Inbound Travelers' Selection Criteria for Hotel Spas in Hong Kong

With a growing number of travelers enjoying spa experiences, it is vital that hotels understand their preferences. As Hong Kong has a high visitor inflow and is in the preliminary stages of hotel spa development, an examination of the selection criteria used by inbound travelers when choosing hotel spas should provide Hong Kong hoteliers with the information needed to further develop and refine their facilities. This study examines the selection criteria that inbound travelers use to gain insight into how demographic factors and travel characteristics affect their spa-related decisions. A measuring instrument was developed based on in-depth interviews of spa industry professionals and secondary data. The results reveal that relaxation, pampering, and beautification were the main reasons that people visited hotel spas; with the three most important major selection dimensions being therapists, price, and product and treatment types. Of the 28 selection criteria studied, professional skills, product and service knowledge, sense of privacy, range of facilities, and product branding were the most important attributes. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed here.     

Measurement scale for eco-component of hotel service quality

Growing acknowledgement of the need to achieve more sustainable forms of development has resulted in environmentally conscious tourists who have indicated a dissatisfaction with existing hotel service quality. The objective of this study was to investigate tourists’ ecological expectations referring to the quality of spas and wellness hotel services in order to develop and test a scale for measuring the ‘eco-component,’ a new component of hotel service quality. The findings revealed four dimensions of the eco-component: hotel staff's eco-behaviour; environmentally friendly and healthy equipment; efficient use of energy and water; and bio-food. Tourists also demonstrated a hierarchy of eco-dimensions, with the most important being hotel staff's eco-behaviour and the least important being bio-food. Tourists’ expectations about the level of eco-dimensions differ significantly with respect to their income, nationality, and the hotel certification. However, no significant difference emerged in their expectations due to different educational levels.     

Business Cycle Synchronization of Turkey with the Eurozone and the United States: What Has Changed Since 2001?

Using wavelet methodology, we make a detailed spectral analysis of the business cycle synchronization of the Turkish economy with the eurozone and the United States. We take into account the dramatic change in the main economic indicators in the Turkish economy after the 2001 financial crisis. We find that the correlation of Turkish cycles with the cycles of the eurozone and the United States increased substantially after 2001. Moreover, the correlation of the Turkish cycles with the U.S. cycles is not lower than that with the euro cycles after 2001. Accordingly, analyzing the effect of international developments should not be confined to the trade channel. We submit that capital flows offer a reasonable explanation for the high correlation with the United States.     

Banks and Microbanks

We combine two datasets to examine whether the presence of banks affects the profitability and outreach of microfinance institutions. We find evidence that competition matters. Greater bank penetration in the overall economy is associated with microbanks pushing toward poorer markets, as reflected in smaller average loans sizes and greater outreach to women. The evidence is particularly strong for microbanks relying on commercial-funding and using traditional bilateral lending contracts (rather than group lending methods favored by microfinance NGOs). We consider plausible alternative explanations for the correlations, including relationships that run through the nature of the regulatory environment and the structure of the banking environment, but we fail to find strong support for these alternative hypotheses.     

Linking of Manufacturing Strategy,Market Requirements and Manufacturing Attributes In Technology Choice: An Expert System Approach

This paper suggests a framework for acquisition of new manufacturing technology that links the manufacturing strategy, market requirements and manufacturing attributes using an expert system approach. This paper takes a closer took at traditional notion of manufacturing-marketing coordination and attempts to find its links with manufacturing capabilities provided by recent evolving new manufacturing technology. For this purpose we deal with different steps involved in the strategic evaluation process beginning with the choice of a suitable competitive strategy by a firm. Then the chosen competitive strategy is linked with the market requirements, system attributes and appropriate manufacturing technology choices. The proposed model is integrated by an expert system approach that includes strategic factors of both a tangible and an intangible nature and is implemented by using the VP-Expert shell.     

