Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva och analysera hur utvalda fine dining-restauranger arbetar med att skapa helhetsupplevelser för gästen. Vidare vill vi om möjlighet ges, även ge rekommendationer till hur andra företag i andra branscher kan arbeta för att tillämpa ett likande framgångsrecept. Uppsatsens syfte har uppfyllts genom tillämpning av en kvalitativ forskningsmetod och användning av en abduktiv ansats, för att kunna förstå och tolka empirin. Vår teoretiska referensram har bestått av grundläggande delar som vi antagit hör till en helhetsupplevelse och som vi kommit fram till att fine dining- restauranger tillämpar. Vi har inom den teoretiska referensramen haft helhetsupplevelsen i fokus och utgått från att delarna utgör den helhet som blir upplevelsen för gästen. Produkten, servicen, rummet och organisationen är de delarna vi har tagit fram teorier kring och som utgjort grunden för vårt analysarbete. Vi har intervjuat tre restaurangchefer, en köksmästare, två sommelierer och en kökschef fördelade på fine dining- restauranger i Borgholm, Göteborg, Stockholm och Växjö. Vi har även intervjuat en projektansvarig som jobbar med konceptutveckling för bland annat restauranger. Denna variation i empiriskt material är för att vi vill kunna se hur personer på olika poster på restaurangerna uppfattar samma problematisering. Den företeelse vi utläser från våra respondenters svar är att alla på en fine dinig- restaurang arbetar för att ge gästen en helhetsupplevelse och att maten är en viktig del, men det krävs enligt restaurangerna någonting mer för att skapa en helhetsupplevelse för gästen. Vi rekommenderar att andra branscher har ett mer serviceinriktat fokus, både internt och externt. Intern service kan resultera i en bättre sammanhållning mellan personalen och externt kan det skapa långsiktiga relationer som grund för lönsamhet. / The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze how chosen fine dining- restaurants work with holistic experiences. Through this, we want to find out how other companies in other industries can work to apply a similar formula for success. Method of use in this study has been met by the application of a qualitative research and the use of an abductive approach, in order to understand and interpret empirical data. Our theoretical framework consisted of the basic elements that we have assumed consists in a holistic experience and that these basic elements are applied by fine dining restaurants. We have within the theoretical framework had the holistic experience in focus and assumed that the parts make up the whole experience for the guest. The product, the service, the room and the organization are the parts we have developed theories which formed the basis for our analysis. We interviewed three restaurant managers, two chefs and two sommeliers in Borgholm, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Växjö. We also interviewed a project manager who works with developing concepts including restaurants. This variation in the empirical material is because we want to see how people in different positions at restaurants perceive the same problematization. The phenomenon we deduce from our respondents' answers is that everyone in a fine dining- restaurant works to give guests a holistic experience and the food is an important part, but to achieve a holistic experience for the guest, more is required. We recommend that other sectors have a more service-oriented focus, both internally and externally. Internal service can result in a better cohesion between staff and externally it can create long-term relationships as the basis of profitability.

