This study highlights the treatment of the smaller stakeholders for whom the social legacy impacts are potentially the greatest within mega-event planning. The aim of this research is to develop a framework of urban regeneration legacy associated with the hosting of mega-events where the local community are key stakeholders, and where they can gain long-term positive social legacies. Mega-events, such as the Olympic Games, are widely held to bring a variety of positive social benefits through the process of urban regeneration. This research is built around the development of a conceptual framework of social legacy impacts arising from the urban regeneration planned through hosting the Olympic Games. Social legacy impacts, also referred to as soft impacts, are those which are intangible and affect individuals within their everyday lives in the longer term. This research is concerned with the social legacy impacts of The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games on the ‘community’ (being defined as those, who have either lived, worked or have some social connection with the area within the proposed Olympic Park site) in the Lower Lea Valley site in east London, and how they have or have not been recognised as stakeholders. A stakeholder being an individual or group who will be affected by the actions, decisions or policies of the Games organisers, within the planning of the Games. Key informant interviews have been undertaken with individuals who have had a stake in the planning of the Barcelona Games of 1992, Sydney Games of 2000 and the planning of the London 2012 Games. Each interview involved a semi-structured conversation, encouraging the interviewees to recount their experiences of the planning of these mega-events from the perspectives of the communities involved and the social legacy planning. Interviews were analysed thematically. The main themes to emerge focus on legacy identification, community identification, the importance of regeneration for the existing community, the need to identify power relationships and the need for knowledge transfer and experience. The study shows that, for some ‘communities’, the opportunity to gain positive social benefits are too late as they themselves have already been relocated. The study has developed the Olympic Legacy Management Stakeholder framework to help communities to become more active as stakeholders within future mega-event planning through, amongst other things, recognising the different power relationships that exist.

Thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), museums are experiencing a longawaited redisplay renaissance in the early 21 st century. The thesis, prompted by the observed renaissance, explores and examines the factors and processes involved in the redevelopment of biological displays in British museums. Using a qualitative, grounded theory methodology and analytic process, the research focuses on three case study museums; Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, the Great North Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne, and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. Informed by preliminary research, the main study employs the semi-structured interview method to collect primary data from key project team members. To triangulate findings from the interviews, and develop an overarching theory, complementary primary and secondary data was also collected in the form of project reports, meeting minutes, photographs, etc. The findings demonstrate that 'accepting change' in the museum is key to the redisplay of biological collections. The single most important change in these redevelopments has been the approach to the redisplay process; namely the shift from the curator-driven model to the team approach. This has, singlehandedly, transformed the key elements of the process; decision-making and communication, whilst introducing the important element, teamwork. By applying a team approach, powers of decision making are shared across team members and work progresses more rapidly. It also ensures that the final gallery incorporates the educational, design, conservation and curatorial aspects. The driving factors were also uncovered in the course of the research. Categorised as internal and external factors, some were more influential than others; the collections and project team members (internal) and the audience and funders (external) proved particularly influential in early stages of the three projects. The findings from this research contribute to the limited museological research into contemporary biological redisplays. It debates the shifting paradigms and new display processes in British museums, but future research could develop the grounded theory to investigate and test gallery redisplays worldwide.

In this thesis, the possibilities of tourism as a strategy for economic and social development in Peru are presented. Through the examination of previous governments, beginning with the Belaunde administration in 1963, the obstacles that Peru has faced in route to development are identified. Identification of the predominant issues at hand, unemployment, poverty and inequality, allows for further analysis of the policies implemented to stabilize the economy as well as provide immediate solutions for the above mentioned points of concern. It becomes clear that while the country is rich in resources, beyond natural resources such as crude oil and minerals, the promotion and enhancement of the tourism industry has rarely been used as a means of earning revenue. While there are a number of options to consider with regard to developmental strategies, the tourism industry presents definite opportunities for growth. These benefits are closely examined in this thesis, demonstrating how much Peru has to offer, not only to tourists who seek to broaden their cultural knowledge but most importantly to the Peruvian people, by way of a robust tourism sector. / US Naval Reserve (USNR) author.

