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The aim of this research is to investigate the impact of thermal, acoustic and HVAC upgrades on the perception of the quality of life among residential building occupants.

The present study used a quantitative research approach, utilizing a questionnaire as the research instrument. A survey was conducted with 1,119 residential apartment building occupants in Prishtina, Kosovo, using a stratified random sampling method for selection of participants.

The present study used quantitative research with a questionnaire as the research instrument. The survey was conducted with 1,119 residential apartment building occupants in Prishtina, Kosovo, using stratified random sampling. The study found that thermal retrofits, acoustic retrofits and HVAC upgrades as a whole model affect the perception of the quality of life of residential building occupants in Prishtina, Kosovo. However, the study found that not all dimensions of the constructed research model (thermal, acoustic and HVAC) affect the perception of the quality of life of residential building occupants. Specifically, thermal retrofitting seems to strongly influence the perception of quality of life, while HVAC upgrades do not seem to have an impact on the quality of life of occupants. Finally, acoustic retrofits also influence the perception of the quality of life, although not to the same degree as thermal retrofitting.

The present study contributes to understanding the role that thermal retrofits, acoustic retrofits and HVAC upgrades play in the perception of quality of life by building occupants in an understudied region with a booming real estate sector such as Kosovo. The study also highlights the need for further analysis to understand why HVAC upgrades do not seem to influence the perception of quality of life by residential building occupants in Kosovo.

The present study is the first to quantify the impact of thermal, acoustic and HVAC upgrades on the perception of the quality of life of residential building occupants in Prishtina, Kosovo.

The purpose of this paper is to explore cultural tourism investment and resident quality of life in the Midwestern city of Indianapolis, Indiana. It is important to understand from a cultural tourism perspective how further attempts to grow and invest in tourism will affect resident perception of quality of life and future cultural tourism investment.

To achieve this goal, data from the 2012 Indianapolis Quality of Life survey was statistically analyzed to specifically examine how residents’ perceived quality of life affects cultural tourism investment. This allows for the study of what city-service attributes (i.e. safety, attractions, transportation, etc.) identify as potential indicators of whether residents’ perception of quality of life affects cultural tourism investment and if there were any correlations between demographic factors of age, gender, ethnicity, and household income with the perception that investing in cultural events and attractions for tourists is good for residents.

Results indicated that several key city-service attributes identify as potential indicators of whether residents’ perception of quality of life in Indianapolis affects residents’ perceptions that investing in cultural tourism for tourists is good for residents. Furthermore, excluding perceptions of cultural tourism investment, several key city-service attributes identified as potential indicators of residents’ perception of quality of life in Indianapolis. Finally, results indicated that demographic factors of gender, age, ethnicity, and income were not significant when it came to affecting the perception that investing in cultural events and attractions for tourists is good for residents.

The findings of this study have unique academic and applied implications in the continued study of tourism in Indianapolis, Indiana. This study provided research related to the study of quality of life in Indianapolis and reported statistics for the 2012 Indianapolis Quality of Life survey. The data and statistical analysis reported in this study will serve as valuable information for future endeavors concerning cultural tourism and quality of life in Indianapolis. The identification of city-service attributes that significantly impact resident perception of quality of life and city-service attributes that, in conjunction with resident perception of quality of life, affect how residents perceive cultural tourism investments is important information that can be utilized by future researchers, tourism planners, and policymakers in Indianapolis. The analysis revealed what city-service attributes are important to residents of Indianapolis and demographic factors that affect resident perception of quality of life. The continued examination of these city-service attributes may help to identify areas of public service that need to be improved.

This study demonstrates that resident level of awareness pertaining to the benefits of cultural tourism investment are relatively low. Tourism planners, officials, and researchers can utilize this knowledge to better facilitate methods to gain resident support for cultural tourism investment and development. In addition, this research can be utilized to better understand the needs of residents and how tourism and various city-services impact their quality of life. If cultural tourism planners and other tourism officials better understand methods to gain resident support for cultural tourism investment then they can maximize economic and cultural tourism gains for the city.

This case study specifically focussed on cultural tourism to better present data regarding this issue; however, the authors believe future studies that examine both cultural and sports tourism could be beneficial. Aspects such as city-services and resident perception of quality of life could be examined from both cultural and sports tourism perspectives. This approach could produce beneficial results regarding cultural and sports tourism investment and potentially highlight demographic characteristics unique to cultural tourism and sports tourism supporters in the city of Indianapolis.

Being awarded world heritage status is a distinguishing factor when it comes to promoting tourism in a city. Tourism in these cities should be developed in a way that does not compromise either the city’s heritage or the inhabitants' quality of life. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of a European city achieving world heritage status on the subjective quality of life of its citizens.

First of all, we classify European cities according to whether or not they have been declared world heritage sites. Then, we analyze the effect of this classification on the main aspects used to measure the residents' perception of quality of life that are available in the Flash Eurobarometer 419.

