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The purpose of this study is to identify the reasons for visiting the urban park Antonis Tritsis in Athens, Greece, focusing on visitors’ motives and perceived characteristics of the park. When urban parks are located in areas that are particularly densely populated are characterized as green lungs and are easily accessible to the residents of the municipality. Therefore, the aim of the study is to analyze both the motives and perceived characteristics that visitors attribute in the case of the biggest urban park in Athens, Greece.

The survey was conducted from August 2018 to March 2019 and the responses of 377 visitors were collected. Antonis Tritsis Park is the largest metropolitan park in the Attica, Greece. A principal component factor analysis was used and two-factor models were developed to determine the reasons for visiting the Tritsis Park.

The application of factor analysis revealed the presence of three components in case of the motives for the visit and six components concerning the perceived characteristics of the park. Results suggest that visitors’ motives are related to environmental and social benefits. The park contributes to increased real estate value. Educational and cultural activities are also found as important benefits, whereas lack of safety and limited infrastructure are considered important barriers to revisit the park.

Recognizing the motivations of visitors, policymakers will be able to configure the park infrastructure according to the stated preferences.

Recognizing the motivations of visitors and the perceived characteristics of the park, policymakers will be able to configure the park infrastructure according to the stated preferences. If the services provided by the Tritsis Park are based on the preferences of its visitors, their satisfaction can be maximized and consequently improve the quality of life and contribute to sustainable development.

The innovation of the study is to analyze not only the perceived positive characteristics of the park but also barriers that affect visitors’ revisit intention toward the urban park of Antonis Tritsis. This is important in the case of metropolitan areas because the researchers understand what benefits are provided to them and how public administration should manage barriers to visiting urban parks so as to promote effective sustainability.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) generate different impacts at the urban scale, such as the ability to regulate water or store carbon, comparable to traditional, gray infrastructures in a more cost-efficient way. On the other hand, by their intrinsic nature, NBS do deliver a series of other services that are commonly defined as social, economic, and environmental cobenefits. These benefits are not always valued in a consistent and complete way, so there is the need to compile a more comprehensive evidence base on the social, economic, and environmental effectiveness of NBS. The chapter attempts to identify a categorization of the existing NBS and define the ecosystem services (ES) provided by them. Furthermore, starting from the results achieved through the definition of the existing NBS frameworks assessment, the chapter will identify a set of key performance indicators KPIs, based on the ES produced by NBS, to measure the economic, social, and environmental benefits generated in by NBS at the urban level taking into account their multifunctional character. In total, 66 key performance indicators have been individuated: 3 for provisioning services, 38 for regulating services, 17 for cultural services, and 8 for supporting services. Each indicator has been associated to a category of ES in order to measure and evaluate the performances of NBS implemented in cities.

The study aimed to investigate the role of staged authenticity on guests' overall experience when visiting a theme park. It also assessed their evaluative perception of the “real experience” versus the “staged experience.” In addition, the study explored the variables that may predict guest's perceived level of authenticity, realism and truth when experiencing “reproduced” landmarks at a theme park.

The study's setting was the World Showcase at Disney's Epcot theme park that features well-known “staged” landmarks. The study adopted a theoretical framework initially developed by Naoi that measures guests' perceived authenticity at tourist attractions. Personal interviews were conducted with 336 local residents, domestic and international tourists in Central Florida using a structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS and included descriptive statistics, t-tests, and multiple regression analysis.

Patrons' overall experience at Epcot's World Showcase was perceived to be “unique,” “authentic,” “fantasy,” “exotic,” “adventurous,” “secure,” “safe” and “sanitary.” Respondents also perceived the country pavilions to be “truthful,” the architecture to be “realistic” and the ethnic food to be “authentic.” Respondents' perceived level of authenticity, realism, and truthfulness was predicted by their travel experience, visiting experience to Epcot and other Central Florida's theme parks, demographic characteristics, and several variables that measured perceived authenticity.

The study was conducted in the world's third busiest theme park and therefore, guests' perception of “staged authenticity” may be different in other theme parks. The instrument used was adopted from studies that were not conducted in the theme park industry. The study provided a theoretical contribution on the measurement and prediction of guests' level of perceived authenticity when visiting a theme park. This theoretical framework can be extended to other hospitality operations that present “staged authenticity” settings like hotels, restaurants, festivals, events, retail outlets and more. The findings may also be useful for investors, designers, operators, and marketing executives when developing “staged authenticity” experiences for different market segments.

With the continuing growth of the global theme park industry, coupled with its high capital investment in architecture and design, it is necessary to investigate the impact of “staged authenticity” attributes on the overall guest experience.

The purpose of this study is to identify the influence of perceived brand color emotions on perceived brand creativity, assess the influence of perceived brand creativity on utilitarian and hedonic values, measure the impact of hedonic and utilitarian values on brand loyalty and evaluate the role of different theme park color schemes in influencing these relationships.

The study modeled the proposed relationships by analyzing data from an online survey using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Respondents were presented with different color schemes to induce certain emotions before answering questions.

The results showed that the valence and arousal of emotions incited by various colors lead to a perception of creativity for theme park products, which then influence both utilitarian and hedonic values and thus brand loyalty. When the model was compared for seven different color schemes for a theme park brand, differences seem sporadic rather than systematic.

