Thesis, PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis, PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Management, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Dr. Laurie Garrow, Committee Member ; Dr. Jeff Stratman, Committee Co-Chair ; Dr. Mark Ferguson, Committee Co-Chair ; Dr. Soumen Ghosh, Committee Co-Chair ; Dr. Koert van Ittersum, Committee Member.

Thesis (M.A.P.S.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 29-30).

This thesis is a reflection upon two instances of practice- as-research, emerging through the performativities of responses to two invitations: to sing and record a note with me in unison, and to spend a Sunday with Me in a place of your choosing, documented through audio-visual recordings. As the thesis progresses, I will describe a movement from performance and recording in experimental voice practices to a conception of voice and the recording as spatial practices. In the last chapters I will describe a movement away from voice as a disciplinary practice, toward a conception of listening described in our movements through place (which redescribes movement as place). Through these progressions, this research examines possible correlations between performance practices and the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1996) and other relevant philosophical disciplines, such as Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) and Richard Rorty's (1931-2007) hermeneutics. Levinas' ethics were founded upon a distinction between the structure of the face-to-face, or ethical relationship, and the structure of intentional knowledge described in Husserlian phenomenology. This thesis argues that in response to Levinasian ethics, the criticality at work in performance might be rephrased in terms of welcome and hospitality to others. The methods developed here concern an ethos of renewable propositions, through which 'knowledges' become open to question, unstable, provisional, contingent. The research enacts a process of returning and beginning-again, first formalised by writer and philosopher Maurice Blanchot, as a disserninative and exegetical strategy. The first invitation, One Note, used the medium of sound installation, voice and recording, to develop a method of performance documentation based upon context-specific face-to-face encounters. Whilst Levinasian ethics conceives discourse - or more specifically, spoken conversation - as an ephemeral, episternically unstable encounter, One Note developed compositional sensibilities to enact renewals of questioning intended to destabilize fixed outcomes. The second invitation Sunday with Me, de-formalised 'voice' as a disciplinary practice, and examined how guiding and being guided through might constitute a form of (or response to) Levinas' ethical faceto- face encounter, reconsidering performance research as field of infinite encounter with others, conceived in terms of singular articulations of welcome.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are claimed to provide businesses with a competitive advantage, to the extent of reshaping entire industries. In tourism, an information-intensive activity and the impact of ICT has been extensively documented at the industry, destination and business level. eTourism Capability refers here to the contribution of ICT to tourism business performance. Therefore, the work is based within the Tourism domain. However, its methods are mainly emerging from the adapted combination of previous research in business and eBusiness. Previous work has urged for the development of wide-angle studies, assessing the eTourism Capability of a destination. However, existing research addressing this issue, tends to place the focus on only one specific aspect of technology adoption, it is not sector specific and/or does not take into consideration the different levels of contribution to performance made by systems. In order to develop an eTourism Capability Assessment Framework for Scotland, and to provide the baseline for its strategic benchmarking with other tourism destinations, the work included an extensive literature review of Tourism and eTourism, developed of a conceptual framework. This supported the selection of key tourism industry stakeholders, i.e. the accommodation sector within the established context. An electronic questionnaire enabled the data collection. Through a mix of statistical techniques, the data treatment provided answers to the research questions, which related to the most suitable approach for ICT indexing in the accommodation sector, the level of contribution to performance by the different ICT elements, patterns describing the impact of business characteristics on ICT uptake, and the predictive models for this uptake. The results suggested the suitability of IT-based indexes for assessing the ICT uptake of this sector. Additionally, the results suggested important differences in the contribution that each system makes to business performance. This even varies across systems supporting similar business functions. Furthermore, the results emphasised the influence of the individual ICT on their own adoption, and suggested several dimensions to describe systems, which underlie the association between business characteristics and ICT adoption by the accommodation sector. These are compatibility observability, physical accessibility, verticality of systems and whether these support standardisation of processes across branches. Since the influence of business characteristics on ICT uptake seem to be system-specific, the predictive models are developed for each individual system. Finally, recommendations for further research have also been made.

This thesis aims to further understanding of networks in tourism. Specifically, it focuses on networking between small tourism businesses and its contributions to destination development. These networks are understood in terms of social, communication and exchange relations. The research is located within the context of contemporary debates regarding small businesses and networking. Within tourism, it can be located in wider research regarding destination development and community tourism. The literature review examines early sociological studies on networks, providing a background to small business literature on networks. Early research tends to be quantitative-driven whilst later research stresses the need for a greater cultural understanding of network phenomena. Within tourism development, there is a move away from rigid models based on physical expansion to ones which stress the socially constructed nature of tourism destination evolution. This is complimentary to the 'organic' nature of networks. Field research was undertaken using a methodology called interpretative anthropology. Data was collected in two destinations with differing levels of tourism infrastructure development. One was in Scotland and the other was in India, resulting in in-depth interviews with a total of 34 respondents. Participant observation was additionally used in the Indian context. Collective templates were developed from the data and presented in two main areas. The first provided a social background to the business community and the second illustrated business networking as an integrated part of wider social norms. These were then discussed in relation to social, communication and exchange networks and their contributions to destination development. Practical implications of the findings are identified in relation to business growth and tourism destination development. A key outcome is that less developed tourism infrastructure results in greater reliance on networking between businesses, whilst more developed infrastructure reduces direct business contribution. The former results in a more directly significant contribution to tourism destination development than in the latter. The key is to achieve equilibrium between horizontal and vertical network support, rather than a transition from informal to formal. A further significant outcome is the influence of destination size and social network density. This impacts on the nature and effectiveness of the tourism businesses' contribution to destination development. Destination size and social network density are also significant success factors when viewed from an internal destination perspective i.e. sub-communities and/or tourism sectors. These are identified as crucial to understanding and supporting tourism business communities. The community embeddedness of networks means smaller business communities have much greater control and regulation of their own members, and their contribution to tourism destination development. This is achieved through stronger social norms. Support agencies need to be aware of this when assisting business communities, with advice tailored accordingly.

