Master of Science / Department of Hospitality Management and Dietetics / Jeannie Sneed / Hostels play a significant role in the lodging industry throughout the world and even in some locations in the United States (U.S.). However, in many places in the U.S. hostels have yet to be introduced. They have the potential to offer budget lodging accommodation, but hotels and motels remain the most popular forms of lodging. This study investigated the perceptions of Kansas State University (KSU) students about hostels and their intent to use hostels. A focus group was used to gain insight into students’ perceptions of hostels and aided in the development of a written survey. An online survey was used to gather information from KSU students. It was sent to a randomly selected sample of 5,000 KSU students. There was a response rate of 8% (n=401). Respondents knew about hostels and were willing to stay in them. A factor analysis was conducted on 31 characteristics of hostels that might be important to hostel users and it was determined that these items could be reduced to three factors: Safety and Amenities ([alpha]=.92); Location and Socializing([alpha]=.91); and Accommodations ([alpha]=.60). Safety and Amenities had the highest mean scores for individual items in the factor while Accommodations had the lowest. Multiple linear regression was used to determine if the three factors would predict KSU students’ intent to stay in a hostel. The regression model was significant (p[less than or equal to].000) and all three factors were significant. The model had an R Square of .31. A t-test was used to determine if males and females differed in intent to stay in a hostel, Safety and Amenities, Location and Socializing, and Accommodation. Females had higher mean scores for Safety and Amenities and Location and Socializing than did males. This study showed that college students would stay in a hostel. Hostel owners/operators and hostel organizations can use this information to better market their hostel and it will help them to determine which amenities they will need to have to meet customer demands. Research should be conducted with a larger and more geographically diverse sample to determine if the results can be generalized beyond KSU students. Research with actual hostel users will help to determine characteristics they think are important and to compare results with this study.

Understanding how committed employees are within an organization is a valuable tool for managing and fostering a successful work environment. A continued appreciation of employee commitment is especially beneficial following organizational change as it has been shown that change inevitably impacts commitment levels to some degree. This study investigated organizational commitment within a subpopulation of the newly restructured Parks Canada Agency using an established survey instrument. The findings revealed that an employee's tenure and work location currently influences commitment levels among the sample that was surveyed. This study also found that commitment to the Parks Canada mandate significantly differs from the expressed commitment to the current state of the organization. An effort to improve the moderate levels of organizational commitment would be a valuable strategy for enhancing the employer-employee relationship and contributing to the positive effects of the organizational change.

