Antecedentes da intenção de uso de comentários de viagem on-line na escolha de um meio de hospedagem

The Internet is present in each step of a trip planning. The constant technological advances has made major changes in the tourism industry. This is noticeable by the growing number of people who share their travel experiences on the Internet. This study has aimed to analyze the factors that influence the use of the Online Travel Reviews (OTR) in choosing an accommodation. It was done an investigation into the comments available on the internet about information on touristic products and services, specifically about accommodations. The research proposed to understand the influencing factors of OTR, in the Brazilian context, through the Technology Acceptance Model, Motivational Theory, Similarity, and Trustworthiness. The methodology used was a descriptive-exploratory study, with a quantitative approach, and bibliographic research. The study used a Structural Equation Modeling technique called Partial Least Squares (PLS), to test and evaluate the proposed research model. Data collection was performed with 308 guests hosted in five hotels in Ponta Negra (Natal/RN), who have used the OTRs in choosing an accommodation. The research tested fifteen hypotheses, where nine were confirmed, and six were rejected. The results showed that guests have attitude and intention to use the OTRs to choose an accommodation.

A evolução do turismo no Seridó: uma análise à luz do modelo de Butler

Tourism is configured as an activity that presents constant movement could boost local development in the economic, sociocultural and human in locations with potential for structuring and such. Because it is a dynamic activity, tourism allows changes in its flow, extending the periods of seasonality. To this end, in view of the aforementioned dynamics, it becomes relevant to the presence of tourism planning, initially starting from the government so that it create laws and standards and develop projects for the management of activities in an orderly way, seeking citizen participation, making essential the presence of actors and agents in local tourism, expanding democracy and knowledge of their place of origin. In this scenario, the Ministry of Tourism is emerging with the National Tourism Plan which incorporates among its actions, the Regionalization Program Guide, adopting a model of regional local management, a participatory manner, through the bodies of governance imposed at the poles, and the shares of public policy in their various departments most responsible for promoting tourism in pole Seridó. This scientific work aims to analyze the pole Seridó, under the theory of tourism area life cycle (TALC) proposed by BUTLER (1980), locating actions for tourism and chronology of the locality applied the proposed process activity. For both the methodology is descriptive and exploratory, qualitative approach, historical, descriptive and narrative level, non-probability sampling, using secondary sources, through documents and other records occurred during the planning processes in the region, in order to have access to information related to the planning process of tourism in Seridó, using as a way to research the data collected the technique of content analysis. As a conclusion of this study it is observed that from the survey in relation to the history of tourism in the region, economic activities of livestock, cotton industry, mining and ceramics industry were responsible for the initiation of tourism in the locality through the flow directed to the same, the insertion of the first hotels and performing traditional events, giving rise to the demand for public policies that aided in directing the activity being, therefore, inserted into the engagement phase, the second phase proposed by BUTLER (1980) model, and the study was terminated with suggestions for the continuation of tourism in the region.

Qualidade dos serviços hoteleiros: percepções dos turistas de negócios de Teresina-PI

Business tourism is one of tourist segments with different market characteristics in relation to others segmentations, such as low seasonality, there is no requirement of natural attractions, it serves as destination projection and it generates profitable larger numbers. Due to the context around business travels, the hotel so many times has a fundamental whole among the elements of the production chain in this segmentation. Business tourism in Teresina is the primary segmentation of the capital, since it represents almost 70% of hotel demand; hence this research has as objective to evaluate through the perceptions of business travelers, the level of quality services of hotels of Teresina. The research is exploratory and descriptive, of functionalist character. This study is characterized by qualitative and quantitative research, supported by a basis of methodological pluralism. For primary data collection was performed applying a suitable research instrument of SERVPERF model (Service Performance). The universe of this study were Teresina's accommodations, restricted to only those that fit in hotel category and it was inside metropolitan area of Teresina. The study subjects were business travelers who were hosted in these hotels. For the analysis, it was considered certain factors: descriptive analysis, factor analysis, correlation matrix analysis of the variables; It was still compiling a graphic of lexicons obtained in the survey about respondent's the notion of quality of vision in the hotel service; Finally, qualitative analysis was based on the theories of marketing, targeting and quality of tourism services applied. The results show that the Teresina hotel service is on a regular average, especially for Reliability and Safety dimensions were highlighted. Whereas, the factor analysis showed the emergence of two factors to explain "Empathy" dimension, one of this is about the organization and the other one is about consumer. And by Lexicometria was possible to observe the importance to the customer of other variables such as: personal aspects, price and location for this tour segmentation.