The results show that achieving world heritage status has a negative effect on residents' perceptions of the noise level, air quality and feeling of safety. However, it does not affect their perceptions of public transport or cleanliness. In addition, world heritage status positively affects residents’ perceptions of the cultural activities in the city and their ease of finding a job. Residents report high levels of happiness in both world heritage and non-heritage cities, although levels are somewhat higher in non-heritage cities.

Residents' perceptions of the influence of tourism on their quality of life are undoubtedly of major importance; however, due to a lack of available data, few studies have examined this subjective quality of life at the city level.

Consumer behavior, in the context of general insurance, is worth exploring to formulate growth strategies for insurance sector in India in light of the proposed structural changes. Indian consumers attract global players due to untapped potential and favorable policy measures initiated for higher foreign direct investments. The purpose of this paper is to understand the prevailing level of service quality as perceived by insurance customers in India in the presence of certain contextual antecedents and moderators.

Perceptions about constructs like customer risk dispositions, awareness, past experiences, customer involvement, choice overload, service quality and satisfaction of 256 customers were collected using a questionnaire survey. A variance-based structural equation modeling helped to identify significant linkages among the constructs.

In order to assess service quality levels, a 15-item scale having the infrastructure, employees, agents and product dimensions was found valid and reliable. Choice overload and customer involvement were found to moderate the influence of antecedents and service quality, respectively. The influence of choice overload on quality perceptions is insignificant. The study concludes that the existing risk beliefs are insufficient, and experiences have less predictive contribution to quality perceptions.

Theoretically, this study examined the process of satisfaction development from service quality perceptions. This study offers insights for developing theories to portray future consumer behavior where more dependence of self-service technologies is expected to dominate service delivery mechanisms in insurance. The study informs that general insurance customers in India prefer more diversified products, more customer-centric employees/agents and better technical quality.

The findings of this study contribute to the understanding of the prevailing insurance consumer behavior in the general insurance sector of India and help insurance service providers in streamlining their strategies for better insurance penetration and reduced lapse rate.

This study helps in understanding the emerging trends in general insurance buying behavior in India.

The purpose of this study is to examine hotel industry employees’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the influence of these perceptions on their quality of working life (QWL), job satisfaction and overall quality of life. By applying need satisfaction theory and bottom–up spillover theory, the study hypothesizes that employees’ overall quality of life is affected by QWL and job satisfaction. CSR serves as an antecedent to the hypothesis.

The target population for this study consisted of hotel industry employees working for companies in which CSR practices are conducted. The data collection method involved distributing a survey questionnaire. Using a sample drawn from employees in upscale hotels in South Korea, 442 usable responses were analyzed using a SEM approach.

The results revealed that philanthropic and economic CSR positively affected QWL, while legal and ethical CSR did not affect QWL. The study also confirms the need satisfaction theory, which suggests that employees’ QWL and job satisfaction affect their overall quality of life.

Despite the importance of CSR perception, most of the previous studies in this area have examined company and customer perspectives, while only limited research has examined employees’ CSR perceptions. The results of this research enrich knowledge of the outcome of CSR from the employee perspective. Information about employees’ perceptions of CSR activities is valuable for hotel management as it is the employees who turn CSR statements to actions.

The purpose of this study is to understand the residents’ perception towards environmental, social, cultural and economic impacts of tourism development in Kashmir.

The research instrument containing 27 items pertaining to six variables is adopted from the literature. A mix-method survey approach is used to solicit residents’ perceptions regarding environmental, social, cultural and economic impacts of the current level of tourism development. A total of 326 useful responses were subjected to descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post hoc analysis using SPSS (Version 22.0).

In general, the negative and positive impacts of tourism development are well perceived by the residents. The results indicate that the residents display positive perception regarding economic impacts, however, social and environmental impacts are negatively perceived. Furthermore, barring level of education, the study found no significant difference in the residents’ perception towards tourism impacts (environmental, social, cultural, economic, quality of life and cost of living).

The paper identifies perceived impacts and issues of tourism development thereby, proposing possible mitigating measures. Also, the study identifies the need to develop a comprehensive policy framework addressing the issues related to the resident’s negative feelings towards tourism impacts. Further, the study envisages the need for engaging residents in developing a progressive and participatory planning process for future tourism activities in the area.

The study offers critical social implications for city tourism development. It suggests a community-based approach should be adopted to sensitize residents about the positive benefits of tourism.

The study is a novel attempt concerning residents’ residents perceptual differences towards tourism impacts. Furthermore, this study investigated socio-cultural impacts of tourism under two separate categories for better understanding. in doing so, this study provides finer understanding of perception of residents towards tourism impacts in Indian context. The findings of the study will prove critical for different stakeholders in developing future tourism framework and policies in the region.

