Date: 2011-05-25 Program: MIMA-International Marketing Course name: Master Thesis (EFO705) Title: Changing consumer’s attitude of energy drinks in Thailand market. Acase study of Thai consumer behavior toward energy drinks. Authors: Suratssawadee Kuptanon (870113)Thanathorn Pichittachakul (831226) Supervisor: Peter SelegårdProblem: How to change the attitude of Thai young adult consumer regarding toenergy drink? Purpose: To describe and analyze the attitude of Thai young adult consumer thateffect to the energy drink market in order to develop and change theirattitude in the positive way. Furthermore, give the recommendationabout the appropriate way to maintain and increase the market shareand customer for the marketer. Method: This research use both qualitative and quantitative in the questionnairesurvey to conduct the real behavior and attitude of young adult inThailand market. Basically, the data collection method also dividedinto two sources which are primary data and secondary data.Moreover, the total respondents in this research are 400 who are youngadult and live in Bangkok, Thailand. Also, the theories of attitudechange strategies, attitudes and consumer perception are use in thisresearch. Conclusion: The results from the survey show the opportunities for marketer tochange their customer attitude by use the main instruments which areadvertising and marketing campaigns. Keyword: consumer behavior, change attitude, change behavior, energybeverage, and social drinking

Foodservice outlets have the potential to enhance the experience of visitors to a wide range of visitor attractions. As such introducing authentic foodservice outlets could potentially play significant role in the development of cultural-heritage and natural attractions in Ghana. Consuming local traditional foods leave nostalgic, memorable feelings, which create 'golden locations' and in turn encourage repeat visits and increase visitor traffic at these locations. The foodservice sector has however, been supported in Ghana generally and has been largely ignored at visitor attractions. In situations where foodservice outlets are limited, visitors can potentially find themselves unable to purchase any refreshments at the attractions. This detracts from their experience and discourages repeat visits. The main aim of this thesis is critically to evaluate the integration of foodservice at Ghanaian visitor attractions and to identify a suitable approach for developing authentic foodservice outlets at the sites. This thesis derived data from both secondary and primary research. With the lack of available data and records on Ghanaian visitor attractions and foodservice operations, the primary data collection exercise used a mixed-method approach in a two-Phase study over a one-year period. An exploratory survey of visitor attractions and foodservice operations in the research area, which also involved focus groups (n=56) and individual (n=6) interviews, within the academia and with stakeholders of tourism and foodservice sectors. Based on the findings of the Phasel study, the Phase2 study, involved a visitor survey (n=528) at six selected visitor attractions. A follow-up interview was conducted with attractions and foodservice personnel (n=24) at the attractions where the survey was conducted. The findings of the research have confirmed that the Ghanaian tourism industry has overlooked foodservice sector in the development of tourism and particularly at visitor attractions. It also established the importance of foodservice as part of the overall experiences at visitor attractions. It proposes independent! multi-owned/ franchises as the best alternative approaches for developing and integrating authentic foodservice outlets with Ghanaian visitor attractions. Therefore, the study proposes introducing formally trained staff to the informal traditional foodservice outlets to develop authentic foodservice outlets at visitor attractions as a positive way to support the tourism industry in Ghana. It also suggests that the proposals made to address the current situation in Ghana may be applicable to other countries in Africa seeking to develop sectors of their economies and be of interest to the relevant and the international bodies such as UNWTO, UNDP, and UNEP who seek to promote the development of sustainable tourism practices.