Rape demonstration at the Park Plaza Hotel, where eight women were raped and murdered

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Kate Millett at rape demonstration at the Park Plaza Hotel, where eight women were raped and murdered

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Rape demonstration at the Park Plaza Hotel, where eight women were raped and murdered

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Rape demonstration at the Park Plaza Hotel, where eight women were raped and murdered

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Rape demonstration at the Park Plaza Hotel, where eight women were raped and murdered

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Women sit in front of welfare hotel where they live with their children

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

A Operacionalidade de um Departamento de Marketing do Sheraton Porto Hotel & SPA

O relatório apresentado reflete a experiência de nove meses de estágio no departamento de marketing do Sheraton Porto Hotel & SPA. Inicia-se com uma introdução ao conceito de marketing e ao de turismo, de seguida, à sua junção, ou seja, o marketing turístico, como surgiu, a sua importância e a sua evolução ao longo dos tempos, para melhor enquadramento das atividades desenvolvidas no estágio. Também neste ponto, irei focar a importância da internet no turismo, ou seja, o seu impacto nesta atividade que todos os anos atraí milhares de pessoas ao nosso país. Por fim, irei caracterizar o fenómeno do turismo na cidade do Porto, que tem vindo a aumentar ao longo dos anos, refletindo assim, as altas taxas de ocupação hoteleira, sendo o marketing o principal impulsionador para o crescimento desta cidade. No segundo ponto do relatório será caracterizada a cadeia que me acolheu durante o estágio, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Inc, assim como, uma das sete marcas, neste caso, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts. Farei também referência a um dos maiores programas de fidelização, SPG (Starwood Preferred Guest), e das diversas campanhas que este programa desenvolve durante o ano, onde o papel do marketeer torna-se crucial para divulgação do mesmo. Realizarei uma breve caracterização do Sheraton Porto Hotel & SPA, assim como, o seu público-alvo, ocupação e darei a minha opinião crítica sobre o local de estágio. Ainda neste capítulo, irá ser retratado todas as tarefas diárias que executei durante os nove meses de estágio, assim como os novos programas, os novos conceitos que aprendi e todos os pontos-chave que ocorrem no dia-a-dia no departamento de marketing. Para finalizar este capítulo, irei realizar uma análise crítica e refletiva de meu estágio. No último capítulo deste relatório, estarão descritas duas das principais atividades desenvolvidas durante o estágio, com o objetivo da resolução de determinados problemas nomeadamente a criação de um site durante a época de natal e passagem de ano e a criação de um novo layout e imagem para promoção do New Yorker Bar, durante o mundial de futebol 2014. Irei também dar a minha opinião crítica, assim como, algumas sugestões que poderão ser implementadas no futuro. Este trabalho pretende mostrar as atividades de um marketeer numa das maiores cadeias internacionais, assim como, a sua contextualização literária e a realização de tarefas de gestão de marketing.

Revisando el uso de grupos focalizados en la investigación social

Las reflexiones metodológicas sobre grupos focalizados (GF) de este artículo tienen como punto de partida una investigación con sectores medios del Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires. El estudio de referencia aborda los discursos y prácticas de cuidado de la salud en el escenario contemporáneo caracterizado por la diversificación de especialistas, la creciente cobertura mediática de recomendaciones sobre la vida sana y el bienestar, la implementación de políticas públicas de promoción de la salud, y el crecimiento de la industria de productos y servicios vinculados con la temática. El objetivo del artículo es reflexionar, a partir de nuestra experiencia de investigación, sobre dos aspectos que han recibido especial atención en la literatura metodológica más reciente: los criterios para componer los grupos y sus consecuencias para la dinámica de las conversaciones grupales, y las estrategias para dar cuenta de la interacción grupal en el análisis de los datos. En este último eje exploramos el potencial de los GF para observar el trabajo identitario vinculado con el cuidado de la salud. Enmarcamos nuestro estudio y las decisiones metodológicas tomadas en los debates actuales sobre la variedad de usos de los GF.