Culinary tourism is emerging as an important component of the rapidly growing cultural tourism market. It introduces tourists to new flavours and different traditions associated with the preparation, serving, and consuming of foods and beverages. Although food has been strongly linked to tourism in some European and Asian destinations for years, culinary tourism is a relatively new phenomenon in North America. Current research tends to focus on only one aspect of culinary tourism, wine, with most research done in Australia and New Zealand. Although growing, there is still little research in Canada, and it has also concentrated on the wine component of culinary tourism. However, those who engage in wine tourism may not necessarily be the same people who would engage in other culinary practices such as visiting farmer?s fairs and markets, browsing food stores featuring local and gourmet ingredients, or who seek out authentic cuisine in restaurants. This study examines the characteristics and composition of the Canadian culinary tourism market and also explores the relationship between food and wine tourism. The study is based on the Travel Activities and Motivations Survey (TAMS) dataset. The survey was carried out between September 1999 and April 2000 and involved a telephone interview followed by a mail questionnaire. The total number of completed mail questionnaires received was 5,740, generating a response rate of 23. 2%. The objectives of the study were to understand the similarities and differences between 1) Canadian culinary travellers and the rest of the Canadian traveling population; 2) culinary tourists engaging in food-related activities, those who participate in wine, and those who participate in both; and 3) to identify segments of culinary tourists with respect to cross-participation in each of the culinary related activities. The segments were compared in terms of demographics, psychographics, vacation and getaway trip characteristics, and media consumption habits. To accomplish the first two objectives, culinary-related activities were arranged in three groups: <br> <b>Group One</b>: farmer?s fairs/markets; shop/browse gourmet foods in retail stores or farms; pick-your-own farms/harvesting; <Br> <b>Group Two</b>: restaurant dining featuring regional or local cooking; restaurant dining at internationally acclaimed restaurants; staying at a cooking school; staying at a gourmet restaurant with accommodation on premises; <br> <b>Group Three</b>: touring a region?s wineries where one stays one or more nights; going to wineries for day visits and tasting; staying at a wine tasting school. ?Culinary travellers? were conceptually defined as those who had taken trips in Canada in the past two years preceding the survey, and had participated in at least one activity from both group one <u>and</u> two <u>or</u> had participated in at least one activity from group three. ?Food travellers? were defined as those who had traveled in Canada in the past two years preceding the survey and had participated in at least one activity from Group One <u>and</u> Two and had not engaged in any activities in Group Three; ?wine travellers? were those who had participated in at least one activity in Group Three and did not qualify as ?food travellers?; and ?food and wine travellers? were those who met the criteria of both ?food? and ?wine? travellers. A factor analysis was performed in order to establish which cuisine-related variables were closely related and what underlying dimensions might exist in culinary tourism activities. The next step was to perform a k-means cluster analysis of the factors in order to identify distinct groups of cuisine travellers. The resulting four clusters were labeled: ?rural?, ?sophisticated?, ?indifferent?, and ?true cuisine?. The results show that the Canadian culinary tourism market represents nearly 45% of Canadian travellers and exhibits characteristics and behaviours that clearly distinguish them from other tourists. Canadian culinary tourists tend to be females in their mid-forties, highly educated with above average incomes; they are highly diverse in their travel motivations, interests, and activities pursuits (both at home and while traveling); travel mainly in the summer months but also take trips in the other seasons; they are accompanied by a spouse/partner (no children) while traveling and stay at hotels/resorts/country inns or at the homes of friends and relatives. They exhibit high readership preferences for newspapers (daily and weekend) and travel publications, and are more likely to use the Internet as an information source. In all instances, the culinary segment represented the large majority compared to the non-culinary travellers. Two segments emerged as relatively consistent across the analyses involving the ?food?, ?wine?, ?food and wine?, and the ?rural?, ?sophisticated?, ?indifferent?, and ?true cuisine? segments. These segments were the ?food/rural? and the ?food and wine/true cuisine? groups. The ?food/rural? group are highly interested in the local, traditional country-style forms of cuisine associated with rural regions; they seem to enjoy being in rural areas and close to the sources of their daily food. They tend to be females, in their mid-forties, with secondary education and middle incomes; travel to strengthen family ties, and seek simpler holiday experiences associated with rural regions. In contrast, the ?food and wine/true cuisine? group is very diverse in their travel motivations and activities pursuits; they are highly involved in all aspects of culinary tourism and exhibit high cultural orientation and exquisite tastes; these are females, in their mid-forties, university graduates with incomes well above average. Another interesting finding is that wine tourists appear mostly interested in the wine itself; they are not really as active and diverse in their activities and interests as the food and food and wine enthusiasts. This may indicate that food and not wine is what motivates culinary tourists; rather, wine is only a supplement. The findings of the study led to a consideration of possible marketing implications and areas for future research have been provided.

Understanding how committed employees are within an organization is a valuable tool for managing and fostering a successful work environment. A continued appreciation of employee commitment is especially beneficial following organizational change as it has been shown that change inevitably impacts commitment levels to some degree. This study investigated organizational commitment within a subpopulation of the newly restructured Parks Canada Agency using an established survey instrument. The findings revealed that an employee's tenure and work location currently influences commitment levels among the sample that was surveyed. This study also found that commitment to the Parks Canada mandate significantly differs from the expressed commitment to the current state of the organization. An effort to improve the moderate levels of organizational commitment would be a valuable strategy for enhancing the employer-employee relationship and contributing to the positive effects of the organizational change.