The subject of this Ph.D. thesis is Customer Satisfaction in Malaysian Malay Restaurants Dining Experience. The research was conducted in three Malay family restaurants in Malaysia by using an inductive Case Study research approach. The aim of the research was to propose a conceptual framework for customer satisfaction dining experience. It focused on dining experience satisfaction consumption related to factors in, and the management of, customer satisfaction. The implications of the findings provide a theoretical and methodological contribution to the knowledge in both, Malaysia and the rest of the world. Adopting the Case Study research approach gave an opportunity to collect data that stems from three Malay family restaurants in Malaysia using a wide variety of data collection methods. The findings presented in this thesis were based on an in-depth interview with 108 restaurant customers who dined at the restaurants and 18 restaurant staff, particularly front of house and kitchen staff, besides the owner and manager of each restaurant. Daily participant observation for each restaurant took 5 to 9 hours a day for between 27 and 30 days. The findings were also based on a number of supplementary data from documentary evidence such as staff working timetables, menu cards/ books, staff attendance punch cards, stock check lists, reservation records and restaurant organisational charts. The contributions of this study comprise of six major themes: Firstly, dining experience is a continuous process which starts with the customers’ first engagement with the restaurant at the reservation stage and continues until they leave the restaurant at the departure stage. Therefore, to ensure customers’ loyalty, restaurateurs needed to ensure all tangible and intangible factors that influenced satisfaction at each stage of the dining process (pre-meal experience; antecedent experience; reservation experience and arrival experience; the actual meal experience: seating experience and food experience; and post-meal experience: payment experience and departure experience) were integrated together (they did not work as separate entities and should not be treated individually) to provide valuable, meaningful, memorable and holistic satisfaction to every customer who dined at the restaurant. Secondly, factors influencing customer satisfaction at the pre-meal experience were the availability of a reservation service, both formal and informal, and customers’ phone calls for reservations being answered quickly by restaurants’ polite and professional staff. Meanwhile, at the dining arrival stage, factors influencing customers’ satisfaction were being assisted by a free parking attendant, having a parking area close to the premises, punctuality of restaurant business hours and offering a 24-hour restaurant operation to the public. The meal experience stage was found to be a major stage among seven stages of the dining experience process, with menu variety, and food presentation and display as the core of restaurant service. iv Factors influencing dining satisfaction during the actual meal experience were related to a unique cultural preference concept for Malay restaurants such as private dining space, food quality attribute of authenticity, eating style, restaurant decoration, waiting activities, prayer room, and traditional live band. Satisfaction influence factors for post-meal experience were self service payment, being bid farewell and being escorted to the exit door. Thirdly, this study because it adopted a qualitative research approach, managed to venture the role of Maslow’s Theory in customer satisfaction through the hierarchy of satisfaction of dining experience. The lowest level satisfaction was achieved when the basic needs of the customers’ dining at the restaurant was fulfilled or what restaurants provided to the customers was adequate or equal with customers’ expectation. A moderate level of satisfaction was achieved when customers could control their own dining activities. A high level of satisfaction resulted when the restaurants offered something above ordinary or which exceeded customers’ expectation. The highest level of satisfaction was achieved when the restaurants provided something that was outstanding and which surpassed the ordinary needs of the customers. Fourthly, the major way of managing factors influencing customer satisfaction dining experience was based on a systematic restaurant operation system. However, the key element that was responsible for the management of a systematic restaurant operation system depended on human resource management (the restaurant manager, front of house staff and kitchen staff), staff training and development, and restaurant rules. Fifthly, the analyses of customer satisfaction in a new socio-cultural context: Malaysian Malay restaurants provided an opportunity for a cross-comparison of ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ research findings and the identification of what was the same and what was different depending on the cultural context. Sixthly, the development of a conceptual framework had three major concepts: the input for the dining experience satisfaction (which consisted of factors influencing dining satisfaction and ways of managing it); the consumption of dining experience satisfaction at three phases: pre-meal, the actual meal and post-meal experience and the cognitive evaluation process of dining experience that led to satisfaction. And, lastly, the outcomes of dining experience satisfaction (in a form of pleasurable feelings and behavioural changes) which aided the understanding of customer satisfaction with the dining experience and ways managing it. This research suggested future research should consider additional factors to explain the overall satisfaction with the dining experience at Malaysian Malay restaurants (and /including) cross- type of restaurants and demographic profiles of customers; expand this research throughout the country to improve the transferability of the findings to other types of restaurant to assist restaurant managers in better matching the needs of each customer segment; extend the research to different ethnic restaurants that have different characteristics and attributes; undertake a comparative study of factors influencing customer satisfaction in Malay restaurants between two different groups of customers, such as Eastern versus Western; conduct a longitudinal study to compare changes in factors that influence customers’ satisfaction with dining experience at different times; and investigate whether the meal experience stage still plays the most important role in different types of restaurants.

