Quality of life is an important yet often unmeasured variable in assessing places to live. Maintaining and promoting a high quality of life is critical for communities striving to sustain and expand their current economic bases. This study presents a format for measuring quality of life and an adaptation of the importance-performance analytical technique for evaluating results. Using results from a quality of life survey, the study demonstrates how policy implications may be suggested from the analysis.

This research intends to understand whether Kaohsiung is heading toward or away from being a livable city. Additionally, it also intends to show if the developments in the city conform to the expectations of the residents. Therefore, the analysis in this research is based on objective statistics and the resident¡¦s subjective perceptions. This research utilized Time Series analysis and questionnaires to conduct the research, and used importance-performance analysis as the analytical method. The questionnaires targeted the residents in Kaohsiung City who are over 20 years of age. The total samples are 330 with 254 valid samples. The questionnaires surveyed the level of livability of Kaohsiung judging from 5 aspects: the eco-environment, culture & education, economic development, urban living & service, and medical & social welfare, reflecting the difference between the importance and performance of each aspect. Below are the suggestions concluded from the results of the research, which pointed out the improvements needed for Kaohsiung and the items that can use less attention: 1. According to the time aptitude objective statistics, Kaohsiung has shown mostly positive growth on cultural education, especially on holding cultural events and replenishing books for the public libraries. However, the economy has shown negative growth, 2. Based on importance-performance analysis, out of 23 indications, 4 of them (17.38%) fell on keep-doing area, 4(17.38%) fell on excessive supply area, 6(26.1%) fell on lower-priority area, 9(39.14%) fell on improvement-focused area. 3. Combing the data gathered from the questionnaires and statistical analysis, the items require grave improvement are raising the wages of the residents, lowering unemployment rate, and resolving the problem of abuse to children and teenagers. From both the subjective and objective analysis, items that are overly supplied are the number of times of holding cultural events and replenishing books for the pubic libraries. Based on the results from the research, it is suggested that Kaohsiung put resource to economy and medical & social welfare, while decrease overly investing cultural education.

The aim of this research was to provide a practical method for assessing visitor satisfaction at a local festival. It is crucial for festival management to monitor and evaluate visitor satisfaction in order to understand and identify the needs and perceptions of attendees, which in turn allows organizers to design and tailor the festival elements towards them, leading to higher visitor satisfaction, positive word-of-mouth advertising, and increased likelihood of repeat attendance (Lee, Lee and Choi, 2011; Lee & Beeler, 2009). The research objectives were to evaluate current levels of satisfaction of festival attendees, to determine what attributes are importance in determining satisfaction, and to analyze whether importance and performance of those attributes differs based on demographics and visit characteristics, with the aim of recommending policies to assist the festival in increasing overall visitor satisfaction. A questionnaire was distributed over four days, and three event locations resulting in the collection of 389 completed questionnaires. Respondents were asked to complete demographic and visit information as well as rate the importance and performance of eighteen festival attributes. ANOVA and independent t-tests were used in order to determine whether the importance and satisfaction of these attributes differed based on the demographics and visit characteristics. An Importance-performance analysis (IPA) was then used to assist event organizers in resource allocation while identifying critical performance attributes in order to improve visitor satisfaction. Findings reveal attributes associated with program content, convenience and food and beverage ranked higher in determining visitor satisfaction than the attributes associated with souvenir, transportation and information availability. Results also indicate statistically significant differences of the mean importance and mean performance scores of attributes based on gender, age, resident status, site and whether it was the respondents??? first time at the event. It was found that females place a higher importance on convenience attributes such as the cleanliness of restrooms, helpfulness of staff and feeling of safety, as compared to males. As well, repeat visitors placed a higher importance on program content attributes such as live entertainment, dance space and authentic culture, and also have a higher perception of performance for these attributes than first-time visitors. These findings result in direction for management in where to place future resources, as well as implications for promotional and advertising strategies.

Quality of life is an important yet often unmeasured variable in assessing places to live. Maintaining and promoting a high quality of life is critical for communities striving to sustain and expand their current economic bases. This study presents a format for measuring quality of life and an adaptation of the importance-performance analytical technique for evaluating results. Using results from a quality of life survey, the study demonstrates how policy implications may be suggested from the analysis.