This study is an exploratory examination of the perceptions of chefs affiliated with Relais & Chateaux properties in Canada with respect to their relationships with suppliers, the importance of local ingredients in menu design, and other issues associated with their work as chefs in some of the top restaurants in Canada. Their understanding of the concept of “culinary tourism” is also explored. For the purpose of this study, culinary tourism is conceptually defined to be “any tourism experience in which one learns about, appreciates, or consumes branded local culinary resources” (Smith and Xiao, 2006, p. 4). Data for this study were obtained from three sources: (1) a closed-ended questionnaire, which inquired about acquisition, production and consumption issues associated with restaurant chefs (2) in-depth personal interviews with chefs that enabled the researcher to gain a holistic view of the role and results of chefs interaction with local food producers, and (3) a content analysis of Relais & Chateaux menus that served as a template to how chefs brand producers in their restaurants. A total of 11 chefs completed the survey and were interviewed between the months of June, 2007 and August, 2007. The comments by the chefs in the interviews were classified into 9 themes. The themes that emerged include producer relationships, producer communication, local ingredients, cuisine, restaurant staff, culinary tourism, knowledge of clientele, culinary products and Relais & Chateaux brand. The interviews resulted in a number of insights into chef relations with local food producers as well as the potential of culinary tourism as a tourism experience provided by Relais & Chateaux chefs. Chefs spend considerable time and effort facilitating relationships with local producers in order to create quality. These chefs expressed the importance of quality and relationships with local producers while highlighting the need for communication among properly trained waiters. Chefs used both menus and guests’ interaction with waiters to communicate the use of local ingredients in their restaurants. The chefs focus on local affiliations to products as a way to promote local producers. However, once relationships with a local producer are developed, some chefs maintain that relationship even if the move out of the area. Many chefs reported that increased interaction among culinary tourism stakeholders, at a regional level, was needed in order for regional producers to brand their products in the market place. With this it was recommended that bi-yearly meetings involving restaurateurs, producers, farmers and artisans is needed to better network their product offerings. In each case, the goal of the Canadian Relais & Chateaux chef is to improve upon the branding of Canadian food ingredients. The research revealed the positive impact that this group of chefs has had in promoting grass roots food products for an increasingly popular tourism market. Findings of this research suggest that chefs are involved in the production, education, facilitation and communication of local ingredients in the restaurant setting which raises issues of their role in the branding of local food ingredients for the culinary tourist in order to promote a healthy culinary tourism product. The study concludes with suggestions for further research in this area.

This thesis presents a portrait of cultural diversity filtered through a lens of memory, experience and architecture. What does diversity look like? Where do we experience diversity? How unrestrained is our experience of it? Although cultural identity is tied to both personal experience and memory, Toronto’s experience of diversity has evolved with the growth of the city. Consequently, Toronto’s cultural diversity is today experienced through a limited and problematic architectural and marketing-based framework. These frameworks make ethnicity more accessible, but also limit our experience of it. I propose to release these limitations by highlighting the frameworks within which we view our various ethnicities. These are 1) the marketing of ethnic products to consumers (specifically Loblaws Presidents Choice, No Name and Memories Of…products) and 2) architectural uniformity. I examine these issues by recounting personal experiences with my family in South Western Ontario; by conducting a typological study of Toronto’s storefront restaurants – a portrait of a city which expands on the representation of industrial landscapes made by Bernd and Hilla Becher and the study of social types made by August Sander; and through my own experience of the street food and outdoor markets of Thailand. However, to highlight such constraints did not seem enough. So I created a white, unmarked model of a typical Toronto restaurant façade (formerly a shop front.) This tabula rasa suggests the possibility for an alternative strategy by showing the limitations of the channels through which we are forcing cultural diversity. The blank shop front model brings us back to a starting point from which cultural diversity can be reconsidered.

Background: Innovation is an important aspect of business today. It is important for companies to be innovative in order to stay competitive with their competitors. During the last couple of decades, technology has become more and more common both in our daily life, as well as in businesses. This has lead to an increase in technology implementation, especially within the service industry, where customers now can use self-service technologies in order to receive the service on their own. However, a lack of self-service technologies was discovered within the fast food industry. Since these types of innovations increased the service efficiency and decreased the waiting-time for customers, the authors believed that this would be very interesting for local managers within the fast food industry. Therefore, the authors began to investigate how much power local management has over these types of new innovations. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore how local management affects the innovation process, within fast food restaurant chains. Method: By conducting a cross-case study with the two fast food companies Subway and Max, the authors interviewed local fast food managers in order to explore the effect local management have on the innovation process. These two cases were selected since Subway fully consists of franchisees, while Max is almost completely company owned. Therefore, the two most common organizational structures within the fast food industry are included which will provide a more fair view of the industry. Conclusion: The effect of the innovation process has a positive relationship with the amount of power distributed to the local management. However, these areas differ depending on the organizational structure, with franchisees achieving their highest amount of power within medium-sized innovations and managers in company-owned outlets maintain their highest amount of power within minor innovations. Even though the overall communication was perceived as satisfying and efficient, large opportunities for improvements occur. By implementing more horizontal communication within the local management, it is in the belief of the authors that the entire internal communication will benefit. Especially this would benefit the franchise system where an increased local communication and collaboration would lead to more efficient communication throughout the entire organization.

