Bibliography: leaves 259-282. / iii, 282 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Anthropology, 1996

Thesis--Auburn University, 2009. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-126).

abstract: This study was designed to influence consumer habits, specifically those relating to purchases of fruits, vegetables, and junk food. Previous studies have clearly shown the ineffectiveness of simply describing the health benefits of eating more fruits and vegetables (F/V). In contrast, this study aimed to change the result by changing the message: providing participants with insight into the hidden agendas of food companies and grocery stores, provide useful tips on how to include children when selecting F/V, and emphasizing the importance of parental modeling in regard to food purchases. Participants of this study were separated into two groups, the tour group and the education group. The tour group was guided through a grocery store where they learned about sales tactics and manipulations used by grocery stores and food companies to influence purchases. Education group participants were provided with an education session focusing on USDA and FDA handouts displaying current educational suggestions for increasing F/V consumption. Grocery store receipts were collected and analyzed to track the progress of both groups. The goal of the study was to identify a method of informing consumers that will produce a significant change in behavior. Increasing F/V consumption, even in relatively small amounts, would be an important step forward in improving the diet and overall health of Americans. This study was the first of its kind to measure purchasing patterns objectively (through analysis of purchase receipts, rather than personal opinion/evaluation surveys) and in a wide-scope retail environment that includes all grocery store purchases by participants. Significant increases or decreases in the amount of money spent on F/V, or the amount (pounds) of F/V purchased were not seen, however a small correlation (r = 0.133) exists when comparing the weight of F/V purchased pre/post intervention. Data from Food Frequency Questionnaires shows participants consuming significantly higher amounts of F/V post intervention (p=0.043). The tour group and education group experienced an average increase of 0.7 servings per day. Future interventions might benefit by extending their scope to include cooking demonstrations, in-home interventions, and education on healthy eating outside of the home. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Nutrition 2013

Magister Commercii - MCom / The South African government has earmarked the Travel and Tourism industry as a key sector for economic growth as it plays an important role in stimulating the South African economy. Over the last few years the industry has placed greater emphasis on tour packages being offered to tourists, with one key group, Inbound Tour Operators, emerging to fulfil this important role. However, there have been limited studies conducted in the South African context which aim to isolate generalizable key success factors (KSFs) in the Travel and Tourism sector. By focusing on two important research streams, competitive advantage and international entrepreneurship, this study identified nine main KSFs. These KSFs were developed using Thomas and Long's KSF model (Thomas and Long, 2000). The general research approach was a qualitative, multiple-case study whereby six firms were selected from the inbound tour operator sub-sector of the SA tourism industry. The research methodology used in-depth interviews which were conducted with an industry expert and owner-managers of small, mediumand large inbound tour operators, serving and operating in international markets. This helped to gain an understanding of the complex and intricate ways that these firms comprehend KSFs and build their international strategy. As a result of this research approach, it was possible to identify how these KSF variables are influenced through management's decisions and how they essentially affect the overall competitive positions of the various firms in the industry. It also led to novel findings which challenged conventional international entrepreneurship thinking, such as the Uppsala approach, on the basis that firms do not only follow sequential steps when internationalising their businesses. It was found that entrepreneurial firms internationalise their businesses from the outset and extensively leverage off of internet-based technology and utilise export-based activities to engage international markets. The implications of the findings show that existing and new tour operators entering the tourism industry have clear KSFs which they can target in order to achieve success. These factors are variables which management can influence through their decision-making and affect the overall competitive positions of their firm in the industry. Nonetheless, further studies are required to identify KSFs in the other sectors within the tourism industry to provide valuable insights regarding how the international competitiveness of the local tourism industry as a whole may be improved.

Many countries depend heavily on tourism for their economic growth. The invention of the web has opened new opportunities for tourists to discover new places and live new adventures. However, the number of possible destinations has become huge and even an entire lifespan would not be enough to visit all of these places. Even for one city, there are a significant number of possible places to visit. Nowadays, searching online to find an interesting place to visit is harder than ever, not because there is a lack of information but rather due to the vast amount of information that can be found. Trip planning is a tedious task, especially when the tourist does not want to pick a preplanned itinerary from a traveling agency. That being said, even these preplanned itineraries need a lot of time and effort to be customized. Moreover, the set of itineraries that a tourist can select from is usually limited. In addition, there may be many places that tourists would enjoy visiting but that are not included in the itineraries. Thus, static planners do not always choose the right place at the right time. This is why the planning process should take into consideration many factors in order to give the tourist the best possible suggestions. In this Thesis, we propose an algorithm called the Balanced Orienteering Problem to design trips for tourists. This algorithm, combined with a context-aware recommender system for tourism suggestions, create the infrastructure of the mobile application for the augmented reality tourism guide that we developed. We cover the background knowledge of tour planning problems and tourism recommender systems and describe the existing techniques. Furthermore, a comparison between the existing systems and our algorithm is completed to illustrate that our proposed algorithm yields better results. We also discuss the workflow of our system implementation and how our mobile application is designed. Lastly, we address suggestions for future works and end with a conclusion.