This paper aims to determine the significance of tourist walkability on three community-based tourism sustainability indicators, namely, the economic, social and environmental benefits and costs impacting community’s quality of life through the lens of the triple bottom line approach with the institutional theory.

This study views institutions as either enabling or restricting the sustainable community-based tourism because institutions influence resource integration and value assessment by the beneficiary. Moreover, institutions also lead the co-creation of sustainable community-based tourism among various stakeholders. Drawing on this conceptualisation, the notion of sustainable community-based tourism is filtered through the lens of institutional theory. Thus, this work approaches sustainable community-based tourism as a dynamic process of co-creating a tourist destination formed by different actors’ and institutions within the ecosystem of the tourist destination. Meanwhile, the triple bottom line benefits and costs experienced by the overall community would produce net effects on the residents’ perceptions of sustainable tourism.

This paper classifies both tangible and intangible costs and benefits because of tourist walkability and its triple bottom line trade-offs experienced by tourists and residents. This paper penetrates new grounds by reviewing the triple bottom line impacts of tourist walkability on residents’ quality of life. Government policies as mediating variable and national culture and individual personalities of tourists and residents as moderating variables were discussed. A conceptual framework named Tourist Walkability Sustainable Tourism Impact on Residents (TWSTIR) is proposed. Finally, a Sustainable Community-based Tourism Strategic (SCBTS) model which is based on the two dimensions of intensity of tourist walkability and residents’ quality of life is proposed.

Research limitations may include a lack of assessment on political, technological and legal issues, and therefore, future research is warranted in these three areas. Some emotions and attitudes of the residents may not be captured since the Gross National Index (Gross National Happiness) may have its inherent blind spots.

This paper would be of interest to the scholarly world, as its original idea and concluding research agenda are burrowing into a new sub-field of tourism research. In view of growth and degrowth of sustaining community-based tourism, the SCBTS model is presented to provide directions for tourism policymakers and entrepreneurs to formulate and implement appropriate strategy for the tourist walkability activity per se and investment in the accompanying infrastructure.

This paper also presents the sacrifices and inequities in the communities and the relevance of government policies, national culture and individual personalities of tourists and residents, in which the attention of tourism policymakers and the communities that thrive on the travel and tourism industry should not be neglected.

The idea and discussion of this paper is original. This paper burrows into a new sub-field of tourism research. Tourist walkability needs more attention from the scholars, as this tourist activity can have positive and negative effects on residents’ quality of life. The TWSTIR framework is developed to discuss the relationships of tourist walkability, triple bottom line concept and residents’ quality of life within the sustainable community-based tourism scope. The SCBTS model is presented for tourism policymakers and entrepreneurs to perform appropriate strategy for the tourist walkability activity and investment in the accompanying infrastructure.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the structural relationships between chain restaurant patrons' brand attitude, utilitarian value, hedonic value, well‐being perception, and behavioral intentions with the moderating role of involvement.

A review of the current literature in these areas revealed ten theoretical hypotheses, from which the authors derived a structural model. The model was tested utilizing data collected from 433 chain restaurant patrons. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were utilized to test the proposed theoretical relationships.

Data analysis indicates that brand attitude and hedonic value bear a positive impact on patrons' well‐being perception. However, it was revealed that utilitarian value does not have significant impact on patrons' well‐being perception. It was also found that well‐being perception is the most powerful determinant of patrons' positive behavioral intentions. More importantly, well‐being perception played a full mediating role in the relationship between hedonic value and behavioral intentions. Lastly, it was revealed that the moderating role of involvement in the relationships between well‐being perception and behavioral intentions is significant.

The findings emphasize the significance of the study variables in maximizing patrons' well‐being perception and in inducing positive behavioral intentions. Since there has been little study of consumer well‐being (CWB) in the chain restaurant industry, the model verified here may serve as a guide for future research aimed at understanding the formation of CWB and its potential impact on other marketing variables in the chain restaurant industry.

The model verified in this study is the first that explains the formation of CWB and its impact on patrons' behavioral intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the level of perceived health and quality of life of elderly prisoners in France, and to see whether there is a link between aging, time spent in prison and level of education and scores for perceived health and quality of life.

The authors’ recruited 138 male prisoners aged 50 and over in seven French prisons. The research protocol comprised a semi-structured interview and two scales.

The results revealed low levels of perceived health and quality of life among the elderly inmates. They also showed that age was not statistically associated with most of the dimensions of perceived health on the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP), with the exception of poor mobility. By contrast, age was statistically associated with most of the dimensions of quality of life on the WHOQOL-Bref. Time spent in prison was only associated negatively with the “sleep” dimension of the NHP. Emotional reactions were perceived most positively by the inmates with the highest level of education.

It seems particularly important to assess the perceived health and quality of life of elderly prisoners in order to ensure their appropriate treatment and management.

Very few studies have examined the perceived health and quality of life of prisoners, even though this population is particularly vulnerable in terms of physical and mental health.