Sustainable tourism is a heavily researched concept but in reality there has been limited implementation of the principles and practices of sustainable tourism for destinations. Adopting a destination focused perspective, this thesis presents research which expounded Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a practical, new and innovative approach to sustainable tourism development i.e. computer-supported sustainability. A literature review revealed that there was no specific study focusing on the uses and applications of ICT for sustainable tourism development despite the mention and benefits of doing so. However it did identify that several opportunities existed in destination management for using ICT as well as a collection of ICT-based tools/applications which can be used for managing different aspects of sustainable tourism. Therefore an investigative analysis was necessary in building a solid body of work on the uses and applications of ICT for sustainable tourism as a practical approach for destination managers. These findings formed the input for the primary research which was conducted in two phases: surveys administered to destination managers and eTourism experts followed by semi-structured interviews with experts in this domain identified from the surveys. The primary research alongside the literature findings led to the development of a descriptive framework which identified, categorised and described the uses of these ICT-based tools/applications for managing tourism‟s impacts. Assessment procedures based on the sustainability goals of the destination were then developed in order assist destination managers selecting the ICT-based tools/applications that were best suited for managing the sustainable tourism development of their destinations. The conclusion of this research clearly identifies that destination managers‟ sophisticated application of ICT to sustainable tourism is the next logical and practical step they can take in making sustainable tourism a workable reality for their destinations. This research is the building block for prospective research in the ICT-sustainable tourism domain. Future research avenues would be to use the results presented to determine the suitability, applicability and feasibility of the ICT-based tools/applications presented for destination managers. This existing research can be used to develop a more co-ordinated approach to theory development and engage in more empirical research to address tourism challenges with regards to using ICT for sustainable tourism development.

The ever-increasing use of the Web as a channel of distribution within the tourism industry naturally leads to a situation where its effectiveness needs to be examined and justified. While there is a growing realisation of the need to assess the effectiveness of a Destination Management Systems (DMS) based websites, research into this area in the tourism domain has been quite limited and narrow in focus. This situation is further compounded by the fact that currently there is little in the way of appropriate models and techniques in place to manage a DMS based websites effectively and that there is a general lack of consensus when it comes to defining and understanding its standards and concepts. This thesis describes a methodology for the development and evaluation of a comprehensive set of weighted dimensions and criteria for measuring the effectiveness of DMS based websites. Ultimately, from a DMS perspective, website effectiveness depends on how well a website performs with respect to the related business goals. The scope of the research was limited to assessing the impact of DMS effectiveness on the accommodation sector. This research began by employing a Delphi study to generate, validate and prioritise a comprehensive set of dimensions and criteria for measuring the effectiveness of a DMS. The Delphi study successfully identified a total of 12 dimensions and 105 criteria required to assess DMS based websites effectiveness. These components were incorporated into a comprehensive evaluation framework applied specifically to evaluate the effectiveness of a DMS based websites using a diverse range of approaches and perspectives. The evaluation phase of the research took place over an eight month period and concentrated on testing this framework using VisitScotland.com as a test bed. The outcomes from the evaluation phase successfully demonstrated that the framework provides DMS management with a comprehensive method to measure and manage the effectiveness of their Web presence by not only identifying areas of the website and website strategy that needed attention but also by providing advice and suggestions on how to improve these areas.

The aim of this research was to examine the factors influencing in-trip tourists’ adoption of information and communications technology (ICT) tools/applications which support sustainable tourism. While ICT is a source of competitive advantage for businesses, there is limited research on how ICT can be used to support sustainable tourism development. At the same time, there has been greater consumer awareness about sustainable tourism but a challenge in translating this knowledge into action. This thesis therefore sought to explore and integrate these complementary elements. The study adopted a sequential mixed methods approach. Phase 1 employed an e-survey among sixty-six (66) eTourism experts, while Phase 2 of the study involved thirty (30) semi-structured face-to-face interviews with leisure tourists in the city of Edinburgh. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to analyse Phase 1 and thematic analysis for Phase 2. The findings from the survey demonstrated that location based services were identified amongst the main ICT applications to support sustainable tourism. Geo-caching, ambient intelligence and context aware applications were among the new or emerging applications that eTourism experts felt were likely to change the way tourists experience a destination in the future. The interviews demonstrated that social connectedness motivated the use of in-trip ICT with social media being the primary platform. Mobile value elements, personal innovativeness and perceived enjoyment were postulated as influencing use behaviour. The results also illustrated the need for destinations to mix new media with some traditional strategies based on the destination’s info-structure, tourists’ source markets, tourists’ profiles and sources of in-trip information. This thesis has made an original contribution to knowledge by examining the actual use of in-trip ICTs by tourists in relation to sustainable tourism. Future research needs to explore and measure how perceived enjoyment, personal innovativeness and mobile value elements influence technology use behaviour.