This dissertation investigates the development of the soft drink market in China from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century, with particular attention to the rise of Coca-Cola. It examines how soft drinks competed with traditional Chinese summer food and beverage such as watermelons, herbal tea, plum juice, and nutriments which were believed to have medical properties for people’s summer health, and eventually became one of the most popular types of beverages in the country. Over one hundred years in the Chinese minds, soft drinks changed from an exotic but unsavory beverage to a popular drink and a symbol of modernity. This dissertation argues that western science competing with traditional Chinese medicine has been a driving force in shaping beverage consumption in modern China. There were constant politics played by the state, businesses, and consumers on production, marketing, and consumption of soft drinks, making a bottle of drink not merely a commodity but one that embodied science, modernity, and identity in Chinese society. Following the introduction chapter, chapter 2 of the dissertation delineates the clash between Chinese and western food culture in the late nineteenth century. It shows how traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) including the yin-yang theory and the concept of medicine-food homology played a role in shaping Chinese food culture for centuries. By analyzing advertisement, chapter 3 examines how soft drinks, which were considered by Chinese people as an unpleasant and unhealthy drink according to TCM, were marketed and gradually accepted as a hygienic and healthy drink under the rhetoric of modernization. Since foreign-brands such as Coca-Cola were luxuries, cheap imitations provided ordinary Chinese people, especially urbanites, opportunities to experience “modernity.” Chapter 4 discusses the culture of imitation in modern China in regard of soft drinks. In the first half of the twentieth century, consumption were politicized in National Products Movements, in which soft drink brands were categorized into either Chinese or foreign and people’s loyalty to the nation was, to some extent, judged by their brand choice. However, there was something far more than nationalism that played a role in the picture. Taking the Shanghai Coca-Cola protest of 1947 as a case study, chapter 5 reveals that Chinese nationalism in National Products Movements in the late forties was used by Chinese businessmen to advance themselves in business competition. When political conflicts became a major theme in Maoist China, Coca-Cola was criticized as a symbol of imperialism and driven out of China. Nevertheless, science-driven consumption did not fade away. Chapter 6 shows that instead of promoting Coca-Cola, the People’s Republic of China “invented” salty soda as a prevention and treatment of heat stroke and widely distributed it among workers as a socialist welfare in summer. The final chapter discusses the return of Coca-Cola in the post-Mao era. It shows that science and modernity was a consistent subject in production and consumption in China, where the state promoted it cautiously due to political sensibility while ordinary Chinese people embraced it enthusiastically with little resistance.

No description available.

It has been recognised that hospital food service could be improved, with malnutrition a particular concern. The problem of patients obtaining adequate nutrition in hospital is complex with many constraints at ward level. The hypothesis of this study is that patients able to see and smell the food on offer and with potential for greater server empathy, will achieve better nutritional status and increased meal satisfaction. Data were collected from two wards, Women's Health and Orthopaedic, (n=62) over two, three-day consecutive periods. Firstly, for a pre-ordered, plated meal service and secondly, nine months later, for a trolley service offering choice at the point of consumption. Food was weighed before and after the meal. Questionnaires were administered and interviews conducted with patients (n= 614) to evaluate patient acceptability of both catering systems and other pertinent data. The research methodology also involved collecting observational data during mealtimes. Focus groups were conducted with ward staff, and patients together with their visitors while open ended interviews were conducted with the catering manager, facilities manager, chief dietitian, orthopaedic ward dietitian and chief pharmacist. This was to enhance and validate information already gathered. Results show that nutritional intake was not dependent on the catering system and that possibly in hospital; unlike other `eating out' situations there are barriers to `complete nutrition'1. A theoretical model of patient experience and satisfaction with hospital food service is presented, reflecting data gathered during the case study. Texture and temperature of food were shown to be critical factors impinging on patient satisfaction and the trolley system of delivery is the preferred style of service. Service predisposition demonstrates little significance with patient satisfaction towards the overall meal experience. This research indicates that nutritionally, the method of meal delivery is immaterial but patients do prefer choice at the point of consumption. 1 A term used to define the provision of a healthy nutritionally balanced diet which meets and satisfies both physiological and psychological requirements.

Food intake in humans is guided by a variety of factors, which include physiological, cultural, economic and environmental influences. The sensory attributes of food itself play a prominent role in dietary behaviour, and the roles of visual, auditory, gustatory and tactile stimuli have been extensively researched. Other than in the context of flavour, however, olfaction has received comparatively little attention in the field of food acceptability. The investigation was designed to test the hypothesis that olfactory cues, in isolation of other sensory cues, play a functional role in food choice and acceptability. Empirical studies were conducted to investigate: the effects of exposure to food odours on hunger perception; the effects of exposure to food odours with both high and low hedonic ratings on food choice, consumption and acceptability; and the application of odour exposure in a restaurant environment. Results from these studies indicated that exposure to the food odours led to a conscious perception of a shift in hunger, the direction and magnitude of which was dependent on the hedonic response to the odour. Exposure to a food odour with a high hedonic rating prior to a meal significantly increased consumption and acceptability (p<0.05), and exposure to a food odour with a low hedonic rating had no significant effect (p>0.05). When applied to a restaurant environment, exposure to a food odour with a high hedonic rating significantly influenced food choice and acceptability (p<0.05). Subject and stimulus variables, contributing to the role of olfactory cues, were identified from the results, facilitating the development of a conceptual olfactory cueing model. The model demonstrates how a series of independent variables, relating to odour exposure, may lead to either an enhancement of dietary patterns or suppression of food intake. The application and implications of the model are discussed. As such this research establishes direct links between stimulus and response in an ecologically valid environment.