Culinary tourism is emerging as an important component of the rapidly growing cultural tourism market. It introduces tourists to new flavours and different traditions associated with the preparation, serving, and consuming of foods and beverages. Although food has been strongly linked to tourism in some European and Asian destinations for years, culinary tourism is a relatively new phenomenon in North America. Current research tends to focus on only one aspect of culinary tourism, wine, with most research done in Australia and New Zealand. Although growing, there is still little research in Canada, and it has also concentrated on the wine component of culinary tourism. However, those who engage in wine tourism may not necessarily be the same people who would engage in other culinary practices such as visiting farmer?s fairs and markets, browsing food stores featuring local and gourmet ingredients, or who seek out authentic cuisine in restaurants. This study examines the characteristics and composition of the Canadian culinary tourism market and also explores the relationship between food and wine tourism. The study is based on the Travel Activities and Motivations Survey (TAMS) dataset. The survey was carried out between September 1999 and April 2000 and involved a telephone interview followed by a mail questionnaire. The total number of completed mail questionnaires received was 5,740, generating a response rate of 23. 2%. The objectives of the study were to understand the similarities and differences between 1) Canadian culinary travellers and the rest of the Canadian traveling population; 2) culinary tourists engaging in food-related activities, those who participate in wine, and those who participate in both; and 3) to identify segments of culinary tourists with respect to cross-participation in each of the culinary related activities. The segments were compared in terms of demographics, psychographics, vacation and getaway trip characteristics, and media consumption habits. To accomplish the first two objectives, culinary-related activities were arranged in three groups: <br> <b>Group One</b>: farmer?s fairs/markets; shop/browse gourmet foods in retail stores or farms; pick-your-own farms/harvesting; <Br> <b>Group Two</b>: restaurant dining featuring regional or local cooking; restaurant dining at internationally acclaimed restaurants; staying at a cooking school; staying at a gourmet restaurant with accommodation on premises; <br> <b>Group Three</b>: touring a region?s wineries where one stays one or more nights; going to wineries for day visits and tasting; staying at a wine tasting school. ?Culinary travellers? were conceptually defined as those who had taken trips in Canada in the past two years preceding the survey, and had participated in at least one activity from both group one <u>and</u> two <u>or</u> had participated in at least one activity from group three. ?Food travellers? were defined as those who had traveled in Canada in the past two years preceding the survey and had participated in at least one activity from Group One <u>and</u> Two and had not engaged in any activities in Group Three; ?wine travellers? were those who had participated in at least one activity in Group Three and did not qualify as ?food travellers?; and ?food and wine travellers? were those who met the criteria of both ?food? and ?wine? travellers. A factor analysis was performed in order to establish which cuisine-related variables were closely related and what underlying dimensions might exist in culinary tourism activities. The next step was to perform a k-means cluster analysis of the factors in order to identify distinct groups of cuisine travellers. The resulting four clusters were labeled: ?rural?, ?sophisticated?, ?indifferent?, and ?true cuisine?. The results show that the Canadian culinary tourism market represents nearly 45% of Canadian travellers and exhibits characteristics and behaviours that clearly distinguish them from other tourists. Canadian culinary tourists tend to be females in their mid-forties, highly educated with above average incomes; they are highly diverse in their travel motivations, interests, and activities pursuits (both at home and while traveling); travel mainly in the summer months but also take trips in the other seasons; they are accompanied by a spouse/partner (no children) while traveling and stay at hotels/resorts/country inns or at the homes of friends and relatives. They exhibit high readership preferences for newspapers (daily and weekend) and travel publications, and are more likely to use the Internet as an information source. In all instances, the culinary segment represented the large majority compared to the non-culinary travellers. Two segments emerged as relatively consistent across the analyses involving the ?food?, ?wine?, ?food and wine?, and the ?rural?, ?sophisticated?, ?indifferent?, and ?true cuisine? segments. These segments were the ?food/rural? and the ?food and wine/true cuisine? groups. The ?food/rural? group are highly interested in the local, traditional country-style forms of cuisine associated with rural regions; they seem to enjoy being in rural areas and close to the sources of their daily food. They tend to be females, in their mid-forties, with secondary education and middle incomes; travel to strengthen family ties, and seek simpler holiday experiences associated with rural regions. In contrast, the ?food and wine/true cuisine? group is very diverse in their travel motivations and activities pursuits; they are highly involved in all aspects of culinary tourism and exhibit high cultural orientation and exquisite tastes; these are females, in their mid-forties, university graduates with incomes well above average. Another interesting finding is that wine tourists appear mostly interested in the wine itself; they are not really as active and diverse in their activities and interests as the food and food and wine enthusiasts. This may indicate that food and not wine is what motivates culinary tourists; rather, wine is only a supplement. The findings of the study led to a consideration of possible marketing implications and areas for future research have been provided.