It is widely acknowledged that without volunteer guides, or docents, most museums and galleries would find it impossible to offer education programmes as they are known today. Docents work in the critical interface between visitors and works of art, yet often they are viewed as being passive, and often ineffective, transmitters of the gallery's educational message. The literature on gallery education emphasizes docent "management", or the methods used to recruit, train, and supervise docents. But gallery staff must consider the docent’s beliefs, values, and viewpoints about art, and about education, for improvement of education programmes to occur. This study describes, and analyzes, the docent’s perspective of gallery education programmes, and the extent to which docents are actively engaged in the ongoing process of learning to help others learn. In order to obtain their perspective, six docents in two art galleries were engaged in long, semi-structured, and repeated interviews. These interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. Categories derived from the teacher's practical knowledge, such as subject, curriculum, instruction, self, and milieu, were used as a framework to describe and analyze the docent's practical knowledge. It was found that though the docents did indeed hold a coherent body of knowledge that originates in their practice, their theoretical knowledge of art was often an inadequate base on which to build an interpretation of the gallery's exhibitions. Differences were found in the educational goals of the gallery, and between the institution, and the docent’s educational values and purposes. Educators need to be aware or the shifting, complex, and sometimes paradoxical nature of the docent’s role. The docent’s perspective must be considered in the successful planning and implementation of education programmes. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

The diploma work analyses the Czech tour operators' supply in reference to the territory of Slovakia. The work finds out, what kind of tours tour operators offer and if there are differences among the tours. The tour operators' supply is then compared with the primary tourist supply of Slovakia. Its goal is to evaluate how much the tour operators' supply covers the potential of selected territory. In addition a survey in the form of a questionnaire is used to find out why Czech citizens don't use tour operators' services when traveling to Slovakia.

Diploma thesis deals with the processing of a business plan to establish a tour operator, which will offer tours to Puerto Rico. Thesis is divided into theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part explains what is business and related terms. Defines the tourism business and the procedure for the establishment of tour operators. There are also theoretically explained individual chapters of a business plan. The practical part is dedicated to the establishment of tour operator, where is proceeded by individual chapters business plan, which are explained in the theoretical part.

Goal of this dissertation's thesis is to familiarize the reader with the issues connected with automatic optimization and its implementation in desired company, as a substitute to its current solution. The main objective of this thesis is therefore considered to be consideration and evaluation of benefits software solution can bring to HOPI, with full meeting of its requirements using its resources. In theoretical part of thesis will look at all the necessary information the reader will need to fully understand the theory, as well as the issueo of creating and optimizing great number of routes with a large fleet. Company HOPI will be introduced, as well as all software solutions, which were used in this work, or are mentioned with references. Practical part will describe the process of planning in both version, actual and software one. Form gained information and consultations with management of HOPI, conclusions will be drawn about benefits and difficulties of each solution. Ideal procedure for consideration will be drawn and verdict about software solution will be reached. In conclusion, thesis will summarize all gained knowledge, which will lead to final assessment and it will establish the best options of solutions for HOPI.

The Tour Construction Framework (TCF) integrates both global and local heuristics in a complementary framework in order to efficiently solve the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP). Most tour construction heuristics are strictly local in nature. However, the experimental method presented in this research includes a global heuristic to efficiently solve the TSP. The Global Path (GP) component and Super Node (SN) component comprise the TCF. Each component heuristic is tuned with one or more parameters. Genetic Algorithms (GA) are used to train the collection of parameters for the TCF components on subsets of benchmark TSPs. The GA results are used to run the TCF on the full TSP instances. The performance of the TCF is evaluated for speed, accuracy, and computational complexity, and it is compared against six mainstream TSP solvers: Lin-Kernighan-Helsgaun (LKH-2), 2-Opt, Greedy, Boruvka, Quick-Boruvka, and Nearest Neighbor. The empirical study demonstrates the effectiveness of the TCF in achieving near-optimal solutions for the TSP with reasonable costs.