This study is an exploratory examination of the perceptions of chefs affiliated with Relais & Chateaux properties in Canada with respect to their relationships with suppliers, the importance of local ingredients in menu design, and other issues associated with their work as chefs in some of the top restaurants in Canada. Their understanding of the concept of “culinary tourism” is also explored. For the purpose of this study, culinary tourism is conceptually defined to be “any tourism experience in which one learns about, appreciates, or consumes branded local culinary resources” (Smith and Xiao, 2006, p. 4). Data for this study were obtained from three sources: (1) a closed-ended questionnaire, which inquired about acquisition, production and consumption issues associated with restaurant chefs (2) in-depth personal interviews with chefs that enabled the researcher to gain a holistic view of the role and results of chefs interaction with local food producers, and (3) a content analysis of Relais & Chateaux menus that served as a template to how chefs brand producers in their restaurants. A total of 11 chefs completed the survey and were interviewed between the months of June, 2007 and August, 2007. The comments by the chefs in the interviews were classified into 9 themes. The themes that emerged include producer relationships, producer communication, local ingredients, cuisine, restaurant staff, culinary tourism, knowledge of clientele, culinary products and Relais & Chateaux brand. The interviews resulted in a number of insights into chef relations with local food producers as well as the potential of culinary tourism as a tourism experience provided by Relais & Chateaux chefs. Chefs spend considerable time and effort facilitating relationships with local producers in order to create quality. These chefs expressed the importance of quality and relationships with local producers while highlighting the need for communication among properly trained waiters. Chefs used both menus and guests’ interaction with waiters to communicate the use of local ingredients in their restaurants. The chefs focus on local affiliations to products as a way to promote local producers. However, once relationships with a local producer are developed, some chefs maintain that relationship even if the move out of the area. Many chefs reported that increased interaction among culinary tourism stakeholders, at a regional level, was needed in order for regional producers to brand their products in the market place. With this it was recommended that bi-yearly meetings involving restaurateurs, producers, farmers and artisans is needed to better network their product offerings. In each case, the goal of the Canadian Relais & Chateaux chef is to improve upon the branding of Canadian food ingredients. The research revealed the positive impact that this group of chefs has had in promoting grass roots food products for an increasingly popular tourism market. Findings of this research suggest that chefs are involved in the production, education, facilitation and communication of local ingredients in the restaurant setting which raises issues of their role in the branding of local food ingredients for the culinary tourist in order to promote a healthy culinary tourism product. The study concludes with suggestions for further research in this area.

This thesis presents a portrait of cultural diversity filtered through a lens of memory, experience and architecture. What does diversity look like? Where do we experience diversity? How unrestrained is our experience of it? Although cultural identity is tied to both personal experience and memory, Toronto’s experience of diversity has evolved with the growth of the city. Consequently, Toronto’s cultural diversity is today experienced through a limited and problematic architectural and marketing-based framework. These frameworks make ethnicity more accessible, but also limit our experience of it. I propose to release these limitations by highlighting the frameworks within which we view our various ethnicities. These are 1) the marketing of ethnic products to consumers (specifically Loblaws Presidents Choice, No Name and Memories Of…products) and 2) architectural uniformity. I examine these issues by recounting personal experiences with my family in South Western Ontario; by conducting a typological study of Toronto’s storefront restaurants – a portrait of a city which expands on the representation of industrial landscapes made by Bernd and Hilla Becher and the study of social types made by August Sander; and through my own experience of the street food and outdoor markets of Thailand. However, to highlight such constraints did not seem enough. So I created a white, unmarked model of a typical Toronto restaurant façade (formerly a shop front.) This tabula rasa suggests the possibility for an alternative strategy by showing the limitations of the channels through which we are forcing cultural diversity. The blank shop front model brings us back to a starting point from which cultural diversity can be reconsidered.