The online nature and timing of the study may have prohibited authentic reactions from consumers as the US theme park industry is currently in its recovery mode.

While the results did not identify a specific preferred color scheme, theme park executives should continue using a variety of color combinations to generate visitor perceptions of novelty and creativity that would impact their perceived hedonistic and utilitarian values.

The study empirically tests color influences on a brand’s perceived creativity and its consequences on a brand’s utilitarian and hedonic values and brand loyalty.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate and analyze hourly line-level employees' characteristics and their perceptions of their employment experience in large US theme parks and attractions, as well as to explore predictors for their retention.

The research instrument adopted a theoretical framework based on previous retention studies of hourly employees in various industries. Following a qualitative phase with theme park employees, the survey was tailored to the uniqueness of the industry. Since major theme park companies are protective of their employee database, a “snowball” sampling technique was adopted using a variety of Social Networking Sites (SNS). A total of 307 usable responses were attained.

The results indicated that of the 27 employment characteristics studied, the most important were perceived to be advancement opportunities, humane approach to employees, and a fun and challenging job. Importance-Performance analysis revealed that the largest gaps were recorded in the areas of pay, advancement opportunities, and a humane approach to employees. The results also confirmed that hourly employees' retention was predicted by employees' level of satisfaction, better experience with pay, and better experience with employee development training classes. However, hourly employee retention was also predicted by the employees' negative experience with flexible working hours and performance reviews.

Data collection through Social Networking Sites (SNS) may not necessarily be as reliable a source for data collection as other methodologies, though some contemporary research justifies its reliability. Utilizing the “snowball” technique and the absence of random sampling may have slanted the responses. Although demographic data on the typical theme park employee is unavailable, the data was skewed towards younger employees who may not necessarily represent other age groups. Due to the US theme park industry's leading presence in Central Florida, the sample primarily represented hourly employees working for the Central Florida theme park industry.

As the labor pool continues to decline, employers must adopt new creative strategies to keep their employees and attract new ones at the same time. This may be attained by developing and revising mission statements, values, and corporate visions that may be applicable to hourly employees: the largest labor segment in the theme park and attraction industry.

While recent hospitality turnover research focused on its antecedents, this study explores the predictors of why employees stay. Previous retention studies have focused on hotels or restaurants and not on the unique group of theme park hourly employees that work in different settings and employment conditions. Knowing why people stay can help reduce turnover and thus lower the cost of staffing.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

This paper aims to explore theme park visitors’ attitudes toward interacting with robots and investigated the qualities and functions of robotic servers and their influence on customers’ loyalty. A structural equation modeling approach was used to identify the complex relationships among variables in the entire network.

An online survey randomly assigned respondents to four different robotic server scenarios with robots that look like humans, animals, cartoon characters and anime features. The influence of robot types was investigated by manipulating robot type with four different pictures; however, the data were analyzed with a structural equation modeling model to identify the complex relationships rather than one-way analysis of variance to identify influences of robot types on different variables in separate analyzes.

The data collected from the 385 experienced theme park visitors revealed that perception of robots with human orientation and safety qualities had the strongest effect on the perceived robotic functionality, while emotions and co-creation qualities hardly had any effect on the perceived functionality, which included utilitarian rather than experiential functions such as excitement. Human orientation qualities, regardless of the specific robotic design, had a significant impact on perceived robotic functionality. The study also revealed a strong positive influence of perceived robotic functionality on customer loyalty.

The debate of whether or not to introduce and blend the growing robotic technology into the theme park experience is in its infancy. The study contributes to the theory of how robotics qualities and functions can augment customer loyalty.

Online consumer reviews play an important role in influencing consumers' purchasing decisions by providing a wealth of information about products and services. Framed by uncertainty reduction theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine consumer perceptions of online consumer reviews and effects on consumer attitudes and usage behaviors in relation to individual characteristics.

Data were randomly collected from 1,930 US online consumer review users using an online survey.

The researchers found that consumers perceived both benefits and costs from online consumer reviews and that both benefits and costs influenced consumer attitudes toward, and usage behaviors of, online consumer reviews. Individual characteristics – confidence in the information process and consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence – were shown to determine how online consumer reviews were perceived.

The results provide insight to retailers and marketers as to how they can use consumer reviews for their products or services to improve business performance.

The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.

This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.

This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

The aim of this study was to investigate the differences in the perception of service quality among various demographic and behavioural visitor segments within the theme park tourism market.

A quantitative survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire which was distributed to 655 theme park visitors. Different groups of visitors were identified through the use of cluster analysis based on the evaluation of both demographic variables and a number of behavioural factors associated with their characteristics in terms of “time and cost” allocations for visits to a theme park.

The findings confirm that differences in demographic characteristics significantly affect perceptions of visitors as demonstrated in the way they are likely to evaluate importance and performance factors in a theme park’s delivery of services. In contrast, behavioural segmentation in terms of time allocation and associated expenditure is unlikely to produce significant differences in the visitors’ perceptions of the level of service provided.

Although there are many studies related to visitors’ perceived service quality, none of them use the same methodology as applied in this study of theme park industry. The research results reveal important implications for the theme park industry because of this new understanding of the segmentation differences for visitor-perceived service quality. By directing attention of management to these differences, improvements in service quality perceptions can more readily be achieved.