2,845 research outputs found

    Undergraduate Catalog of Studies, 2023-2024

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    Virtual reality in destination branding

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    Abstract. Businesses might gain a competitive advantage by offering virtual tourism as it is still a novel phenomenon. Experiencing virtual reality, the user engages with the virtual content more in comparison with 2D media such as texts and pictures. The immersive aspect of virtual reality increases user engagement in the virtual environment. Therefore, the virtual experience raises higher interest towards the content. As virtual content engages the users more, it could be utilized for destination branding purposes. Destination marketers could offer virtual content in the form of virtual tourism in order to productize the intangible aspect of traveling. Virtual tourism could be also considered as a sample tool for marketing to experience a destination before potential travel. The existing research covers mainly studies about virtual reality, virtual tourism and destination branding without combining these aspects. Therefore, this study focuses on researching the combination of these aspects. The purpose of the study is to define the uses of virtual reality in destination branding and the means of it. Also, the meaning of virtual tourism for destination brands is considered. To understand the researched phenomena even further, a theoretical framework will be provided to clarify the most essential theoretical (secondary data) aspects of the study. The theoretical framework will be later completed with empirical findings (primary data) to provide a whole diagram to support the examined phenomenon. The chosen research method for the study is a qualitative approach to collect empirical data in support of related literature. Semi-structured interviews were selected for the qualitative research method. The criteria for selecting suitable interviewees were to select organizations that operate in the tourism field and implement destination branding. The interviews were performed with both public and private organizations. Also, the abductive aspect was applied as collected empirical data had a dialogue throughout the research with selected literature. The collected data was transcribed by the researcher and thematic analysis was applied to notice frequencies within the data. However, also infrequencies are presented. The study results indicated that the operations regarding virtual reality varied in both public and private organizations. While public organizations provided virtual content among their other marketing operations, private organizations offered virtual content as their main purpose for their businesses. However, the joint consensus among the interviewees was to bring tourists on the spot to destinations. As by offering virtual content their ultimate purpose was marketing the destination. However, the study indicates that virtual tourism can be used for three purposes; (1) as a sample tool, (2) as a product, and (3) as an on-site added-value experience. The mentioned purposes jointly attract tourists to destinations in their various ways yet constantly aiming for destination branding

    Undergraduate Catalog of Studies, 2022-2023

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    University bulletin 2023-2024

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    This catalog for the University of South Carolina at Beaufort lists information about the college, the academic calendar, admission policies, degree programs, faculty and course descriptions

    2023-2024 Graduate School Catalog

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    You and your peers represent more than 67 countries and your shared scholarship spans 140 programs - from business administration and biomedical engineering to history, horticulture, musical performance, marine science, and more. Your ideas and interests will inform public health, create opportunities for art and innovation, contribute to the greater good, and positively impact economic development in Maine and beyond

    A study of the inter-relationship of identity and urban heritage in Chiang Mai Old City, Thailand

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    The urban heritage identity of historical cities has received growing attention due to the weakening of their urban identity. For this reason, urban identity has been identified as a preliminary study of this research. Forty years ago, many researchers attempted to explain a broader understanding of urban heritage identity, which is relevant to human factors that affect urban, place, and built environment relationships. This involved the three interrelated concepts of identity: distinctiveness; urban heritage; and place attachment. These establish a balance between people and their identification with places. Urban heritage identity is associated a place's physicality and heritage attributes that reflect socio-cultural values. It can be concluded that urban heritage identity becomes significant through concepts of environmental psychology. Distinctiveness theory, as a part of identity theory, has been used in this study to describe the genuine perception of local participants and is a fundamental part of defining place identity. Furthermore, the definition of place attachment has been used to explain the relationship of distinct places on time of residence, frequency of use, emotional, physical, social, and activities. The study also explores Chiang Mai Old City’s built environment, which especially analyses the façade and streetscape characteristics that reflect the city's socio-cultural value. The research concludes with suggestions for preserving the city's urban heritage characteristics. Chiang Mai Old City has unprecedented diversity and cultural dynamics related to its intangible and tangible urban heritage. Moreover, the city is in the critical stage of being nominated as a new World Heritage Site by UNESCO, with the city's distinctiveness and place attachment being significant in supporting further heritage management strategies. The research mainly focuses on how local people interpret and understand the urban heritage identity of Chiang Mai Old City. This has been achieved through surveys of four hundred participants living in the Old City, two-way focus groups with five participants in each group, in-depth interviews with twenty-five participants, and ten architects drawing suggestions for further built environment management strategies. The results are described through seven aspects that explore the distinctiveness and place attachment theories of Chiang Mai Old City. The findings can be described in seven aspects: historical value; cultural activities; a particular character; landmark; identity; community; and everyday life. The results reveal that there are five distinct places in the city: Pra Singha Temple; Chedi Luang Temple; Three Kings monument square; Tha-Pare gate square; and Chiang Mai Old City's Moat. The results can also be used to develop an assessment indicator for defining the distinctiveness of other historic cities through the engagement of local people. The study repeatedly employs distinct places to describe in-place attachment theory. The results reveal positivity, emotion, and the spiritual anchor of place attached to local people in social engagement, explicitly divulging the rootedness of religion, culture, and community activities through the length of time. All five distinct places have an inseparable ability to display tangible heritage value and such a positive emotion to places is crucial in contributing to urban heritage characteristics. Moreover, the time or length of residency is a vital aspect to people’s perception of the city's distinctiveness; however, the value of the physical setting itself can increase the sense of belonging of newcomers.This research used a mixed methods approach in defining place identity process and socio-cultural values in distinctive streetscapes scenes in the city. This study strongly believes that the findings demonstrate that local people can help to develop the management of the city. The results presented suggest that the heritage value of streetscapes is related to historical attributes, natural objects, people, and cultural events in the scenes that explain the meanings ascribed to places associated with social and cultural values. The built environment characteristics and heritage value can be assumed from human experience. The study can be a new perspective for local authorities, urban designers, and heritage teams to determine whether projects will strengthen the existing urban heritage identity. Most importantly, this research has revealed new perspectives on urban heritage identity and practical study methods whilst also contributing to management strategies. In addition, continuing research into urban heritage identity will significantly improve knowledge development, practical support, and collaboration with local people and architects to establish and maintain cherished distinct places and living environments for urban residents