This study brings together two bodies of literature, one concerned with the character of services and the other concerned with the nature of quality, in order to explore the nature and possible forms of measurement of service quality. It uses the conference hotel service product as a vehicle for examining judgements about overall service quality. A systematic approach, through a multi-staged methodology, is evolved by first identifying what the product consists of; secondly by establishing what the evaluative attributes are; thirdly by assessing levels of perceived performance on the evaluative attributes and, crucially, the assessment of the overall performance of the product. By using statistical techniques, the evaluative attributes of perceived net quality are examined. This is achieved by analysing which attributes fulfil minimum requirements and which attributes can increase a positive perception of net quality. In addition, the impact of the attributes on net quality is established. The study shows that the specific product consists of a multi-dimensional combination of attributes in varying degrees. The crucial attribute is shown to be dependability of management and staff. In addition, the study reveals that net quality is not only a reflection of incidents of satistaction with the physical - commodities and performed activities. It also needs to take into consideration human interaction as a component in itself. In a wider context the study gives an indication of how the perceived net quality of a product , with a high degree of an activity component, can be examined.

A nation wide survey of the vending industry indicated that the shelf-life of chilled menu items served from vending machines rarely exceeded 24 hours. This necessitated food production and distribution to vending sites on a daily basis. The short life coupled with unpredictable consumer demand may result in high food wastage rates. Vacuum and modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) are known to improve stored raw food quality. In order to optimize the quality and shelf-life of vended foods, the effects of these techniques and length of storage time on menu items were studied. Chicken drumsticks and chicken a la king were either individually cling wrapped, vacuum packed or packed under modified atmosphere (70% CO , 30N 0) and stored for up to 21 days in a chilled foot vending machine. The growth of naturally occurring micro-organisms was delayed in vacuum packed samples, compared with cling wrapped samples. However, direct inoculation studies indicated that this effect was dependent on the nature of the initial microflora. The public health risk of serving cooked food from vending machines was assessed by means of a survey of the operating temperatures of chilled food vending machines and a review of the growth characteristics of the major food poisoning micro-organisms. Th8 surveyed machines were able to maintain temperatures below 5 C, although this temperature was not universally found. The sensory quality of the chicken samples was examined by two trained taste panels and also a consumer panel. Stepwise discriminant analysis of the trained panel scores indicated that packaging and length of storage had a distinctive and unique effect on the sensory quality of both products. The mean consumer scores were used to construct significant (p<0.05) regression models, which showed that on average consumers preferred the fresh unpackaged sample and least preferred the cling wrapped samples. However, when the consumer scores of individuals were examined by means of Prefmap analysis, subgroups were found to exist within the population that held polar viewpoints in opinion. The results show that MAP and vacuum packaging may be used in place of cling wrapping to extend the shelf-life of certain vended menu items, but of more immediate importance to the vending industry is the implementation of proper temperature control to ensure a hazard free syste

There have been a number of studies which have attempted to identify factors affecting successful technology transfer. However, empirical studies of technology transfer, at the level of the user, have been a much neglected area of research despite numerous promptings. Too much attention has been paid to single factor explanations of success, although it is widely accepted that success is a multi-faceted phenomenon. There is also an absence of a suitable definition of success which reflects its multi-dimensional character. This research, therefore, attempts to develop a suitable multi-faceted measure for success and an identification of factors affecting success in the study of the user uptake phase of a technology transfer process; namely the introduction of cook chill technology into catering operations in the UK. A survey of 80 cook chill operations in the UK was undertaken and detailed information was collected from each. A multi-faceted measure of success was developed by using 10 carefully selected success criteria. Each cook chill operation in the sample was allocated a 'score' for each success factor. This process culminated in the formation of a 'success table' of cook chill operations in the sample which enabled the identification of those units which were the most successful and those which were the least successful throughout the technology transfer process. There were numerous differences between the activities of the successful group and those of the unsuccessful group throughout the initiation, implementation and assessment phases of the technology transfer process. The findings of this research, therefore support the notion of success as being multi-faceted. Some of the major factors seen to affect success included: management stability, the extent, quality and efficiency of precook chill development work, communication and involvement with employees and appropriate training, adherence to the technical requirements of the system and a research and development orientation. The overriding finding, however, was the tendency shown by the managers in the successful group to be proactive and those in the unsuccessful group to be reactive.