This study is set within the context of the tourism and hospitality sector in Egypt, a popular and expanding tourism destination in the Middle East/North Africa. The study specifically investigates the impact of culture on expectations and perceptions of service quality in hotels. In the literature it has been pointed out that there is a shortage of studies focusing on the impact of culture on service quality. What research has been done generally indicates that expectations of service quality by an individual may vary according to whether that person is from a high or low power distance, and whether from a high context or low context, cultural background. With increasing competition in the hospitality sector service quality could be an important factor in gaining competitive advantage, and understanding cultural differences and can be helpful in dealing with customers from different backgrounds. Following a positivistic methodology and quantitative methods, an adapted version of the SERVQUAL questionnaire was administered to Arab and British hotel guests in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. Consequently 504 correctly completed copies were analysed using hypotheses testing and correlation analysis. To the five dimensions of SERVQUAL- tangibles, empathy, responsiveness, assurance and reliability-a sixth dimension of sustainability was also added. This was a novel idea. The findings showed that Arabs had, overall, lower expectations and perceptions of service quality than the British guests. This showed that there is a relationship between expectations of service quality and culture but that the finding could not be explained in terms of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions as the literature review generally suggests. Follow up interviews with hotel guests showed that the lower expectations of Arabs in general and Egyptians in particular, could be the result of their beliefs that Westerners are always treated better than Arabs by the hotel staff. The findings also show that environmentally friendly practices by hotels can be added as a dimension to SERVQUAL in respect of the hospitality sector.

The thesis contains two complementary strands of inquiry. On the one hand, there is an examination of the way leisure was included within a way of life; the home and the neighbourhood being key elements in this account. There is a description of the parameters set by paid and unpaid work on the extent of people's spare time, and what money they were able to spend during it. Note is taken of how patterns of activity and spending differed when childhood, youth and adulthood are compared. On the other hand, there is a survey of the provenance and growth of those institutions arising in the period, together with a picture of the progress of those already present by 1880. The six decades preceding 1939 witnessed a massive growth in the commercial provision for spare time activity; the pub, music hall, and railway companies provide a basis for this, but the cinema, dance hall, radio and gramophone soon outpace them. Over the same space of time, the church and secular societies cease to retain their role as an amenity and as a force for the organisation of people's spare time.

One public health approach to increase lifestyle physical activity is increasing choice to climb stairs instead of using the escalator or lift. Nonetheless, pedestrians in the built environment tend to avoid it. Proffitt’s economy of action model explained that pedestrian locomotor choices might influenced by perception. The first study (n=870) revisited Shaffer and Flint (2011) by asking participants to estimate the angle of an escalator. Participants reported an escalator that was moving upwards as less steep than a stationary one or one moving downwards. The second study (n=849), conducted in Indonesia, assessed the potential effects of temperature and humidity on a) speed of climbing an outdoor staircase and b) estimates of the angle. Chosen speed is an index of the allocation of resources. As temperature increased, speed of climbing reduced. For perception, both temperature and humidity influenced the explicit estimate of the angle; as climatic variables increased, perceptions became more exaggerated. Study three (n=730) and four (n=307), in the UK, are a concomitant study that investigated pedestrians’ behaviour approaching the choice-point and examined the relationship between behaviour choice and perceived steepness of a staircase. Results revealed that individuals who climbed the stairs walked faster than those who avoided them. Unlike a previous study, exaggeration of perceived steepness of the stairs did not affect pedestrians’ choice behaviour. Collectively, these findings suggest that availability energetic resources influence the overestimation of perceived steepness. In addition, natural variation in climate not only affects explicit perceptions but also directly influence both walking and climbing behaviour.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-218).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1981. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 360-370). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

The phenomenon of knitting groups is an increasingly widespread trend in urban settings. In this thesis, I argue that the resurgence of knitting groups in contemporary urban areas is the result of a nostalgic search for a sense of community within an otherwise complex and sometimes alienating urban landscape. Through ethnographic research in Atlanta, GA, I examine how women knitters whom I interviewed theorize their own interactions in the knitting community and the ways in which technology serves to facilitate these interactions. With lives revolving mainly around family and careers, the women who join knitting groups seek an escape from everyday life, friendship without strings, and the communal gathering focused around a leisure activity which holds social significance in daily life.

While the arts have gained a more prominent place in inclusive educational settings, inclusive arts programming in the context of community recreation requires further exploration. In my practice I have found that while inclusive arts opportunities are in high-demand, programs that run are typically infrequent and short-term, leaving many potential participants without a space to explore the arts. In this research I undertook a phenomenological inquiry into the experience of ten practitioners providing inclusive arts programs. Practitioners were drawn from Southwestern and Northwestern Ontario, and from a variety of arts-based fields. This exploration examined practitioners’ images and understandings of inclusion, disability, the arts, and their experiences with inclusive arts programs. The key essences which emerged as components of the inclusive arts experience for practitioners were: Inclusive Arts as an Enabling Space; Exploring Potential through Creative Expression; Flexibility, Adaptations, and Possibilities for Inclusion; Valuing Sameness and Difference in Ability and the Arts; Practitioners’ Experiences of Receiving Gifts and Feeling Strained; and, Embodying Inclusive Arts Values. Practitioners’ experiences within inclusive arts programs were impacted by the values associated with inclusion and the arts. Practitioners who embodied those values in their everyday life found inclusive arts programming to be highly rewarding and meaningful, despite sometimes significant financial and emotional challenges. The essences are also discussed in relation to three cross-cutting aspects of the practitioners’ experience: the medical and social construction of disability, art as inclusion, and the notion of embodiment.