Recently, restaurant employees exposing to cooking oil fume with potential lung cancer was highly concerned, indicating cooking oil fume emitted from restaurants might cause tremendous hazard to human health. This study combined photocatalytic oxidation and ozone oxidation technology to decompose VOCs from the exhaust of cooking oil fume from restaurants. Firstly, this study selected three different types of restaurants to implement air pollutant measurements in the indoor dinning room and stack emission. Indoor TVOCs continuous monitoring data showed that the highest TVOCs concentration was generally observed in the dining peak time. In this study, photocatalyst coated fiberglass filter was prepared by impregnation procedure and its characteristics was analyzed by SEM and XRD. Experimental results showed that the particle size of photocatalyst ranged from 25 to 50 nm and had high percentage of Anatase, suggesting that it had high photocatalytic reactivity. This study designed a continuous-flow reaction system combined nano-sized TiO2 photocatalysis with ozone oxidation technology to decompose VOCs from cooking oil fume. After passing through a fiberglass filter to remove oil droplets, the cooking oil fume then coated with nano-sized titanium oxide (UV/TiO2) fiberglass filter purification system, and then injected ozone into the system to decompose residual VOCs. This study further investigated the influences of operating parameters, including TVOCs initial concentration, O3 injection concentration, and reaction temperature on the decomposition efficiency of TVOCs by using the UV/TiO2/O3 technology. When the photocatalytic reaction temperature was 35~50¢J, the TVOC decomposition efficiency slightly increased with reaction temperature, however, when the reaction temperature went up to 55¢J, the TVOC decomposition efficiency increased only slightly, but did not increased linearly. Combination of photocatalysis and ozone oxidation system performance test results showed that ozone could decompose approximately 34% VOCs, and followed by the photocatalytical reaction of residual pollutants, achieving an overall decomposition efficiency of about 75%; while photocatalytic reaction can remove 64% of TVOCs and followed by O3 for the decomposition of residual pollutants, achieving an overall decomposition efficiency up to 94%. It showed that the combined UV/TiO2+O3 system could effectively remove VOCs in the cooking oil fume from the exhaust of restaurants. By using GC/MS to qualitatively analyze the speciation of TVOCs from cooking oil fume before and after UV/TiO2/O3, the results showed that the composition of VOCs had a decreasing trend. The peak area and dilution factor were applied to estimate the decomposition efficiency of different VOCs species. The decomposition efficiencies of pentane, 2-acrolein, acrolein, heptane, pentanal, hexanal, 2-hexenal, heptanal, heptenal and ethylhexenal were 56.21%, 72.88%, 51.33%, 32.23%, 59.04%, 69.22%, 73.53%, 41.37%, 92.57%, and 96.02%. Finally, a Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetic model was applied to simulate the photocatalytic decomposition efficiency with the initial concentration of cooking oil fume. Model simulation results showed that the reaction rate increased with the initial TVOCs concentration. However, when TVOCs concentration increased gradually, the reaction rate became constant since the activated sites on the photocatalyst¡¦s surface was limited and cannot allow more VOC molecules diffuse to the activated sites for further photocatalytic reaction.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-125).

Thesis (MFA)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2008. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Walter Metz. Montana Fare is a DVD accompanying the thesis. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-40).

Due to the popularity of social media and an increase in the engagement of social care, traditional word-of-mouth communications has been replaced by electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM). Facebook, the most popular website in the United States, is home to nearly 18 million brand or business pages and may be accessed by social media-users aiming to engage in social care, which is customer service via social media. Extending existing research, this study employed in-depth interviews to determine whether or not social media-users are affected by the feedback of other users on restaurants' Facebook pages. The results of this study suggest that Facebook is being used as a tool to attain user feedback regarding restaurants and is perceived as a credible tool. The results also suggest that social media-users are mainly affected by others' user feedback when they are researching a restaurant they have not yet experienced. Finally, the findings of this study suggest that restaurants using Facebook should respond to all types of user feedback, since this practice may result in providing social media-users with a more positive perception of the restaurant.