Globalization has cause organizations between nations to be more integrated and interdependent than before. Taiwan, being an economy based on international trade, has abundant experience in international assignments among business organizations. Due to the changing environments, organizations developed various forms of international assignments. Other than the standard expatriate assignments, short-term assignments, international business travelers (IBT), commuter assignments, rotational assignments and virtual assignments are emerging alternatives to deal with international issues. The IBT is likely to be a big portion of international assignment used in Taiwan, as the number of business travel rises. A qualitative research was held and 11 IBTs from Taiwanese firms was interviewed. The findings are as follow: 1. The proportion of time spent overseas per year differs from IBTs with different backgrounds. 2. The positive factors of IBT work are increase of specialties training, increase of job satisfaction and the rise of personal development. 3. The negative factors of IBT work are pressing work schedules, culture and cognition gaps, time differences and abnormal work schedules, health and safety concerns, separation of family and friends and confliction between work and personal schedules. 4. The standard of travel class influences IBTs¡¦ perspective towards the job and also their life style. 5. IBT cannot totally be substituted.

Thesis (M.A. ) -- University of Texas at Arlington, 2008.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003. / Abstract only. Title from OhioLINK abstract page.

This study investigates the travel behavioral characteristics of Hong Kong residents through checking their comfort level on their past independent travel experiences to Japan. In-depth personal interviews were conducted with 46 respondents. The design of the questionnaires is based on the culture shock component model suggested by Pearce (Pearce 2005a). Due to a lack of information on independent travel, another separate interview was conducted with a travel agency manager who is specializing in selling independent travel packages. Two main types of travel behavioral characteristics of Hong Kong travelers who had visited to Japan on an individual basis were identified in this study. Namely: safety and familiarity seeking behaviors. Safety seeking behavior is mainly due to cultural factors that the Hong Kong independent travelers are risk adverse, prudent on safety issues, being collectivistic and trying every possible ways to reduce risks such as looking for authoritative guidance for advice. On the other hand, the behavior of familiarity seeking is due to both psychological and cultural reasons. All these behaviors fit Plog’s (Plog 1974) result in categorizing Hong Kong travelers as ‘near-psychocentric’ because they have a dependable personality that they are cautious in making decisions, preferring something popular and familiar to them. By identifying Hong Kong independent travelers’ behavioral characteristics, the extent of incentives provided by Japan was also discovered. A demand-supply relationship was used to describe the interactions between Hong Kong independent travelers (the demand generator) and Japan (the incentive supplier).It is found that to a large extent, Japan provided incentives to Hong Kong independent travelers. Nevertheless, there are areas that the Hong Kong travelers were relatively uncomfortable with, including communication with the locals, adaptation to street forms and transport systems. As a result, recommendations for the betterment of future independent travel industry are presented. / published_or_final_version / China Development Studies / Master / Master of Arts in China Development Studies

The present study has two major goals: first it reconstructs the history of travel-literature from the Middle Ages to the 19th century with a special focus on the role of women, second it attempts to analyse and evaluate travel-accounts by women who travelled to the Orient in the 19th century (Engel-Egli, Forneris, Pfeiffer, Hahn-Hahn and Muhlbach). / The reconstruction of the history of travel and travel-literature up to the 18th century shows that it was possible for women to travel with relative freedom. With the polarization of gender-roles in the last third of the 18th century, however, women were declared 'unfit for travel' and confined to their homes. Due to this development, travel-accounts by women travelling to the Orient, that were written in the middle of the 19th century, have to fulfil a special function. Besides representing an attempt to reestablish the tradition of female travellers that had been suppressed from the middle of the 18th century on, travelling to the Orient meant that the female authors in question had access to areas and spaces that were both off limits to their male counterparts (i.e. the harem) and charged with sexually connoted images. Forneris,' Pfeiffer's and Hahn-Hahn's statements can be interpreted as a conscious attempt to criticize European man through the deconstruction of the images of the Oriental femme fatale in two ways: the first criticism is that they present themselves as authorities with regard to the domain of the Oriental woman. The second occurs through consciously creating grotesque anti-images, whereby women turn the "oriental dream" of their male contemporaries into a nightmare. This act of turning the images into their opposite happens without taking into account the culturally different woman. She has been reduced to the status of an object by women travelling to the Orient exactly in the same manner as male colleagues reduced them. / In addition, this analysis gives special consideration to much discussed 19th century elements of racial theories which found their way into the travel accounts.

The senior travel market has become an increasingly important area of interest to the tourism industry for more than a decade due to its market size and potential growth. The trends toward early retirement, increased number of leisure years, active lifestyles, longevity, and time flexibility after retirement make the elderly an attractive market for the tourism industry. In the Thai tourism industry, the Japanese senior travel market is one of the important overseas senior segments. However, the number of the Japanese senior arrivals to Thailand is relatively small when compared to the overall Japanese seniors' outbound travel market. In order to increase market share and to attract more of them to Thailand, it is important to learn and understand their travel motivations for visiting Thailand. Therefore, this study has employed the theory of push and pull motivations to investigate travel motivations of Japanese senior travellers to Thailand. / Thesis (DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2007.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on January 16, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - James Cook University, 2003. / Typescript (photocopy) Bibliography: leaves 290-310.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brock University, 2004; (vii, 204 leaves); includes bibliography.

Thesis (Master's Programme in East and Southeast Asian Studies)--Lund University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 50-53). Also available via the World Wide Web.