Although the hospitality industry has historically relied on migrant workers, the influx of Poles to the UK following EU Enlargement in 2004 resulted in the unprecedented increase in numbers of those taking up jobs in the UK hospitality industry. Poland, being the largest of the new member states, became the largest supplier of labour from Central and Eastern European countries. Despite the sector's poor image of being low-skilled, badly paid, physically demanding and lacking clear career prospects, the industry has attracted many educated Poles who were able to fill problematic vacancies. The purpose of this research is to examine the experiences of Polish migrant workers in the UK's hospitality industry. It explores who the Polish workers employed in hospitality are as well as looking at the reasons for choosing to work in the sector. On this theme, the migrants' give their views on the UK hospitality sector and what they bring to and learn or gain from working in hospitality. Finally, the research investigates the role that hospitality plays in the adaptation of Polish migrants into life in the UK, which places the research in the wider social context of current migration issues and labour market influences. In order to achieve the research aim, a mixed method approach was employed using an online questionnaire, interviews and netnography - ethnography adapted to study online communities. The online questionnaire was distributed across fora for Poles and it collected 315 usable questionnaires. The choice of these research methods was shaped by the characteristics of the Polish community living in the UK, a mobile community of migrants, who use the internet extensively at various stages of the migration process. The findings of this research show that Polish migrants in the UK hospitality sector are young, below the age of 30, predominantly female and highly qualified. Despite the latter characteristic, migrants' methods for accessing employment point to a high level of informality; they find work through friends and family or by visiting hotel premises. Furthermore, migrants' views on hospitality as an occupation are diverse; satisfaction is derived from a lively and social environment, flexibility and career progression. Conversely, a 24/7/365 culture, pay rates and poor management are sources of disappointment. It is evident that migrant workers treat working experiences as investments, as 'stepping stones' to a better future. They felt that they acquired a range of new skills; the knowledge of the local labour market and local work experience, interpersonal and social skills and, most importantly: 'language capital'. The findings of this research demonstrate that the hospitality environment facilitates migrants' adaptation to life in the UK, providing social activities and a language- learning environment, allowing migrants to develop relationships with other groups; host nationals, Poles and other migrants.

Service quality is increasingly becoming an important issue for organisations to consider when attempting to satisfy customers and remain competitive in the marketplace. Delivering consistent service quality though appears to present difficulties for many organisations,but this can largely be attributed to the poor understanding of services and the poor understanding of the service quality concept. This thesis has illustrated how services and service quality can be better understood by its review of the literature and by discussing alternative perspectives. Service quality is considered to be a subjective,multi-faceted concept which exists in the mind of each and every individual in a unique way, but which may be partly controlled by understanding customers' separate expectations and their separate perceptions of the service as they pass through the service delivery system. The control and improvement of this service process is considered to be highly dependent upon the organisation's ability to keep customers' expectations within achievable parameters, and upon the service employees' ability to control the customers'perceptions as they pass through the service delivery system. Both the organisation's managers and employees though need to have a good understanding of customers' expectations and perceptions to ensure the consistent delivery of service quality. Several well established research techniques were used to collect empirical data to achieve the research aim in showing how the delivery of service quality can be understood more effectively by using both customers'and employees' perceptions of the service experience. This study illustrated how perceptual gap analysis,service blue printing,and the soft systems methodology can be combined to explore both customers'and employees' perceptions of the service experience. This resulted in the development of a new research technique which has been called 'perceptual blueprinting'. The study was carried out with the collaboration of one organisation in the UK roadside lodge sector where the consistent delivery of service quality is particularly crucial to its continued success. The results from the study have raised some important methodological and substantive issues surrounding the identification and control of service quality in both the roadside lodge sector and service industries in general,and subsequently should provide some value to both acaden-dcs and practitioners alike.

