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No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The significance of sport is now emerging as an important dimension of the broader scholarship that examines the social, cultural and political aspects of Scottish society. A prominent facet of this emerging body of literature has examined the multiple ways in which sport contributes to and is constitutive of Scottish nationalism and culture. This thesis builds upon previous studies of sport to examine the connections between shinty, nationalism and cultural identity. The rationale that underpins the thesis asserts that in order to understand more fully expressions of nationalism, it is necessary to examine the social and cultural forces that have contributed to different ideas about the nation in specific historical circumstances. At the heart of the thesis it is argued that the sport-nationalism-identity axis in Scotland has sought to assert different forms of autonomy. The concept of autonomy, articulated through civil society, provides an original conceptual framework for the critical analysis of shinty, nationalism and cultural identity between 1835 and 1939. The development of shinty during this period coincided with the emergence of a number of cultural and political movements that were par of a relatively autonomous Highland civil society, and which became the repository of a paricular strand of Celtic radicalism. A number of the leading proponents of Celtic radicalism were advocates of various aspects of Scottish nationalism that oscilated on the political landscape of Britain after 1886. Using a multi-methodological research approach, the thesis examines the extent to which the development of shinty intersected with key elements of Celtic radicalism and nationalism. It is concluded that shinty provided the terrain upon which paricular cultural identities could be ariculated, and was also a vehicle for paricular expressions of nationalism that reinforced different aspects of the autonomy of the Highlands within Scotland. This original and unique synthesis provided in this thesis makes a small contrbution to our understanding of sport in Scottish culture.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the British tourists move through a decision process in choosing Malaysia as a long-haul holiday destination. The purchase of a long-haul holiday is thought to be complex with high involvement and deliberation as well as being more expensive and bought less frequently (may be once a year). As such, a five-stage decision process is used: i) problem recognition, ii) information search, iii) evaluation of alternatives, iv) purchase decision and v) postpurchase behaviour. The research was conducted at two levels. The first level was self-administered tourists' survey questionnaire carried-out over a three-month period in Malaysia. The second level involved a British tour operators' survey which was supplemented by personal interview in order to get a better insight into the problems and potentials of Malaysia as a long-haul destination. "In search of new experience," "rest and relaxation",and "cultural attraction" were ranked as the three most important motivational factors influencing the decision to travel long-haul. Personal sources of information seemed to dominate in every stage of the decision process. Tourists evaluated Malaysia very favourably only on two tourist-attracting attributes - entertainment and shopping facilities; but these attributes were less important to them when selecting their holiday destinations. Husbands and wives were found to be in agreement on nine of the eleven subdecisions. Generally, tourists expressed high satisfaction with their holiday experience in Malaysia. Nevertheless some significant differences were found between independent and packaged tourists. Independent tourists were more satisfied with all the "product and service superiority" factors compared to the packaged tourists. With local services, independent tourists were significantly more satisfied than the packaged tourists with pleasant attitudes of the people and the personal security aspects of the "health and safety" factor. With regards to overall value for money and overall satisfaction, the independent tourists were significantly more satisfied than the packaged tourists. Comparison between destinations within the region also revealed different satisfaction levels across various dimensions. The study provides useful empirical support which enable tourism planners in making specific improvements in order to maintain and/or increase tourist satisfaction. For tourism marketers, creation of unrealistic tourist expectation through excessive promotional exaggeration should be avoided to circumvent tourist dissatisfaction.

This study aims to develop a holistic view of the politics of tourism development in China. It examines how political ideology intertwines with tourism development and the same time identifies factors which are relevant to the issue. From the political science point of view, international tourism may be regarded as part of foreign affairs. This study adopted the case study approach linked to a chronological framework. China's tourism industry has been transformed from a political activity to an economic activity. In Mao Zedong era (1949-1976), international tourism was virtually non-existent. The phenomenon was a result of both internal factors, including the dominant role of dogmatic socialist ideology, and external factors, such as the Cold War. China's rapid development in tourism since 1978 was under the pragmatic leadership of Deng Xiaoping. With the shifts of internal and external environments, China's tourism industry and development is now based on market-driven policy instead of ideological-driven policy. The development of international tourism in China is the evolution of development theories from underdevelopment theory to modernisation theory and now globalisation theory. Based on the findings of this study, an explanatory framework was formulated by incorporating factors including perspective on the external and internal environments, and economic and tourism issues. The future of China's tourism seems to be a movement from the socialist market economy model to a more capitalistic model.

This study investigates the psychology of risk taking, and in particular the personality profiles associated with different physical risk taking behaviours. It was hypothesised that there may be three fundamental approaches to risk: 'Risk avoiders' avoid activities they perceive to contain risk, 'risk reducers' participate in high risk activities in spite of the risks involved, and 'risk optimisers' who are motivated by the exposure to risk. An appropriate measure of subjective risk assessments was not identified in the existing literature, and the 27-item Physical Risk Assessment Inventory (PRAI) psychometric measure was therefore developed. After initial piloting the PRAI was administered to 407 subjects. Subsequent analyses revealed that two oblique factors accounted for much of the variance in physical risk assessments, and these were initially identified as "Sports" and "Health" factors. A wide ranging test battery (including the EPQ-R and selected scales of the ZKPQ) was th en administered to 113 subjects, and further analyses suggested that high risk sports and health risk behaviours were associated with independent psychological profiles. Health risk behaviours were associated with an "Antisocial" factor that was identified by high social and physical risk propensity, Sensation Seeking and Psychoticism. The participation in high risk sports loaded on a second "Venturesomeness" factor that was associated with high confidence, physical risk propensity, Sensation Seeking, peer behaviours and being male. A third "Physical Risk Assessment" factor was associated with high physical risk assessments, being female, and low Addiction scores. Multiple regression analyses suggested that 38% of health risk behaviours, and 60% of sports risk behaviours could be predicted by the variables included in this study. Convergent qualitative data provides additional support for the validity of thes fore appears to be limited to the role of Sensation Seeking and physical risk optimisation.

This study has three main objectives. The first is to examine the role of international tourism corporations in determining the direction and volume of international tourism development in developing countries. The second is to consider one type of international corporation - tour operators - in the context of Turkey; the focus is on the economic opportunities and problems that arise as a result of the activities of international tour operators in their relations with the accommodation sub-sector in Turkey. Finally, the third is to suggest policies which will increase the benefits of international tourism to developing countries and reduce the negative aspects of dependency on international tour operators. In order to achieve these objectives, the study was carried out in two main stages. The first was an extensive literature survey to provide a background to the field research, which provided information mainly on 'Tourism in Developing Countries' and 'International Corporations in International Tourism'. The second stage was the field research. Two surveys were conducted; the first was the tour operators survey in the UK and the second was the accommodation sub-sector survey in Turkey. During the accommodation sub-sector survey in Turkey, both primary data and secondary data were collected. While the secondary data was used to make a general analysis of Turkish tourism development, the primary data helped to determine the international tour operators' relationships with the accommodation sub-sector in Turkey. In conclusion, a number of suggestions are made as to ways to reduce the negative aspects of dependency on international tour operators.