abstract: Life satisfaction in people with physical disabilities is on average lower than people without disabilities. This reduction in life satisfaction may be due to a reduction in domain control. This study examines how domain control predicts life satisfaction when added to a model of other salient life satisfaction predictors. Using email survey methodology, five separate scales where used on two separate populations; people with (n= 44) and without (n= 43) a physical disability to determine each groups life satisfaction. It was found that when domain control is added to the bottom-up theory of life satisfaction, the independent direct relationships of domain control, domain importance, positive affect, and negative affect are eliminated from a stepwise multiple regression equation with domain satisfaction being the only significant predictor (â = 4.38, p< .001 for people with a physical disabilities and â = 5.48, p< .001 for people without a physical disability) of life satisfaction. The study results demonstrate that life satisfaction is predicted the same way for people with and without disabilities. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Recreation and Tourism Studies 2010

abstract: The objective of this study was to understand domestic and foreign-born housekeeper's individual perceptions of labor mobility and job satisfaction related to their jobs within the hospitality industry. Literature regarding the bridging of tourism, immigration, and labor supply was addressed to expose broad conceptual frameworks that lead to the development of this study. More specifically, literature regarding labor mobility within tourism industries, migrant decision making, and barriers to mobility and immigration helped to construct a narrowed conceptual framework specific to hospitality labor in Phoenix, Arizona. Similar and previous studies focused on perceived labor mobility during significant economic or industry shifts. This study included the addition of a policy factor to help determine to what degree state policy change effected hospitality workers' perceived labor mobility. Arizona's recently passed and implemented legislative act SB1070 regards immigrant identification and employment, and enforcement of the act in the state of Arizona; this serves as the implicated policy change. Data were collected via on-site survey administered February to May 2011. An overall score was created for the five motivational dimensions: 1 &mdash; Status; 2 &mdash; Economic; 3 &mdash; Refugee; 4 &mdash; Entrepreneurial; and, 5 &mdash; Political using principle component factor analysis using a varimax rotation with Kaiser normalization. Theory and literature suggest that the economic advancement, status advancement, and the refugee orientation are effective explanatory variables for motivating a career move into the tourism industry. A total of 82 questionnaires were delivered and completed (N = 82), and none were eliminated. The statistically-determined Economic Dimension was characterized by eleven statements explained 51% of the variation and was the overwhelming motivational force. The average coded response for change in job satisfaction was very positive at .75. Ten features of changes in job satisfaction were used as the basis of the second measure of change in job satisfaction. The first Principle Component of the ten features of job satisfaction change explained 45% of the variation in these features and loadings were positive near or above 0.60 for all items. The relationship between variations in each of the measurements of change in job satisfaction and motivating factors was explored using regression analysis. The two dependent variables were Overall Change and First Principle Component, and the independent variables for both regressions included the four motivating factors as measured by the rotated factors scores to represent dimensions of Economic, Status, Refugee and Entrepreneurial. In addition to the motivational factors, four demographic variables were included as independent variables to account for personal and situational differences. None of the regression coefficients were significant at even the 10% level. Although this result was expected, the positive sign of regression coefficients suggest that expectations of working as a housekeepers results in a positive outcome. Understanding this relationship further is necessary, and seeking larger sample sizes over a longer period of time would be most beneficial to this field of research. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Recreation and Tourism Studies 2011

