Religious obligations to travel: first-generation Pakistani migrants from Newcastle-upon-Tyne

This article analyses the religious travel experiences of members of the first generation of the Muslim Pakistani diaspora living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK drawing upon qualitative interpretations collected from semi-structured interviews. Religious travel for first-generation Muslim Pakistanis is influenced by Islamic principles and practices associated with obligations to travel to meet with friends and relatives. Religious obligations to travel are considered as a key factor influencing visiting friends and relatives (VFR) mobilities at a local and national level. The religious obligation associated with VFR travel is examined in view of one of the five pillars of Islam, which is salah (prayer), which stimulates various mobilities. Central to the analysis of religious-orientated (VFR) journeys are the conceptual underpinnings of obligations situated in the mobilities paradigm, which give rise to understandings of spiritualities of place. Religious obligations to travel unite the Muslim diaspora in various local (in Newcastle-upon-Tyne) and national (UK) settings. The contribution of this paper is, therefore, to advance the understanding of the relationship between Islam and travel, and add to existing knowledge of the journeys of Muslim travellers in the context of VFR travel. We conclude by suggesting further avenues of research concerning religious obligations to travel.     

International Students in Asia: Travel Behaviors and Destination Perceptions

This study investigates the incidence of international student travel in Taiwan. It was found that Chinese, Asian and other international students behave somewhat differently from respondents in prior studies conducted in Western settings. Cultural background influenced the travel behaviors of international students as well as their perceptions of Taiwan as a tourism destination. The visiting friends and relatives (VFR) market induced by Asian respondents offers greater tourism-related potential than the travel activity that students themselves undertake. The contrary was found for non-Asian students where the student-induced VFR market is small and prospectively less attractive than the student market. The Chinese international student travel market and induced VFR market showed less potential than anticipated, perhaps because of the embryonic stage of diplomatic and commercial relations between Taiwan and mainland China.     

Windows XP中使用网上邻居互访失败问题研究

网络共享失败是在办公室小型局域网使用网上邻居是进行资源共享的时候经常出现的问题。以WindowsXP操作系统为例，对其中的Guest账户方面问题做了详细地分析，对存在类似问题的用户提供参考。     

Hosting as social practice: Gendered insights into contemporary tourism mobilities

By giving voice to highly-skilled mobile professional women who have relocated to Switzerland from various European countries, representing different nationalities, duration of migration and family circumstances, we shed light on the experiences of hosting – an under-researched segment of Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) mobilities. Our findings reveal a threefold investigation to sociality, tourism and mobility, by drawing on empirical insights to three angles: that of, culture, intimacy and identity as pathways to transformative social practices among hosts and guests. Highly-skilled mobile professional women’s hosting practices reflect a laboratory of sociality whereupon relations of closeness and proximity are tested under new conditions of social and private life in the new destination country.     

上市公司内部人亲属股票交易行为研究

中国的《证券法》等法律法规禁止内部人短线交易,并设置了内部人禁止股票买卖的敏感期,但内部人亲属不受此限制。本文对深圳证券交易所2007年5月至2010年5月的内部人亲属股票交易数据分析发现:(1)上市公司的内部人亲属对内部人任职企业的股票交易次数已经远远多于内部人自身的交易次数;(2)内部人亲属的交易存在很多的短线交易行为与敏感期交易行为;(3)内部人亲属股票交易整体而言能够获得超额收益;(4)短线交易与敏感期交易有助于内部人亲属获得超额收益;(5)董事长或总经理的亲属获得的收益比其他内部人亲属更高。据此,本文认为证券交易监管机构需要关注内部人亲属股票交易行为,尤其警惕内部人亲属交易可能成为规避内部人交易管制的替代方式。     

How to enhance hotel guests’ acceptance and experience of smart hotel technology: An examination of visiting intentions

Smart hotel is a novel concept in the hospitality industry, and few studies have examined hotel consumers’ intentions to visit smart hotels. This study investigates the relationship between technology readiness (TR) and technology amenities (TA) as antecedents to visiting intentions, using an extended technology acceptance model (TAM). Based on an online survey with 648 valid responses, the results indicate that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are correlated with TA, but not with TR. Furthermore, TR affects intentions to visit smart hotels, but TA does not. The findings enrich the hospitality literature and have practical implications for hospitality marketers designing technology-related marketing strategies to maintain competitiveness. This study contributes to raising awareness of the importance of technological amenities and services for the future visiting intentions of hotel consumers.     

Conceptual and theoretical implications of tourism between partitioned states

Recent history regarding the partition or separation of single states is not new. The ramifications caused by these divisions are numerous. All too often, the problems associated with crossing the “new” border, visiting family and friends separated by the newly imposed border, or trying to establish or re‐establish business ties with past acquaintances are overlooked. Once a country is partitioned, there are several levels or stages which the newly partitioned states go through in a “maturing'’ process to build new identities and levels of trust. At the macro level, there are social, economic, and political differences which must be resolved before open dialogues can occur. Often, by allowing family members, in the two or more partitioned states, to visit each other, the governments begin a long process of reconciliation. The fact that travel and tourism is one of the fundamental aspects of this process is significant.     

Post-acquisition performance in the short and long run. Evidence from the Copenhagen Stock Exchange 1993–1997

The paper investigates the short-run price adjustment around acquisition announcements and the long-run upward bias of cross-sectional average buy-and-hold returns. The geometric Brownian motion model is applied to decompose the cross-sectional average long-run returns into transformed mean and volatility components. The decomposition improves the interpretation of security performance. The methodology is demonstrated on the security performance of bidding firms listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. The most surprising finding is that the long-run abnormal return after three years is not significantly different from zero. This implies that the bidding firms do not under-perform relative to the market. This result stands in contrast to findings in other studies and it may reflect that earlier studies do not adjust correctly for the volatility component. These current findings indicate that the market efficiency hypothesis is intact in the long run. It is only in the very short run, a few days around acquisition announcements, that the market makes a significant adjustment to uphold the efficiency hypothesis.     

VFR travel: It is underestimated

Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) travel is a substantial form of tourism worldwide. In Australia, official data measure VFR in one of two ways - purpose of visit or type of accommodation. However, this is only a measurement of those factors; it is not a measure of the size by volume of VFR travel. Yet tourism practitioners often mistakenly use these data to state the size of VFR travel in their destination. Based on quantitative research undertaken in three contrasting destinations in Australia, estimates for the size of VFR travel in those destinations is provided. These results highlight that using official data for measuring VFR travel will underestimate this segment in any Australian destination. Using the VFR definitional model as a conceptual model, this research has estimated that VFR travel represents 48% of Australia’s total overnight tourism market.     

内部控制与内部人亲属卖出股票交易行为的市场反应--来自深市上市公司的经验证据

本文运用事件研究法分析了市场能否对内部人亲属卖出股票交易行为做出显著的反应，并探求内部控制在其中的影响。研究发现：内部人亲属在卖出股票交易中表现出了准确的市场择机能力，市场对此有着显著的负面反应；与内部控制质量高的上市公司相比，内部控制质量低的上市公司的内部人亲属能够更为成功地选择在股价大幅度上升的恰当时点卖出股票，市场对此的反应也更加强烈。