COGNITIVE AND LINGUISTIC FACTORS OF READING ARABIC: THE ROLE OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN READING

Scientific reading research has produced substantial evidence linking specific reading components to a range of constructs including phonological awareness (PA), morphological awareness, orthographic processing (OP), rapid automatized naming, working memory and vocabulary. There is a paucity of research on Arabic, although 420 million people around the world (Gordon, 2005) speak Arabic. As a Semitic language, Arabic differs in many ways from Indo-European languages. Over the past three decades, literacy research has begun to elucidate the importance of morphological awareness (MA) in reading. Morphology is a salient aspect of Arabic word structure. This study was designed to (a) examine the dimensions underlying MA in Arabic; (b) determine how well MA predicts reading; (c) investigate the role of the standard predictors in different reading outcomes; and (d) investigate the construct of reading in Arabic. This study was undertaken in two phases. In Phase I, 10 MA measures and two reading measures were developed, and tested in a sample of 102 Grade 3 Arabic-speaking children. Factor analysis of the 10 MA tasks yielded one predominant factor supporting the construct validity of MA in Arabic. Hierarchical regression analyses, controlling for age and gender, indicated that the MA factor solution accounted for 41– 43% of the variance in reading. In Phase II, the widely studied predictor measures were developed for PA and OP in addition to one additional measure of MA (root awareness), and three reading measures In Phase II, all measures were administered to another sample of 201 Grade 3 Arabic-speaking children. The construct of reading in Arabic was examined using factor analysis. The joint and unique effects of all standard predictors were examined using different sets of hierarchical regression analyses. Results of Phase II showed that: (a) all five reading measures loaded on one factor; (b) MA consistently accounted for unique variance in reading, particularly in comprehension, above and beyond the standard predictors; and (c) the standard predictors had differential contributions. These findings underscore the contribution of MA to all components of Arabic reading. The need for more emphasis on including morphology in Arabic reading instruction and assessment is discussed.

A Social Networking Strategy for Improving Knowledge Management and Communication in the Travel Industry

In today’s technology-driven marketplace, the adoption and management of corporate and customer-facing Social Networking Sites (SNs) is often viewed as a key success factor for Travel Industry (TI) organisations. Knowledge management and the sharing of expertise and experiences through communication between internal and external stakeholders via social networks is an activity which TI organisations are aiming to exploit in order to improve the open sharing, retrieval, organisation and leveraging of knowledge. Through a study of currently-available literature relating to social networking adoption within the TI and a case study analysis of corporate social networking practices at three multi-national TI organisations (British Airways, Thomas Cook and Marriott Hotels), it may be observed that correlations exist between the development of social networking and the processes TI organisations now use to manage knowledge. We explore how these companies are currently utilizing SNs to improve knowledge management practices inside and outside of their organisational boundaries. From our analysis, lessons may emerge as to how TI companies are gaining competitive advantage through the use of social networking; a proposed strategy is identified to determine how TI organisations may make best use of social networks.

Antropología de la Conservación en España. Balance y perspectivas

En este artículo presentamos un balance de la Antropología de la Conservación en el Estado español. Durante las últimas décadas, la protección de los espacios naturales ha aumentado de una manera exponencial en todo el mundo. A la vez que se extendía esta patrimonialización de la naturaleza, los trabajos etnográficos sobre las áreas protegidas han ido ganando terreno dentro de la disciplina y, en particular, en el campo de la Antropología Ambiental. La mencionada bibliografía ha puesto de relieve los múltiples aspectos derivados de las nuevas políticas territoriales de regulación, apropiación y mercantilización de la ‘naturaleza’. En este trabajo realizamos una revisión exhaustiva de la producción generada a raíz de este interés por las áreas protegidas en nuestro país subrayando sus principales aportaciones, características y debilidades. De este modo pretendemos reflexionar acerca de su continuidad, con el fin de evitar la mera reiteración y favorecer el avance en sus resultados.

The beginning of tourism in La Palma Island: Sixty years of the XX century

The sixties was a time of great interest for tourism development on the La Palma island. Various actions of public and private, as the policy of building a new airport, various tourist resorts, the tourism plan of 1968 or insular government also creating public entity "La Palma, Tourism SA” in 1969, will be the basis for future development of tourism on the island and will result push for private investment in this economic sector. Indeed, in the sixties, private investors had opened two hotels, while at least three others over a hundred beds each, weren´t finished.