The emergence of the Internet has enabled the development of e-commerce, which is defined as the process of buying and selling or exchanging products, services and information via computer networks (Turban et al, 2002). Since the early stages of the development of the Internet there were claims that travel had the potential to become one of the most sold e-commerce products (Buhalis, 1998; Turban et al, 2002). The reality, however, is that in the first years of the twenty first century only a minority of travel purchasing is conducted over the Internet. By 2002 only 3.6 percent of worldwide travel sales were made over the Internet in 2002, with this figure expected to increase to 7.4% by 2006 (Marcussen, 2003). Moreover, although the trend in overall online market size in Western Europe is positive, the annual growth rates have decreased in recent years. This research arose from an interest in obtaining an insight into the reasons for the lower than anticipated rate of adoption of electronic commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel. The main aim of the research was to evaluate those factors influencing the adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel. The study was developed based on the adoption of innovations paradigm because e-commerce can be regarded as an innovative practice. The research attempted to explicitly develop and test the concept of innovation interdependence. The assumption underlying innovation interdependence is that some innovations are developed upon other innovations and hence the adoption of certain innovations tend to be connected. Following on from this rationale, besides the factors related to the adoption of purchasing leisure travel over the Internet, factors related to the adoption of computers and of the Internet were also included as component parts of the conceptual framework. In addition, the conceptual framework also outlined product-category behaviour as an important factor influencing the adoption of e-commerce in the purchase of that product-category. In order to achieve the research aim, a representative sample of residents in the Borough of Cascais (Lisbon, Portugal) was surveyed. The analysis and discussion of the results was centred on the practical significance of the descriptive data and on the results of the hypothesis testing, based on the following definition of three stages in the e-commerce adoption path: individuals who had never used the Internet (stage 1), individuals who used the Internet but had never purchased by the means of e-commerce (stage 2), and individuals who purchased a product/service over the Internet (stage 3). Those in stage three of the e-commerce adoption path were further divided into two subgroups: those who had never purchased travel over the Internet and those who had purchased. The findings of this research indicate that the factors influencing the adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel vary according to the stage in the e-commerce adoption path. They demonstrate that there is, indeed, a positive relationship between the adoption of computers and the Internet and the adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel. However,the results suggest that the adoption of computers and the Internet play a secondary role and might serve as a facilitator rather than motivator. Rather, the travel and purchasing behaviour of the individual may be the more important influence in their decision to use e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel. The study discusses both the theoretical and practical implications and provides some future areas of research in the field of consumer adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel.

M. Tech. (Tourism and Hospitality Management, Faculty of Human Sciences) : Vaal University of Technology, / The birth of new governance in South Africa in 1994 positioned the country worldwide as a tourism destination with large numbers of tourists visiting South African shores. It is, however, not only international visitors that frequent the tourism products; the local residents also started to travel more with almost 50% of the population that participated in travel-related activities. At the same time South Africa gained a reputation of being an unsafe place to visit, which influenced the tourism growth percentage negatively. It was then realised that the notion of being an unsafe place to go on holiday to would impact negatively on a host country such as South Africa. Perceptions of safety and security in South Africa have been measured, but only for international visitors. Even though the domestic market should be the backbone of the tourism industry their perceptions regarding the safety of South Africa as a tourism destination has not been analysed. This could, however, be a factor inhibiting them from travelling locally. The purpose of this study is to determine the perceptions of residents of Sasolburg regarding tourists’ safety and security in South Africa, to obtain insight into the current perspectives of residents and advise on strategies regarding the improvement of these perceptions. Questionnaires were distributed to residents of Sasolburg and a total of 380 questionnaires were suitable for analyses. The questionnaire was divided into three sections, namely demographic information, travel preferences and perceptions of crime. The data resulting from the questionnaires was captured and analysed by means of descriptive analyses in SPSS. Descriptive statistics were used focusing on the graphical display of frequency tables and figures providing information on the demographic profile and travel behaviour of the respondents. Factor analyses were used to identify specific safety experience factors as well as specific travel motivation factors. Spearman Rank order correlations were used to determine the factors influencing safety experience factors with reference to age, frequency of holidaying, average duration of the holiday, number of weekend trips and travel motivations. An independent t-test was conducted to explore the influence of gender, being a previous victim of crime and marital status on respondents’ assessment of safety experience factors and travel motivation factors. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to explore the effect of home language and occupation on the safety experience factors and travel motivation factors of Sasolburg residents. From the analyses it became clear that the respondents go on holiday once a year but do tend to go on more weekend trips per year. They travel mostly by car and stay with relatives, in hotels and guesthouses. Respondents were most concerned about crime whilst travelling and their biggest concerns were theft, robbery and rape. In everyday life respondents were more concerned about crime than when travelling. Respondents indicated that higher and more intense levels of policing would make South Africa a safer tourism destination. Regarding respondents’ previous holiday, it was found that they had felt safe when dining out, staying at their accommodation establishments and whilst driving during the day. Respondents did feel unsafe at night. The factor analysis on the safety experiences of respondents revealed three factors, namely day-time activities, night-time experiences and infrastructure with night-time activities considered to be the most unsafe activities. The factor analysis on travel motivations revealed the following factors, namely exploration, learning, social group activities and relaxation. The latter was identified as the most important travel motivator for the respondents. The factors that influence residents’ perceptions of crime included age, length of stay, number of weekend trips, previously being a victim of crime, marital status and occupation. The high correlations between the three safety experience factors revealed that if residents felt unsafe during the day they will probably also feel unsafe at night or while using infrastructure. The study contributes to the existing body of knowledge of understanding the influence of perceptions of safety and security on the tourism industry in South Africa. In the light of the findings, it is therefore recommended that the tourism industry, law enforcement agencies and other tourism stakeholders co-ordinate efforts to improve crime prevention measures in South Africa. Travelling of local residents is as important as international visitors to South Africa and it is thus important to create a safe environment to travel.

