the technology and commercial factors that are currently in place at the ISKCON temple. A customer survey highlights key expectations of visitors, bringing out the satisfaction level of the visitors with their integrated experience at the ISKCON temple, New Delhi.

ISKCON temple attracts global tourists giving it a cosmopolitan nature. This research paper creates awareness amongst all the policy makers and temple management about ways to craft an outstanding as well as magnetizing experience for the visitors.

India has a legacy of spiritual destinations that have been attracting international and domestic tourists. In the light of this fact, it becomes critical to identify the factors and elements that enhance the cultural, spiritual as well as overall customer experience at these religious destinations.

This paper aims to explore the ways in which religious tourism in India fosters religious tolerance.

The paper uses a conceptual apparatus derived from the basic structure of religious tourism comprising motivation, journey and destination, to understand various aspects of tolerance. Tolerance, with the implicit meaning of diversity and pluralism, is examined at two levels – intra-religion and inter-religion – using field investigations from three Hindu pilgrimage sites, namely, Vrindavan, Tuljapur, Shegaon and review of one Muslim site called Ajmer Sharif. These sites exhibit a range of combinations, sectarian traditions within Hindu and their interactions with others, including Muslims and foreigners.

Each of the sites provides different sets of opportunities for the “others” to get exposed to religious and cultural aspects. It is found that tolerance within the Hindu sects and with non-Hindus from other religious faiths is a function of their engagement with cultural performances and participation in the religious tourism economy in a pilgrimage site.

On a broader level, this paper argues that conceptualising tolerance within a social and cultural sphere helps in a better understanding of tolerance and identifying areas within religious tourism where it can be promoted. A conscious effort to promote tolerance through religious tourism will add value to religious tourism and help it thrive.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a background on developments in hospitality and tourism in India and its contribution to economic growth.

The paper discusses the importance of customer experience and provides insights on destination management approaches. It reviews the factors beyond the control of a specific service provider which impact the consumer experience. The paper also discusses the tourism potential for selected spiritual and cultural sites and gives an overview of the approach followed to assess consumer experience at each of these locations.

The paper focuses on elements that contribute to consumer experience at selected spiritual and cultural places. It also focuses on technology and its impact on creating a superior experience. Further, aspects of infrastructure and hygiene are also reviewed.

The paper explores spiritual and cultural tourism in the context of India where there is very little formal research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to consider a General System Configuration (GSC), whose particular cases are all the popular system configurations. In reliability engineering one comes across various system configurations, for example, series, parallel and k‐out of‐m system models, which consist of a number of components.

The paper gives a general approach to express the reliability properties of the whole system in terms of component parameters. The reliability of a GSC is expressed as a polynomial of the component reliability. Lifetime data on components have been used to estimate the system reliability characteristics through classical and Bayes estimation procedures.

The paper finds that the underlying distribution is assumed to be Weibull and, in view of cost constraints, Type‐II censored information has been used.

The paper is useful for reliability practitioners as well as theoreticians. It provides an easy method to estimate the reliability of any system configuration.

Three types of estimation procedures for a general system configuration have been developed for the first time. The lifetimes of components are assumed to follow widely used Weibull distribution, whose particular case is the most popular exponential distribution.

This paper seeks to focus on the study and estimation of reliability characteristics of Maxwell distribution under Type‐II censoring scheme.

Maximum likelihood estimation and Bayes estimation methods have been used for the estimation of reliability characteristics. Monte‐Carlo simulation is used to compare the efficiency of the estimates developed by these estimation methods.

With prior information on the parameter of Maxwell distribution, Bayes estimation provides better estimates of reliability characteristics; otherwise Maximum likelihood estimation is good enough to use for reliability practitioners.

When items are costly, Type‐II censoring scheme can be used to save the cost of the experiment and the discussed methods provide the means to estimate the reliability characteristics of the proposed lifetime model under this scheme.

The study is useful for researchers and practitioners in reliability theory and also for scientists in physics and chemistry, where Maxwell distribution is widely used.