    Live-Art: A Business Plan of a Start-up for Art Education and Art Collection

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    Live-Art is a start-up venture in New York City that combines online and offline art experiences, which blurs the boundaries between art education and art collection and organically integrates the two fields. Our philosophy is to inspire people to live with art and create their own art kingdom. By strengthening each individual’s engagement in the art world, we aim to improve our users’ art appreciation perception through art education and to encourage them to create an aesthetic atmosphere for their living environment through art collection. Traditionally, education is more focused on non-profit, while art collection is more on commercialized consumption. However, they are deeply connected and intertwined. From this, we hope that our digital learning on art education can guide users to generate passion for the art collection and correspondingly allow more art collectors to participate in art education programs to deepen aesthetic experiences. The company’s business mainly includes online digital products - the mobile application, and in-person art appreciation events as well as the art advisory service. We expect to build up a digital learning and interactive art collection community, aiming to accumulate more accurate target art collectors from the virtual platforms to the real-world art business. Our target user market is Chinese people living and working in New York City since New York has a natural artistic and cultural atmosphere where people have a greater demand for high-quality life with aesthetic experience. Our unique advantage lies in creating an efficient, flexible, hybrid, and social art learning experience. At present, most mobile applications in the American market detach art education, museum guide, and art collection features, setting a clear barrier between logical tools and emotional experiences. However, we both value digital user experience and aesthetic engagement in the real world, providing our users with a novel and effective learning and art-collecting experience. Users can learn, interact, find friends, and sign up to participate in art events on our digital platform, linking great activities between the real and virtual worlds. To create better content, we have an excellent team with many talents from various professional fields, including product development, art education, curriculum design, and art collection. All of our art events and art-related courses have solid academic and theoretical foundations. The collaboration of these elites will continuously improve our venture to optimize the problems from our customer feedback or of the same type of products in the market. Our pricing strategy is more economical than many museum membership plans in New York City, and the registration system for it is very flexible, allowing users to engage in or drop out anytime. In the initial stage of the company, our main capital came from the entrepreneurial partners, and we increased our income through the art activities carried out successively. Although project development will cost a lot of funding, the company estimates a first-year revenue of $800,000 and expects to be profitable after the first eight months of operations. Under the ideal conditions we predict, the company can start to achieve stable profits in the third year, increasingly expand the number of users, and form a strong social influence in the art market in New York City

    Reframing museum epistemology for the information age: a discursive design approach to revealing complexity

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    This practice-based research inquiry examines the impact of an epistemic shift, brought about by the dawning of the information age and advances in networked communication technologies, on physical knowledge institutions - focusing on museums. The research charts adapting knowledge schemas used in museum knowledge organisation and discusses the potential for a new knowledge schema, the network, to establish a new epistemology for museums that reflects contemporary hyperlinked and networked knowledge. The research investigates the potential for networked and shared virtual reality spaces to reveal new ‘knowledge monuments’ reflecting the epistemic values of the network society and the space of flows. The central practice for this thesis focuses on two main elements. The first is applying networks and visual complexity to reveal multi-linearity and adapting perspectives in relational knowledge networks. This concept was explored through two discursive design projects, the Museum Collection Engine, which uses data visualisation, cloud data, and image recognition within an immersive projection dome to create a dynamic and searchable museum collection that returns new and interlinking constellations of museum objects and knowledge. The second discursive design project was Shared Pasts: Decoding Complexity, an AR app with a unique ‘anti-personalisation’ recommendation system designed to reveal complex narratives around historic objects and places. The second element is folksonomy and co-design in developing new community-focused archives using the community's language to build the dataset and socially tagged metadata. This was tested by developing two discursive prototypes, Women Reclaiming AI and Sanctuary Stories

    Volume 45: Full Issue

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    Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 50th Anniversary Edition: Becoming a Polytechni
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