A slowing economy coupled with new political initiative to rely on faith-based organizations to deal with social ills is raising concerns for cause-based organizations about the level of future donations. In this study, 1,414 survey respondents permitted comparisons between current, lapsed and non-donors to the American Lung Association (ALA) in terms of donation motives and their satisfaction via donating, concern about health issues, perceptions of ALA and demographics. Analyses consisted of analysis of variance, chi-square tests and use of the importance/performance technique. Similarities and differences among the three groups are noted and discussed. Implications for the ALA's fundraising activities are drawn.

This study examines the concept of authenticity as applied at Appomattox Court House National Historical Park (ACHNHP). Based on past theoretical research, a functional definition of authenticity is used in an effort to test whether or not visitors to the park come for reasons relating to authenticity. Further analyses are used to determine the relative importance of authenticity to other motivational reasons for visiting the park, and how the level of authenticity experienced at ACHNHP affects how respondents rate the importance and performance of many park setting attributes. Using motivation for authenticity and importance/performance variables as predictors, visitor knowledge, perceptions of crowding and conflict, and overall satisfaction are assessed. The results suggest that while authenticity is important for park visitors, experience outputs are difficult to forecast because of correlation among independent variables and homogeneity of park visitors. Recommendations are made for future researchers when examining the concept of authenticity. / Master of Science

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The main source of the international hotel guests are mostly comprised of the travelers from foreign countries; and among those foreign travelers, the Japanese are always in the highest rank to Taiwan and become the most important market. On the other hand, since Mainland China has liberalized the Chinese for sightseeing abroad, the travel industry all over the world are widely opening their arms and try to absorb this big cake. Taiwanese tourism industry as well has been preparing and standing by the arrival of the Mainland Chinese for the recent years. This is the reason why the study will focus on these two major markets of traveler and take a close look to see that when selecting the international hotel in Kaohsiung, whether it will be affected by the different culture, traveling attitude, social or economic back-ground etc., so as to compare the importance of hotel facility and service quality in the perception of guest¡¦s recognition and satisfaction, a comparison of the difference. The IPA (Importance-Performance Analysis) along with SWOT analysis are applied to analyze the selecting factors of Mainland Chinese and Japanese travelers to six international hotels in Kaohsiung. Those factors are categorized into 6 groups : 1. service quality; 2. business facilities; 3. value; 4. room & front desk; 5. food & recreation; 6. security; A questionnaire is formed according to this format and 700 copies has been printed.This survey was conducted from 8th, Mar. to 8th, Apr. in 2006, and finally returned with 161 valid in Japanese and 116 valid in simplified Chinese, the rate of valid returned is 39.5%. The results of the analyses come out as follows: To both Mainland Chinese and Japanese travelers, Kaohsiung International Hotels remain few strengths, there are only two items of strength, i.e. IDD service is available. & Hotel provides comfortable ambience. Kaohsiung International Hotels should take serious considerations to enforce their strength in competition to improve higher occupation rate, i.e. for Mainland Chinese travelers, High quality in-room temperature control; for Japanese, High quality in-room temperature control. and Hotel F&B is value for money; those improvements will promote travelers¡¦ satisfaction.

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The goal of this study was to develop an instrument to assist public park and recreation agencies in successfully repositioning their offerings in order to garner increased allocations of tax dollars. To achieve this, an agency must be perceived as providing public benefits, those that accrue to all members of its constituency. The scale sought to identify the importance of various community issues and perceptions of the agency's performance in contributing to those issues. A valid and reliable 36-item instrument was developed that encompasses nine distinct dimensions: Preventing Youth Crime, Environmental Stewardship, Enhancing Real Estate Values, Attracting and Retaining Businesses, Attracting and Retaining Retirees, Improving Community Health, Stimulating Urban Rejuvenation, Attracting Tourists, and Addressing the Needs of People who are Underemployed. These dimensions represent community issues that a park and recreation agency can contribute towards, and can therefore use as a basis for its repositioning efforts. Using a screening process by expert judges, a pretest sample of undergraduate students, and a sample of municipal residents, each of the importance and performance dimensions in the scale was judged to possess content validity, internal consistency, construct validity, and split-half reliability. A shortened version of the instrument was also demonstrated to possess internal consistency and construct validity. In a practical application, the scale proved useful in identifying repositioning options for the park and recreation department, both in isolation and relative to a public agency'competitor'. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are offered.