M. Tech. (Tourism and hospitality Management, Faculty of Human Sciences)|cVaal University of Technology / The growth of the tourism industry led to the development of various different types of tourism products. In order to remain competitive it is important that tourism products provide high-quality services for tourists. Tourists are, however, becoming more demanding due to higher education levels, more sophisticated tourists that travel more and are more exposed to various types of experiences. It is therefore important that tourism products satisfy the expectations of the guest to increase loyalty levels as well as return to the product. It is difficult today to exceed the expectations of the guest but high levels of service quality can make a difference in the customer experience and it is thus worthwhile to go the extra mile for guest. Although service quality has been measured in various research studies it has not been measured for the guesthouses in Kimberley and this information can be to the advantage of the tourism products as well as to that of Kimberley as a destination. The main aim of this study was to measure service quality levels of guesthouses in Kimberley based on the SERVQUAL instrument to gain a competitive advantage over similar tourism products and to assist these products in meeting and exceeding guest’s expectations. Questionnaires were distributed at participating guesthouses in Kimberley. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed among guests guest of which 450 were used in the analyses. The questionnaire was divided into four sections, namely socio-demographic information, the expectations of guest, the perceptions of guest and the overall service quality of the guesthouse. The data resulting from the questionnaires was captured and analysed by means of descriptive and exploratory analyses in SPSS. A factor analysis was applied to the 29-attribute scale measuring service expectations and perceptions. The paired-samples t-tests were used to determine the differences in the expectations and the perceptions. The multiple regression analysis was done to determine the aspects best predicting the overall service quality levels in the guesthouses. From the descriptive analyses it was clear that the two main expectations from guests include the following: employees will be willing to serve and that employees will always be available when needed. The highest mean value was obtained for the first aspect mentioned. In terms of the perceptions, the main perceptions of the guest included: employees gave individualised attention, the operating hours of the guesthouse are convenient and the guesthouse provides a safe and secure environment. In the case of perceptions, the aspect that yielded the highest mean was: employees are always available when needed. The paired t-test revealed very few differences in expectations versus perceptions and this indicated that respondents are satisfied with the service levels and that the guesthouses did better than expected. The factor analyses revealed the following five factors: Tangibles, Adequacy, Understanding, Assurance and Convenience. Before visiting the guesthouse it was clear that Assurance made the strongest contribution to overall service quality but after visiting the guesthouse Understanding and Convenience made the strongest contribution to overall service quality; thus indicating what is important to the guests. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge in guesthouse management but also to service quality in accommodation establishments such as guesthouses. Knowing that service levels in the participating guesthouses adhered to the needs of the current guests guest is encouraging, but these establishments need to plan strategically for when these guests guest overnight again and might expect something additional, extra or even different. / National Research Foundation

O presente trabalho visa delimitar quais os fatores os fatores constitutivos da peça El burlador de Sevilla, tanto do ponto de vista histórico -- isto é, os fatores sociais, políticos e religiosos --, quanto do ponto de vista da estrutura literária -- relacionados à forma artística em que os primeiros ganham forma --, e o modo como esses fatores se relacionam na composição do mito que sustenta o enredo da obra. / The present work intents to delimitate what are the containing factors from the play El burldor de Sevilla, by the historic view -- social, politics and religious facts -- as well as the literary structure view -- related to the artistc form in which the previuous ones gain shape --, and the way those factors associate to each other compounding the plot sustaining myth.

