Long term benefits of visitor monitoring : an Australian experience

Abstract - Parks Victoria manages Victoria's (Australia) national, state and urban parks. These parks make up approximately 17% of the state's area and annually receive 45.3 million visits. Parks Victoria has been dedicated to the development of scientifically sound methods for monitoring visitors and the community since 1994. The three main ongoing monitoring streams are: visit quantities, community perceptions of management and visitor experience (Visitor Satisfaction Monitor). Accumulated research data from the Visitor Satisfaction Monitor (VSM) has been used to profile and refine the organisation's understanding of its various park visitors. After 10 years that data has matured to produce a comprehensive visitor-product market segmentation. Over 11,000 interviews at 34 major parks (including 68 visitor sites) between 2000 and 2004 were used to group park visitors into seven segments. The segments are Nature Admirers, Urban Socials Trail Users, Passives and Other Users, Activity Centrics, Access Made Easy and Country Vacationers. Each park visitor segment, or group, had substantial differences from the other groups, while the individuals within each segment had much more in common; Nature Admirers visit in small groups for a short spectacular scenic experience whereas Urban Socials visit in large groups for half-day social interactions such as birthday parties and picnics. Further analyses have been conducted to identify individual sub-segments within each of the major segments. These sub-segments provide detailed information that can be used for the future development of parks and associated services. Subsequent analysis using Structural Equation Modelling provides evidence that the relationships between services and satisfaction are better understood when considering segments. Parks Victoria has been using segments in park management applications such as wild fire recovery plans, tourism strategy formulation, park management planning and visitor risk management. It has proved to be an efficient and effective systematic way of meeting visitor needs.

Change of perspective: a measurable and desired outcome of chronic disease self-management intervention programs that violates the premise of preintervention/postintervention assessment

Objective: To determine if participants in chronic disease self-management courses have a change of perspective of their health status (a response shift), and if this is measurable with a paper-based questionnaire.

Methods: Nine items were developed to measure potential benefits of self-management courses. These were based on the constructs of a previous questionnaire, the Health Education Impact Questionnaire (HEI-Q). Cognitive interviews elicited spontaneous statements about the reasons for paper-based answers. Sensitivity, specificity, and overall accuracy of items were calculated using the interview as a relative gold standard. Response shift can be negative (i.e., after the course, participants realize that, before the course, they were worse than they thought they were), positive (i.e., participants now realize they were better than they thought they were), or absent (no change).

Results: Interviews (n = 39) reflected that true response shift occurred in approximately half the replies to questionnaire items. Of these, 31% were negative response shift, 20% were positive response shift. Response shift was absent in 32% of replies. Presence or absence of response shift could not be determined in 17% of replies across items. Significant concordance between questionnaires and cognitive interviews (average overall accuracy 0.79) indicated that the HEI-Q Perspective questionnaire detects response shift in participants of self-management courses. The questionnaire revealed that 87% of participants had response shift in at least 1 item.

Conclusion: This study suggests that preintervention/postintervention assessments of interventions such as self-management courses are confounded by a change in perspective of a large proportion of respondents. It also indicates response shift is a valuable outcome of self-management courses that can be measured with a paper-based questionnaire.

Consumer knowledge and attitudes to salt intake and labelled salt information

The objective of this study was to investigate consumers’ knowledge of health risks of high salt intake and frequency of use and understanding of labelled salt information. We conducted a cross-sectional survey in shopping centres within Metropolitan Melbourne. A sample of 493 subjects was recruited. The questionnaire assessed salt related shopping behaviours, attitudes to salt intake and health and their ability to interpret labelled sodium information. Four hundred and seventy four valid surveys were collected (65% female, 64% being the main shopper). Most participants knew of the relationship between salt intake and high blood pressure (88%). Sixty five percent of participants were unable to correctly identify the relationship between salt and sodium. Sixty nine percent reported reading the salt content of food products when shopping. Salt label usage was significantly related to shoppers concern about the amount of salt in their diet and the belief that their health could improve by lowering salt intake. Approximately half of the sample was unable to accurately use labelled sodium information to pick low salt options. Raising consumer awareness of the health risks associated with high salt consumption may increase salt label usage and purchases of low salt foods. However, for food labels to be effective in helping consumers select low salt foods a more ‘user friendly’ labelling format is needed.

The impact of RICS education reform on building surveying

Purpose – It is of major concern to the surveying profession that the seven years between 1994 and 2001 witnessed a decline in the numbers of UK student surveyors of nearly 50 per cent. This was significant, especially when considered in the context of rising student numbers overall. The RICS decided to implement an education policy with the aim of increasing graduate quality. Changes were introduced in UK universities from September 2001. A number of universities saw their professionally accredited courses withdrawn as the RICS imposed  academic entry standards and research output based on the UK Government's Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) criteria on which to base their “partnership” relationships. Figures released by the RICS in 2003 indicated that surveying student numbers increased by 17 per cent in all areas except building surveying, where they fell by just under 25 per cent to 445 in 2001. The paper seeks to answer a number of questions. Why were building surveying courses failing to recruit students whereas other surveying courses have increased their numbers? If the figures continue to decline or remain at these low levels, what is the future for the BS? In short, could building surveying become an endangered profession?
Design/methodology/approach – All UK university BS course leaders were approached by questionnaire and approximately half responded. The study was partly funded by the RICS Education Trust.
Findings – The small amount of quantitative data collected suggests that recruitment is static at a time when other built environment courses are recruiting well. Course leaders expressed strong views about the impact of the education reforms.
Research limitations/implications – Failure by some BS course leaders to provide some statistical data prevented completion of the quantitative part of the study.
Originality/value – Key recommendations have been made to the BS Faculty Board of the RICS about the future of BS education.

Office buildings and the environment : the increasing role of facility managers

The Australian commercial stock emits 12% of all greenhouse gas emissions however the commercial property market has some inherent barriers to sustainability (DSE, 2005). A substantial proportion of the stock is owned by institutional investors who are unconvinced by the need to improve their stock and pass on running costs to tenants (Callender & Key, 1997). The links between the built environment and sustainability issues such as fossil fuel consumption and climate change is clear. In developed countries buildings contribute around half of all carbon dioxide emissions and offer considerable scope for a significant contribution to sustainability through ecologically aware design and increased energy efficiency (BRE, 1996). As capital values are not greatly affected by sustainability, owners react by doing little or nothing and the effect is to limit sustainability-related investment and undermine efforts to deliver sustainability in the sector. Facility managers are in an influential position to help address sustainability issues via an increased awareness of energy efficiency and CO2 emissions.

Even though the efficiency of buildings is primarily focused on new stock, with an existing churn replacement rate of approximately 2-3% the existing stock must be improved if urban built environment greenhouse gas emissions are to be reduced – clearly the management of existing stock must therefore contribute to substantial savings in energy use. Much of the property and surveying research has previously adopted an illustrative case study approach advocating the benefits of ESD and energy efficiency in existing buildings. This research adopts a radically different approach and profiles the entire office stock of a global CBD, namely Melbourne, which is seeking to become a carbon neutral city by 2020 (City of Melbourne, 2003). The research also employs scenario forecasting to model future changes to the stock over a fifteen year period. This paper sets out the rationale for the research and establishes the methodological approach adopted by the research team. The results provides a unique insight into the variations between different building types and grades of office buildings, which in turn will allow facility managers to gain a better understanding of where gains in energy efficiency can be made.