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to explore how parents understand and experience their child’s involvement and non-involvement in community leisure experiences. The study involved five parents with children between eight and twenty-one years of age, and asked them about the recreation experiences of their child who had a cognitive and/or physical disability. Narrative methodology enabled a holistic, comprehensive and personal approach to exploring their experiences. Each parent completed two narrative interviews, the first to produce a narrative account and the second to explore the meaning of his or her narrative. This study used a two step analysis process to explore the narratives. The descriptive analysis focused on establishing the context, and creating the narrative account using the interview transcripts and my interpretation of the stories. An interpretive analysis was completed in three phases to explore the purpose of the story, the order and sequence and presentation of self, and explored the cultural practices of the narratives. From the narratives I found many parents told their stories for other parents or recreation practitioners. The key message from the stories was the importance of recreation for social networking for both parent and child. Important spaces from the stories were identified: space to be social, space to succeed and space to be engaged or included. Other characters played critical roles in the recreation experiences. Internal conflict was often experienced by parents where the desire for the child to participate clashed with the parents’ hesitation, concern, or schedule. The final phase of analysis revealed a difference between my understandings of key terms (segregation, integration and inclusion) and the parents’ understandings of those terms. Many parents and children had experienced a level of exclusion both from and within recreation experiences. Inclusion was found to be an enabling and disabling practice. I found gains in political power developed through increases in social and psychological power. Levels of trust and the phases of empowerment were important to the parents’ understandings of inclusion. The conclusions identified the parents as being responsible for negotiating recreation, and the children had an awareness of their disability. Finally, discrepancies about the meaning of segregation, integration and inclusion were identified.

While the arts have gained a more prominent place in inclusive educational settings, inclusive arts programming in the context of community recreation requires further exploration. In my practice I have found that while inclusive arts opportunities are in high-demand, programs that run are typically infrequent and short-term, leaving many potential participants without a space to explore the arts. In this research I undertook a phenomenological inquiry into the experience of ten practitioners providing inclusive arts programs. Practitioners were drawn from Southwestern and Northwestern Ontario, and from a variety of arts-based fields. This exploration examined practitioners’ images and understandings of inclusion, disability, the arts, and their experiences with inclusive arts programs. The key essences which emerged as components of the inclusive arts experience for practitioners were: Inclusive Arts as an Enabling Space; Exploring Potential through Creative Expression; Flexibility, Adaptations, and Possibilities for Inclusion; Valuing Sameness and Difference in Ability and the Arts; Practitioners’ Experiences of Receiving Gifts and Feeling Strained; and, Embodying Inclusive Arts Values. Practitioners’ experiences within inclusive arts programs were impacted by the values associated with inclusion and the arts. Practitioners who embodied those values in their everyday life found inclusive arts programming to be highly rewarding and meaningful, despite sometimes significant financial and emotional challenges. The essences are also discussed in relation to three cross-cutting aspects of the practitioners’ experience: the medical and social construction of disability, art as inclusion, and the notion of embodiment.

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to explore how parents understand and experience their child’s involvement and non-involvement in community leisure experiences. The study involved five parents with children between eight and twenty-one years of age, and asked them about the recreation experiences of their child who had a cognitive and/or physical disability. Narrative methodology enabled a holistic, comprehensive and personal approach to exploring their experiences. Each parent completed two narrative interviews, the first to produce a narrative account and the second to explore the meaning of his or her narrative. This study used a two step analysis process to explore the narratives. The descriptive analysis focused on establishing the context, and creating the narrative account using the interview transcripts and my interpretation of the stories. An interpretive analysis was completed in three phases to explore the purpose of the story, the order and sequence and presentation of self, and explored the cultural practices of the narratives. From the narratives I found many parents told their stories for other parents or recreation practitioners. The key message from the stories was the importance of recreation for social networking for both parent and child. Important spaces from the stories were identified: space to be social, space to succeed and space to be engaged or included. Other characters played critical roles in the recreation experiences. Internal conflict was often experienced by parents where the desire for the child to participate clashed with the parents’ hesitation, concern, or schedule. The final phase of analysis revealed a difference between my understandings of key terms (segregation, integration and inclusion) and the parents’ understandings of those terms. Many parents and children had experienced a level of exclusion both from and within recreation experiences. Inclusion was found to be an enabling and disabling practice. I found gains in political power developed through increases in social and psychological power. Levels of trust and the phases of empowerment were important to the parents’ understandings of inclusion. The conclusions identified the parents as being responsible for negotiating recreation, and the children had an awareness of their disability. Finally, discrepancies about the meaning of segregation, integration and inclusion were identified.