abstract: Because of its ability to harbor social values, norms, and beliefs, heritage has always been utilized as an ideological vehicle. One prominent example of politicizing heritage is Chinese red tourism, comprised of state-promoted tours to revolutionary memorial sites. It is expected to generate political, economic, and social benefits, particularly to reinforce the legitimate leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Statistics show that dramatic market growth in red tourism has occurred over the past decade. Yet it is still heavily driven by the government and thus whether long-term sustainability can be achieved is still questionable. This dissertation explores the dynamics of red tourism from the perspective of a meaning-making process, where tourism discourses circulate among the processes of production, transmission, and consumption. The results reveal that higher-level government primarily assumes the leading role, whereas local government is largely excluded from strategy making processes and primarily responsible for implementation and operation. Some dissonance exists between higher and lower-level governments in their goals and involvement in red tourism development. Second, intermediaries are not altruistic and attempt to maximize their own benefits. While site interpreters may provide officially authorized narratives, their primary focus is hosting higher-up administrative visitors. On the contrary, tour guides are more customer-oriented, which may lead to officially undesirable interpretations. Third, driven by multiple motives, tourists have increasingly diverse attitudes towards red heritage and participate in various political and non-political activities. A considerable degree of congruence was found between tourists' participation, motivation, memories, and perception. Quantitative results indicate that the majority of tourists have learned about the political significance and/or content of red heritage, and developed more positive attitudes towards, and support for, the CCP and the government, to a certain extent. This dissertation contributes to current research by adopting a systematic and emic perspective to explore the dynamics of red tourism. Several conceptual frameworks were developed inductively to describe the meaning-making process. Mixed methods were used to learn about tourists' consumption and perceptions of red heritage. Implications regarding enhancing the effectiveness of the meaning-making process, limitations of the study, and potential directions for future research are also discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Community Resources and Development 2014

abstract: Developing new markets in tourism is vital for the prosperity of Small Island Tourism Economies like Bermuda (McElroy). Countries must continuously improve and reinvent themselves in order to maintain growth. SCUBA diving in Bermuda is a market that could be improved. Most SCUBA divers are of higher than average household income and can make an attractive tourist base. This thesis analyzes SCUBA tourists in Bermuda to ascertain their characteristics, economics impacts, and participation in island activities in order to help guide future endeavors involving SCUBA tourism in Bermuda and provide an outline of how to analyze other Niche markets. Comparisons are made between SCUBA and Non-SCUBA tourists (those who participated in Scuba against those that did not). The results show that spending, activities/events participated, and SCUBA tourists characteristics are not all significantly different from one another at the 5% level. Meaning that some variables were significant and some weren't , with in their respective groups. Within Trip Expenditures it was shown that, of the 9 variables tested, 3 were significant. In Activities, 8 of the 11 tested were significant, attractions there were 8 of the 18 variables that were significant and in Evening Entertainment, there was 2 out the 6 variables being significant at the 5% level. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Recreation and Tourism Studies 2012

abstract: This research is focused on competitive female video gamers. This study focuses on a specific group of competitive female gamers who participate in an all female online community group or clan known as the PMSclan. The purpose of the study is to analyze the highly competitive female video gaming clan members of the PMSclan in order to understand how resistance is displayed in a female centered video gaming community and how that affects the identity of the individual gamers through Shaw's (2001) theory of resistance. This study employs qualitative research design and uses content analysis of publicly available clan doctrines and member blogs through the PMSclan website. Findings indicate that collective acts of resistance lead to individual acts of resistance which can be seen through self-expression, self-determination, and empowerment. These acts of resistance have a positive impact on female gamers with outcomes of strength and power which can be displayed in a typically masculine society. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Recreation and Tourism Studies 2013