A Study on the Quality Attributes of Kerala as a Global Tourism Destination-2005

The study was carried out with the broad objective to understand the quality attributes of Kerala as a global tourism destination. It also sheds some light on the nature of international travel market for Kerala in terms of activities , benefit sought , country and trip profile. For understanding the difference in level of tourists perception , the study also tried to compare overall trip satisfaction and impression with destination for different tourists groups categorized into country of origin and various socio-demographic groups.

Attitudes and behaviour towards food attributes and organic food – a triangular methodological investigation of occasional organic consumers

Organic food is increasingly available in the conventional food retail, where organic products are offered alongside with various other types of products and compete mainly with conventional and the so-called conventional-plus products. The latter are conventional products displaying particular quality attributes on the product packaging, such as ‘no artificial additives’, or ‘from animal welfare husbandry’. Often, these quality attributes also apply to organic products. Occasional organic consumers might prefer such conventional-plus alternatives that are perceived to be ‘between’ organic and conventional products. The overall objective of this PhD thesis was to provide information about the segment of occasional organic consumers. In particular, the thesis focussed on consumer perceptions and attitudes towards the quality of, and preferences for, organic, conventional and conventional-plus products in two countries: Germany and Switzerland. To achieve these objectives, qualitative and quantitative consumer research was combined in order to explore occasional organic consumers’ perceptions and attitudes as well as to observe their preferences and buying behaviour regarding different types of food products: organic, conventional and conventional-plus products. The qualitative research showed that, depending on single criteria, organic production was both positively as well as negatively assessed by consumers. Consumer perception of organic food was found to be highly selective and primarily focussed on the final stage of the particular production process. A major problem is that consumers are still mostly unfamiliar with factors associated with organic production, have a lack of confidence, and often confuse organic with conventional products. Besides this, consumer expectations of organic products are different from the expectations of conventional products. The quantitative research revealed that attitudes strongly determine consumers’ preferences for organic, conventional and conventional-plus products. Consumer attitudes tended to differ more between organic and conventional choices rather than conventional-plus and conventional choices. Furthermore, occasional organic consumers are heterogeneous in their preferences. They can be grouped into two segments: the consumers in one segment were less price sensitive and preferred organic products. The consumers in the other segment were more price sensitive and rather preferred conventional-plus or conventional products. To conclude, given the selective and subjective nature of consumer perception and the strong focus of consumer perception on the final stage of the food production process, specific additional values of organic farming should be communicated in clear and catchy messages. At the same time, these messages should be particularly focussed on the final stage of organic food production. The communication of specific added values in relation with organic products to improve the perceived price-performance-ratio is important since conventional-plus products represent an interesting alternative particularly for price sensitive occasional organic consumers. Besides this, it is important to strengthen affirmative consumer attitudes towards organic production. Therefore, policy support should emphasise on long-term communication campaigns and education programmes to increase the consumer awareness and knowledge of organic food and farming. Since consumers expect that organic food is regionally or at least domestically produced while they less accept organic imports, policy support of domestic and regional producers is a crucial measure to fill the current gap between the increasing consumer demand of organic food and the stagnation of the domestic and regional organic food supply.

Assessing the Precision of Compositional Data in a Stratified Double Stage Cluster Sample: Application to the Swiss Earnings Structure Survey

Precision of released figures is not only an important quality feature of official statistics, it is also essential for a good understanding of the data. In this paper we show a case study of how precision could be conveyed if the multivariate nature of data has to be taken into account. In the official release of the Swiss earnings structure survey, the total salary is broken down into several wage components. We follow Aitchison's approach for the analysis of compositional data, which is based on logratios of components. We first present diferent multivariate analyses of the compositional data whereby the wage components are broken down by economic activity classes. Then we propose a number of ways to assess precision

Evidence of demonstration of personal attributes for CV preparation

This document contains a list of personal attributes which you will need to be able to demonstrate throughout your career. You will also be able to prepare for creating a CV by beginning to evidence your personal attributes and the description of the circumstances in which the attributes were demonstrated in a tabular form.

Opportunities for Achieving Competence in Personal Attributes for Personal & Professional Developments

This document lists descriptions of generic skills / personal attributes that are useful to consider in personal and professional development. It also describes some general competencies and offers some thoughts on how to create opportunities to achieve competence with a bias towards computer science & IT students. It is based on advice given by Career Destinations at the University of Southampton and other universities

Review about neuropsychological processing of tonal attributes of music in the Western context

Many discussions about the music processing have occurred over the years. It is stated, on one hand, the existence of a single joint for grasping the music or any of its attributes by the Central Nervous System. Furthermore, it is claimed also the existence of multiple and diverse systems to understand each aspect of music. In general, model-independent set, studies focusing on the processing of sound components, specifically the musical tones, can significantly clarify the basic functioning of the auditory system and other higher brain functions. In this sense, one of the most prominent approaches in the study of sensory and perceptual processes of hearing, or changed unharmed, has been Neuroscience, which is interested in the interaction between the brain areas corresponding to different cognitive processes. Thus, the purpose of this study was to review the studies that dealt processing models of the attributes of tonal Western music, based on the conception that neuropsychological neural structures are interdependent sensory pathways.

High and steady or low and rising? : vocational versus general education in life-cycle earnings. 'Alto y estable o bajo y en alza? : formación profesional versus general en los ingresos del ciclo de vida'.

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