Business Tourism, a sub-sector of the tourism industry, is growing in international recognition having received wide attention from tourism professionals, governments and academics over the past few decades. This trend demonstrates the integral role that business tourism plays in the development of tourism as a whole. The benefits and impacts of meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions and events on a destination can create considerable opportunities for a city or country’s economy. With the caveat that the balance is maintained between the demand and supply sides of the industry, a destination can successfully use business tourism to achieve pre-defined development goals. Traditionally, the Northern hemisphere developed countries have held the greatest proportion of the business tourism market, both as contributors and recipients. More recently, developing countries are starting to claim their share of this lucrative market as meeting planners, organisers and business travellers look to new, exciting destinations for their meetings. South Africa falls into this category of emerging destinations, becoming a recognised competitor in the global business tourism industry. In terms of the primary components of the business tourism mix, the exhibition component has received the least attention in the South African market to date although there is a growing understanding of the benefits that can be derived from participation in this sector. The aim in this report is to examine the role of exhibition sector, assessing the industry’s contribution to the overall significance of the business tourism sector in South Africa.

As college costs continue to rise, critics question why institutions are investing funds in “unimaginable college experiences” that include climbing walls, leisure pools, and state-of-the-art wellness centers (Martin, 2012; Yu & Effron, 2014; McNutt, 2014). The recent discontinuation of several dozen college outdoor recreation degrees and outdoor orientation programs suggests that the value of outdoor recreation has diminished on the modern college campus. The public challenge to such organizations occurs because of “legitimacy gaps” (Sethi, 2005, as cited in Brummette, 2015). Organizational legitimacy hinges on public acceptance of an organization’s actions within a socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions (Suchman, 1995). The same components that create the basis for organizational legitimacy also comprise the foundations for organizational culture. To survive in the modern system, college outdoor recreation programs must be able to articulate how their mission, behaviors, and decisions add value to their campus community and to institutional goals. This study explored how successful college outdoor recreation programs leverage the outcomes of effective organizational culture-building to maintain organizational legitimacy using data from three nationally-recognized college outdoor programs. The primary research questions were: 1) how does a college outdoor recreation program create a “cultural fit” within the mission and strategic plan of its institution, and 2) how does the program articulate goal congruence with institutional stakeholders? The researcher conducted interviews with 18 participants and conducted a document analysis to explore how programs shared their value with stakeholders. Findings suggest that successful programs 1) garner support when their organizational culture reinforces the institution’s organizational culture, 2) establish value by being the sole provider of specific experiences in support of the institution’s strategic priorities 3) can best maintain and extend legitimacy by cultivating a web of strategic, collaborative partnerships. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2017. / August 8, 2017. / college, higher education, legitimacy, organizational culture, outdoor recreation, value / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert A. Schwartz, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jeffrey James, University Representative; Kathy L. Guthrie, Committee Member; Bradley Cox, Committee Member.

The research investigates visitor and resident place perceptions of Mid Wales and evaluates the potential of such perceptions to shape economic development in the area. A review of literature indicated a need for an holistic approach to place. It was suggested that a starting point towards achieving this is to envisage place as three components - the real, the expected and the perceived. The real place is described using secondary statistical information and maps of the area. the expected place is described using topographical writing and guide books. The perceived place is examined through a combination of questionnaires and interviews with residents and visitors. These investigate perceptions of the landscape and economy of Mid Wales. The 'perceived places' of residents and visitors are described. A number of agencies based in Mid Wales were also interviewed to examine i) their perceptions of Mid Wales' ii) the way in which visitor and resident perceptions are incorporated into the policy development process, and, iii) their responses to some of the preliminary outcomes of the research. The research concluded that both residents and visitors have well defined, but different place perceptions of Mid Wales. Visitor perceptions are more affected by the expected place than the real, whilst resident perceptions are more affected by the real place than the expected. There are currently few mechanisms by which place perceptions are directly incorporated into the development process. However, the place perceptions of agencies were found to be close to those of the groups they represented; it is suggested that place perceptions are fundamental truths shared by groups, which are so strong as to actually subconsciously drive the policy development process. Policy implications are suggested, as are ideas for future research.