Flow time and product cost estimation by using an artificial neural network (ANN): A case study for transformer orders

In electromechanical industrial corporations, determining the production cost of the orders according to the technical specifications demanded by the customer has great importance in giving an accurate price offer. Labor cost is one of the important and most variable cost components that must be estimated in order to give an accurate price offer. In this study, a feed-forward back-propagation artificial neural network (FF-BPN) is used to predict the flow times of power transformer orders of a transformer producer according to the technical specifications given by the customer. The results of this study show that the prediction capability of an artificial neural network is very good for this type of problem and results in better cost estimation than current company practice. A case study is carried out for a manufacturer of electrical transformers in Turkey.     

Adding Value to the Teaching and Learning of Design and Technology

It has been argued that design and technology can be used as a vehicle for teaching science and vice versa. In this paper, we report an investigation into Grade 6 students understandings of concepts embodied in the Systems strand of a technology syllabus as they grappled with a unit of work in technology for the first time. The unit of work involved students in the design and construction of simple systems, followed by experiences with more complex systems. Qualitative research methods were used to investigate the activities of the students as they engaged in the design and technology learning experiences for eight weeks. Data sources included student and teacher interviews, video and audio recordings of whole class and small group interactions, students notes, drawings and diagrams, and researchers field notes and reflections. Changes in students ability to identify the individual components and analyse how the components worked together in systems, and evidence of students use of scientific understandings for explanations, were noted as the unit of work progressed. An improvement was observed in students abilities to describe relationships between inputs, processes and outputs, and outline sequences of cause and effect. The technology and science appeared to be complementary as they developed technology specific and action-oriented technology and science language, which may be evidence of the presence of a community of learners. Recommendations are proposed for enhancing the value of both design and technology and science if both subjects are taught together as part of an integrated program in primary schools.     

Disentangling and quantifying market participant volatility contributions

Thanks to the access to labeled orders on the CAC 40 index future provided by Euronext, we are able to quantify market participants contributions to the volatility in the diffusive limit. To achieve this result, we leverage the branching properties of Hawkes point processes. We find that fast intermediaries (e.g. market maker type agents) have a smaller footprint on the volatility than slower, directional agents. The branching structure of Hawkes processes allows us to examine also the degree of endogeneity of each agent behavior, and we find that high-frequency traders are more endogenously driven than other types of agents.     

Informalization in gig food delivery in the UK: The case of hyper-flexible and precarious work

This article examines the process of informalization of work in platform food delivery work in the UK. Drawing on qualitative data, this article provides new analytical insight into what drives individual formal couriers to both supply and demand informalized sub-contracted gig work to undocumented migrants, and how a platform company enables informal work practices through permissive HR practices and technology. In doing so, this article shows how platform companies are enablers of informal labor markets and contribute to the expansion of hyper-precarious working conditions.     

Application of Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) and delineation of natural risk zones in Greater Lisbon,Portugal

Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) was applied to Greater Lisbon (Portugal). Based on the concepts used for the SoVI assessments in the US, 46 variables representing social vulnerability of the 149 civil parishes of Greater Lisbon were chosen. Thirty-eight variables were selected after application of correlation tests. They were standardized, and a Principal Component Analysis and a Varimax rotation were applied to them. Seven factors were extracted using the Kaiser criterion, which explain 79.5% of the variance, and the SoVI scores were then mapped using a standard deviation classification. Twelve of the 149 civil parishes of Greater Lisbon have a very high social vulnerability and 24 of them have a high social vulnerability. The map of SoVI was then integrated with susceptibility maps of earthquakes, floods, flash floods, landslides, tsunami, and coastal erosion, thus delineating risk zones. Twenty-two civil parishes of Greater Lisbon have a very high risk; among them, 17 belong to Lisbon Municipality, four belong to Loures Municipality, and one belongs to Vila Franca de Xira Municipality. Finally, exposed population was considered and combined with risk zones map in order to assess the number of people being potentially exposed to risk and their location.