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Abstract The importance of customer retention has become a major theme in the literature since the 1990s when empirical studies showed that retaining 5% of customers could lead to an increase in profits ranging from 25% to 85%. However, customer retention does not appear to have moved from the theoretical into the practical world. Specifically, there were few empirical studies which focused on customer retention and none were identified in the New Zealand accommodation sector. The travel and tourism industry contributes approximately 9% to New Zealand’s GDP, and 10% of all spending by travellers and tourists is in the accommodation sector. Impacts, such as seasonality, characterise the accommodation sector and many establishments have occupancy rates which can fluctuate from 90% to 30% in the off-season. With average annual occupancy rates for New Zealand hotels and motels hovering around 55%, retention is a strategy that owners and managers could implement in order to increase occupancy and profits. In this study the research question was based on a review of the literature and the a priori knowledge and experience of the researcher. To ensure the research question framing this study was answered in the most exhaustive and comprehensive manner a seven step research process based on work by Bourgeois (1979) was followed. Data was gathered using both deductive and inductive methods in order to nullify the two main research problems raised by Bourgeois (1979). First, that theories are cast at a high level which is removed from reality and second that empirical studies often result in just a description of the data. In the deductive phase of this study a survey was mailed to New Zealand accommodation establishments that provided accommodation and meals, and had a liquor licence. The main focus of this survey was to learn what owners and managers understood about guest retention and to answer the first research objective. It was discovered that New Zealand accommodation managers: actively work to retain their guests; know the value of guest retention; understand the links between guest satisfaction, loyalty and retention; understand the specific reasons behind guest defections; understand the importance service recovery; and understand how loyalty schemes lead to guest retention. The second phase was a case study involving three accommodation establishments. These findings added depth to the study and allowed for new knowledge to be extrapolated from the findings. It was discovered that in two establishments the focus was guest satisfaction and building relationships with customers. Whilst the resort hotel did have a strategy to encourage lapsed business to return this wasn’t measured or monitored. Thus the second research objective was answered. In the penultimate chapter an amended profit chain has been proposed which included ‘Building Customer Relationships’ as the link between satisfaction and profitability. This is based on the finding that the case establishments saw retention as a proxy for satisfaction and, therefore, focused on satisfying guests and building personal relationships as methods of guest retention. The research question framing this study can be answered by saying that the strategies used by owners and managers in New Zealand accommodation establishments to manage guest retention tend to be related to guest satisfaction and building personal relationships. However, this is not because they do not understand guest retention but see it as part of the bigger picture involving the building of relationships with guests.

The fast development of the tourism industry has created both positive and negative impacts on host communities. Reacting to these impacts, host residents hold various attitudes towards tourism and tourists. It has come to common agreement that a supportive host community plays a vital role in the successful and long-term development of community tourism. In order to explain the antecedents of community attitudes towards tourism, researchers have investigated the topic from both the extrinsic perspective (such as stage-based models) and the intrinsic perspective (such as the Social Exchange Theory). Nevertheless, there are still several important research gaps and deficiencies within the existing literature. First, the influence of psychological factors (personality) on attitudes towards tourism is somewhat neglected. Second, when examining the relationship between community attitudes towards tourism and the influential factors, the majority of previous studies do not distinguish the orthogonal dimensions of attitudes (such as positive dimension and negative dimension). Third, the existing literature has not addressed the issue of whether specific attitudes towards tourism will lead to a corresponding behaviour when interacting with tourists, and what other factors are determinant in host-guest interactive behaviour. Aiming to address such research gaps and deficiencies, this study has a major objective of developing a theoretical model (encompassing attitude element) to understand the antecedents of host-guest interaction. A quantitative approach was employed for the entire project. A self-administrated questionnaire survey was used to collect primary data. A total of 878 useful questionnaires were returned for analyses. Stratification sampling methods were utilized in communities where population database was accessible, while random sampling methods were used in other communities. The findings from this study confirmed the two major hypotheses in terms of community attitudes towards tourism. First, there was a significant relationship between an individual's personality and his/her attitudes towards tourism. Residents being high on Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Agreeableness traits and low on the Neuroticism trait tended to be more positive towards tourism than their counterparts. Second, while some factors were found to be influential on both positive and negative dimensions of attitudes towards tourism, others only demonstrated influences on one dimension. The Resident-Tourist Interaction Model developed in this study provided a comprehensive theoretical framework in modelling and predicting host residents' interactive behaviour towards tourists. Drawing on the evaluation results of three leading behavioural theories belonging to the school of cognition, the Model identified attitudinal, volitional, social, motivating and habitual factors for the prediction of resident-tourist interactive behaviour. Motivating factor (intention) was the critical and immediate element for action, which, in turn, was best predicted by subjective norms. External factors (gender, age and personality traits) only moderated the predictive power of the Model by less than two percent. The Model was valid and reliable for the current data. The present study advanced resident-tourist interactive behavioural study by establishing a sound theoretical framework. It also consolidated the body of knowledge in understanding community attitudes towards tourism. Findings from this study have significant practical implications for community tourism planning and management.

<p>This study investigates how the host community of Tenerife perceives the socio-cultural effects of tourism on the island. The method chosen for the study was qualitative interviews which were performed with six respondents, each born in Spain, living permanently in Tenerife and employed within service-related occupations. The interview material was interpreted and handled according to a hermeneutic approach. The results of the study showed that the respondents had an over-all positive perception of tourism. Perceived positive socio-cultural effects were related to cultural and linguistic influences. Problems related to alcohol and community disorder were believed to be negative effects although they were not present to the same extent according to the respondents. The sociological theory “us and them” could be applied to this study since the locals chose to live and spend their free-time outside the tourist areas.</p><p> </p>

