A Cross-cultural Investigation of the Relationship between Customer Demographics and Hotel Room Price Perception

In this paper, the researcher explored the significant effect of multiple demographics, age, gender, marital status, and culture, on a customer’s perception of hotel room prices. The customer’s perception of hotel room rates was assessed by three variations, perceived value, perceived fairness, and willingness to pay. Descriptive statistics, MANOVA, and ANOVA were applied in this study. The results demonstrated that age, gender, and marital status had a significant impact on a customer’s perceived value; age, gender, and culture significantly influenced a customer’s perception of fairness; yet, none of these demographics had a significant impact on a customer’s willingness to pay. Ultimately, the researcher provided implications for future studies and practical suggestions for hotel dynamic pricing strategies

Group level influence on blog's design behaviour

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The purpose of this research is twofold. Firstly, this research aims to investigate whether the design preferences of bloggers in selected countries from different cultural backgrounds are influenced by national culture traits. The investigation involves two categories of blogs selected within a country where the bloggers share similar attributes such as language or geographical location. Secondly, simultaneously, this research intends to discover the possibility of the impact of group level influence on design preferences of bloggers who are linked together in a network through bloggers’ linkage or blogrolls. To achieve the said purposes, observations on both the global and local blogs of six selected countries are conducted using the content analysis method. This method allows this research to observe web pages and rate design preferences of bloggers via a coding system, similar to the method used to analyse documents or manuscripts to find common themes or keywords. A total of 612 blogs (306 global and 306 local) are observed for a period of nine months to identify cultural traits on design behaviour based on national culture indicators chosen from prominent literatures. To prevent a systematic error, an independent second observer was appointed and the results obtained are compared using a statistical methodology. In addition, translators were also engaged to verify that the translations are of a correct meaning and comprehension since blogs use various national languages on their web pages. The data were statistically tested using SPSS engaging in statistical analysis of frequency table, Cross-Tabulation and cluster analyses and MANOVA. Results shown that design preferences between both the global and local blogs in each country, has significant differences in most of the design indicators chosen. The findings indicate that the national culture influence on design preferences in linked networks of blogs is weakening indicating another type of influence might be in existence. The results also provide evidence that blogs in linked networks are statistically significant as a cluster or a group by themselves and are independent from one cluster to another. The research, however, studies only six countries from six different cultural dimensions. The inclusion of other countries, similar to or different from the countries under investigation, would be an added advantage. Furthermore, the use of only a single type of global blog provider (blogspot.com) in this research could be extended to other global blog providers such as wordpress.com to give fairer coverage of major and popular global blogs as well as providing a wider generalisation effect of the research findings

Migration, Resilience, Vulnerability and Migrants’ Health

In recent times, particularly during the 21st century, there have been significant increases and changes in international migration and resettlement patterns due to factors such as people’s ability to travel, ease of communication and technology, and civil unrest and conflicts. Global populations have increased and integrated across settings, challenging the differentiation between types of migrants, such as refugees (those migrating because of factors such as civil unrest, wars, persecution, or other vulnerability) and economic migrants. This mixture of migration and resettlement patterns will continue for generations due to these diverse, multicultural, and complex communities and we will need more research to provide evidence to inform nations and global responses to any emergences. This Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health focused on the migration, resilience, and vulnerability and general migrants’ health accepted original research papers, case reports, reviews, and conference papers. Articles dealing with new approaches to address issues, including migration (opportunities, challenges, and vulnerability), migrants’ health, settlement, and migrant health-care service access and specific migrants’ subgroups were also accepted. Other manuscript types including methodological papers, position papers, policy briefs and reports, and commentaries were sought. We accepted manuscripts from different disciplines, including public health, social and behavioural sciences, anthropology, epidemiology, psychology, and demography. This reprint compiles 30 publications

Investigating the Experiences of Queer International Students

There is a great deal of academic literature reporting homophobic discrimination against queer students in higher education. However, queer international students, who have potentially experienced different cultural constructions and understandings of sexualities based upon their cross cultural international studies, have received little to no attention in academic literature. This is significant considering the increasing number of international students studying in Canadian universities. In light of this, this research examines the self-described experiences of seven queer international students attending one Canadian university in order to investigate their experiences as queer identifying subjects. Drawing on their voices, it also attempts to examine the level of queer acceptance or homophobic discrimination in their Canadian university. The seven students all reported impressions of Canada and their Canadian university as being more accepting of sexual minorities than their home countries. As the study explains, these perceptions ultimately incited a degree of reflexivity in how the participants\u27 came to understand and make sense of their queer identities. These included changes in self-labeling of their sexual identities, self-understanding and perception of their sexuality, expressions and embodiments of their sexuality, being open with their sexuality in different cultural contexts, and finally a more optimistic reframing of their potential futures as queer individuals. These findings draw upon queer, feminist, and gender theory that offer an understanding of the social construction of gender and sexual identities, seeing identities as relational processes that can change in different cultural spaces. In light of these findings, further research into institutional systemic support offered by universities for queer international students is proposed

Attitudinal Tension & Moral Dilemma Dynamics: The Role of Psychological Determinants in Overcoming the Behaviour Inertia in Car Use

Tackling climate change has become a priority of the political agenda in many countries around the world. The problems related to global warming have been mainly attributed to human actions, as anthropogenic behaviours are responsible for the excess of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Therefore, understanding the factors that drive these behaviours are the first step to create effective policies, in order to know how to change people’s non-environmentally friendly behaviours. This thesis assesses the usefulness of system dynamics to create a simulation model that can explain the main theories proposed in environmental psychology to reduce car use. In the UK, transportation has become one of the major responsible for emitting more greenhouse gases than any other sector. Therefore, understanding the psychological determinants that impede drivers to consider alternative transport modes becomes essential to fight climate change. Based on the data collected by Department for Transport (UK), this thesis tests several changes on psychological determinants that can trigger important changes in the levels of car use. The factors involved in explaining car use are described, as well as the causes that play a key role in determining the behavioural intention towards car use. The study reveals several feedback loops that explain individual’s car choice. It also demonstrates that creating multi-level interventions may be designed, so as to obtain important behavioural changes in this matter. For example, modifying car habit, as well as personal norms, and attitudes lead to faster changes than focusing on one variable at a time. In theoretical terms, the model reveals the supremacy of changing factors related to the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), suggesting a reason it has become so popular. Nevertheless, the model demonstrates that modifying TPB alongside other factors from other theoretical frameworks lead to more satisfactory results