Getting closer to whales—passenger expectations and experiences, and the management of swim with dwarf minke whale interactions in the Great Barrier Reef

Whale-watching tourism is a growth industry worldwide. In Australia, with whale-watchers approaching one million per annum there has been considerable effort to develop management regimes that protect the whales while enabling the development of a sustainable ecotourism industry. A mixture of National and State laws and regulations have governed the industry (Tourism based on free-ranging marine wildlife: opportunities and responsibilities, Wildlife Tourism Research Report No. 11, Status Assessment of Wildlife Tourism in Australia Series, CRC for Sustainable Tourism, Gold Coast, Queensland) but these have been mainly derived from experiences with humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae) whale watching from vessels at sea. In this article we describe the development and nature of new and rapidly growing swim-with-whales operations based on the dwarf minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) in the Great Barrier Reef of northern Queensland. The distinctly different quality of these operations raise interesting questions for long-term management (Towards sustainable management of the developing dwarf minke whale tourism industry in northern Queensland, CRC Reef Research Technical Report 27, James Cook University of North Queensland, 30pp (emended version of SC/50/WW1)).In the 1999–2000 seasons, 453 passengers (88.1% of respondents) swam with minke whales. Only 25% of visitors came specifically for the whale interactions and 43% learned of the whales on board the vessel. Passengers thus had low expectations about whales and encounters. A variety of factors, including the diving experience, particular dive sites, a range of wildlife species and socializing contributed to visitor satisfaction. Nonetheless, there was a significant correlation between visitor satisfaction and closeness of approaches by the whales, total number of whales seen and total time spent with whales. We discuss the key issues associated with swim-with-whales programs in the light of our findings. The cooperative engagement of tourism operators, researchers and government management agencies is a feature of this new industry.     

英国国际投资环境解析及其启示

该运用国际投资环境理论剖析了英国在营造其国际投资环境上成功独到的做法：秉承地域之便、实现制度创新、凸现资本效果以及支持性产业互动发展。以此为借鉴，在立足广东，着重围绕以入世为契机，发挥广东特殊的地利优势、打造国际引资环境、提高人才素质、规范人才市场以及努力消除跨化差异等几个方面提出了应对之策。     

农村小额信贷可持续发展国际经验分析

文章以全新的视角,从国外可持续发展的农村小额信贷的典型模式,泰国农业和农村合作社银行、印尼人民银行农村信贷部和孟加拉乡村银行等三家银行经营业绩分析与农村小额信贷可持续发展国际经验分析三个方面,为农村小额信贷的实践和发展提供了思路。     

Are social media bad for your employees? Effects of at-work break activities on recovery experiences

Since social media has become a fundamental part of the daily activities of people, the purpose of this study was to explore social media use by focusing on job demands that may explain why employees perceive social media are vital for them at work. Further, this study seeks to understand how employees use social media at work to experience recovery. Questionnaires were collected from current frontline hospitality non-managerial and managerial employees in the United States. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze data. Results of the study confirm that at-work break activities including social and non-media break activities can be a channel for employees to experience recovery and deal with job demands. Moreover, the results suggest that at-work break activities are an important mediator between job demands and recovery experiences. Social media break activities also moderated the mediation effect of non-social media break activities between job demands and recovery experiences.     

Augmented reality experiences and sensation seeking

Studies about augmented reality (AR) largely discuss the design of applications and adoption behaviours of the AR system. Attempts to understand user experiences with AR are scarce, especially in the field of tourism. This paper contributes to this gap by identifying travellers' experiences with AR applications when obtaining travel information. More specifically, this study applied the concept of sensation-seeking to segment travellers to better understand their AR experiences. An online questionnaire was designed and completed by a sample of 1042 study participants who all used an AR app in the course of this study. The results demonstrate the applicability of sensation-seeking to explain heterogeneous AR experiences. Of the four sensation-seeking elements, experience-seeking and boredom-susceptibility were identified as key elements to classify the travel groups in the context of AR applications. Managerial implications for tourism marketers are suggested.     

How and when do prior international experiences lead to global work? A career motivation perspective

While research suggests a link between individuals' prior international experiences and their future participation in global work, we know little about how and the conditions under which this relationship occurs. Drawing on career motivation theory, we conceptualize global identity as a mediator between individuals' density of prior international experiences—defined as the extent to which time spent in culturally novel countries has provided individuals with developmental opportunities—and their global work aspirations, which in turn leads to their global work involvement. Further, this multi-stage mediation model holds mainly when individuals receive positive feedback regarding their intercultural competencies (i.e., cultural intelligence) from their peers. We test our model using a multi-wave multi-source dataset spanning 6 years. We discuss implications for the literatures on prior international experiences and global careers.     

Relevant and Preferred Public Service: A study of user experiences and value creation in public transit

When public service success is dependent upon creating value that attracts users, public managers can benefit from adopting private sector principles. This article draws on the theory of attractive quality and strategic management research to focus on the theoretical and managerial implications of how organizations’ resource allocations affect user experiences. The present study shows how public transit organizations’ achievement of twenty-five different service requirements affected their offerings’ relevance and preference among 930 users. This article increases the understanding of how strategic choices and prioritization between various service requirements affect both the effectiveness and efficiency of (public) service offerings.     

Tourist experiences,phenomenographic analysis,post‐postivism and neural network software

This paper argues that tourist experiences are essentially individualistic, although it is possible to discern consensual realties. It follows the viewpoint that positivistic research methodologies contain limitations in not being able to define the nature of individual tourist experience, and suggests that phenomenographic analysis may be one approach that permits both a revelation of individual experience while permitting model building of the shared consensus of what is actually happening. More tentatively it is suggested that, when allied with the use of current developments in software, such as that of CATPAC™, a post‐positivist paradigm of research results. Some results of research using this approach are indicated. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

俄罗斯、捷克、匈牙利三国不同类型保险公司考察报告

近期,中国人寿集团考察团赴俄罗斯、捷克、匈牙利三国保险市场进行考察,考察团访问了当地市场上5家不同类型、各具特色的保险公司。考察团就集团管控、合规监察、资源整合、品牌宣传、应对危机等方面的内容与5家保险机构进行了广泛而深入的交流。通过此次考察,我们对俄罗斯及东欧保险市场有了进一步的认识,对该地区不同类型保险机构在上述经营方面的经验有了比较深入的了解和掌握。考察团结合我国保险集团化建设的实际情况,借鉴考察所获得的经验,针对我国保险集团化发展提出了相关建议。     

Bridging the education–profession gap: The Accounting Student–Practitioner Day (ASPD) program

This paper provides a detailed discussion of an annual (and cost-effective) professional-development event we call the Accounting Student–Practitioner Day (ASPD). This program brings together, for a single day, students, accounting faculty, and accounting professionals in a conference-like setting. The conference format provides a unique, and formal, link between the classroom environment and the professional world students will be entering. The program is attended by accounting and non-accounting students from our university, senior students from area high schools, and undergraduate students from other universities in the area. Specific objectives of the program are to help students learn what it takes to become an accounting professional, to provide students with information that facilitates their career-choice decision, and to encourage networking and community-building activities. Assessment data indicate that the ASPD program is successful in terms of its stated objectives. The relatively low cost of operating the program makes it attractive for other accounting programs. The paper includes a set of recommendations for those faculty interested in implementing an ASPD program at their own institution.