<p>Molecular recognition via noncovalent interactions plays a key role in many biological processes such as antigen-antibody interactions, protein folding, the bonding and catalytic transformation of substrates by enzymes, etc. Amongst these noncovalent interactions, electrostatic interactions, hydrogen bonding, π-π interactions, and metal-to-ligand bonding are the most prominent. Exploring noncovalent interactions in host-guest systems that range from small hydrocarbon systems to more complex systems is the main motivation of this thesis. The present study involves the design, synthesis and characterization of clip-shaped molecules as host structures, and an examination of their binding properties with a variety of guests using NMR spectroscopy. </p><p>Several clips with a hydrocarbon or glycoluril backbone were synthesized. The binding of cations to small, hydrocarbon-based clips suggests that binding is enhanced by the rigidity and cooperativity between the two sidewalls of the clip. Binding is also very much dependant on the solvent properties. </p><p>Glycoluril-based clips built with aromatic sidewalls provide a deep cavity for binding guest molecules. The binding properties of these hosts were studied with several guests such as cations, Lewis acids and Lewis bases. Lewis basic binding sites in the acenaphthene-terminated clip were dominating in guest binding. Complexation-induced conformational changes in the wall-to-wall distance were observed for this clip.</p><p>In contrast, for a porphyrin-terminated clip with metal centers, very strong binding to a series of Lewis basic guests of various sizes into the clip cavity was observed. Conformational locking of guests with long alkyl chains was achieved, suggesting that, this clip could be useful as a potential molecular tool for the structural characterization of acyclic molecules with several stereogenic centers. This porphyrin clip was also shown to bind substituted fullerenes in the cavity.</p>

This study investigates how the host community of Tenerife perceives the socio-cultural effects of tourism on the island. The method chosen for the study was qualitative interviews which were performed with six respondents, each born in Spain, living permanently in Tenerife and employed within service-related occupations. The interview material was interpreted and handled according to a hermeneutic approach. The results of the study showed that the respondents had an over-all positive perception of tourism. Perceived positive socio-cultural effects were related to cultural and linguistic influences. Problems related to alcohol and community disorder were believed to be negative effects although they were not present to the same extent according to the respondents. The sociological theory “us and them” could be applied to this study since the locals chose to live and spend their free-time outside the tourist areas.

Molecular recognition via noncovalent interactions plays a key role in many biological processes such as antigen-antibody interactions, protein folding, the bonding and catalytic transformation of substrates by enzymes, etc. Amongst these noncovalent interactions, electrostatic interactions, hydrogen bonding, π-π interactions, and metal-to-ligand bonding are the most prominent. Exploring noncovalent interactions in host-guest systems that range from small hydrocarbon systems to more complex systems is the main motivation of this thesis. The present study involves the design, synthesis and characterization of clip-shaped molecules as host structures, and an examination of their binding properties with a variety of guests using NMR spectroscopy. Several clips with a hydrocarbon or glycoluril backbone were synthesized. The binding of cations to small, hydrocarbon-based clips suggests that binding is enhanced by the rigidity and cooperativity between the two sidewalls of the clip. Binding is also very much dependant on the solvent properties. Glycoluril-based clips built with aromatic sidewalls provide a deep cavity for binding guest molecules. The binding properties of these hosts were studied with several guests such as cations, Lewis acids and Lewis bases. Lewis basic binding sites in the acenaphthene-terminated clip were dominating in guest binding. Complexation-induced conformational changes in the wall-to-wall distance were observed for this clip. In contrast, for a porphyrin-terminated clip with metal centers, very strong binding to a series of Lewis basic guests of various sizes into the clip cavity was observed. Conformational locking of guests with long alkyl chains was achieved, suggesting that, this clip could be useful as a potential molecular tool for the structural characterization of acyclic molecules with several stereogenic centers. This porphyrin clip was also shown to bind substituted fullerenes in the cavity.

Den innevarande studien utforskar hur enhetschefer och avdelningschefer i Skövde kommun upplever sin arbetssituation utifrån personalchefens arbete med Human Resource Management (HRM) praxis. Fokus är att utifrån upplevelsen undersöka vilka indikatorer som föreligger för ett psykologiskt kontrakt och hur det kan inverka på medarbetarnas beteende. Teorin om mentala schemata applicerades slutligen på resultatet och illustrerades i en överskådlig modell av forskningsområdet. Utifrån en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod har HRM praxis i Guest modell av HRM (1997) format forskningsprocessen. Semi-strukturerade intervjuer genomfördes på ett urval av nio respondenter. Utifrån en hermeneutisk analys visade resultatet ett positivt psykologiskt kontrakt överlag vid utvecklings- och utbildningsmöjligheter, förtroende, trygghet och flexibilitet, medan studien lämnar förbättringspotential vid arbetsbelastning, lön, friskvård och riktlinjer.