Religious festival marketing: Distinguishing between devout believers and tourists

Customer classification is an integral part of marketing planning activities. Researchers have struggled to classify “pilgrims” and “tourists” because these groups overlap to a large extent in terms of their identities while participating in religious activities/sightseeing. To achieve sustainable tourism development for the region with rich religious and cultural characteristics, the present article outlines a process for analyzing the motivation of participants attending religious festival of Mazu in Taiwan and then classifies religious festival participants according to their motivations. Using cluster sampling, a total of 280 responses were obtained and analyzed. The results revealed four different motivation categories: Fun traveler, devout believer, cultural enthusiast, and religious pragmatist. The study concludes that while festival goers are influenced by secularization to some extent, the original doctrine of the religion epitomized in the festivals fundamentally retains the essence and spirit of its religious rituals. The findings may have a significant value for the development of religious tourism marketing as it offers a foundation for future research seeking to develop regional cultural and religious sightseeing attractions sustainably

Sacred Sites, Rituals, and Performances

The conceptual territory of religious tourism is fluid. While recreation and leisure-based motivation and behaviors are evident in religious tourism, this volume reiterates its rootedness in tenets from religious traditions and pilgrimages. Using fresh perspectives on place-stories, rituals, performances, that are central to pilgrimage and sacred sites, essays in this volume explain contemporary expressions of religious tourism and illustrate the dynamic nature of religious tourism as an ecosystem embedded in religious practices, rituals and performances. The explanations will benefit researchers and practioners alike and they can find numerous examples that show the significance of religious tourism for sustainable development of destinations

Construction Dispute Mitigation: Quantitative and Qualitative Analytic Approach with a Focus on Bidding, Out-of-Sequence Work, and Contract Analysis

The complexity of today’s construction projects deems conflicts and disputes unavoidable. The mere presence of disputes leads to productivity losses, schedule overruns, cost overruns, and quality decline. Moreover, failure to resolve disputes in a quick manner ripples these impacts and prevents successful completion of projects. Accordingly, preventing disputes prior to taking place is always better than resolving them after the fact. There are several factors that cause disputes. However, this dissertation focuses on those related to bidding, out-of-sequence (OOS) work, and contract administration of owner’s obligations, due to the significant knowledge gaps that were identified in their research streams.The goal of this research is to cover the identified knowledge gaps by providing various effective quantitative and qualitative means of dispute mitigation at the different stages of the project’s lifecycle. To this end, the research has four main objectives; each corresponding to one of the identified major knowledge gaps. The objectives are: (1) develop an advanced model for construction bid price estimation that is able to draw sound statistical inferences even in cases of data incompleteness and dynamic behaviors of competitors; (2) present contract administration guidelines for utilizing employer’s obligations clauses under the most widely used national and international standard forms of design-build contracts; (3) identify the causes and early warning signs of OOS work and their characteristics, as well as the best practices to avoid and mitigate its impacts, and (4) develop an advanced systematic model for analyzing the dynamics of OOS.The objectives were achieved through multiple analytical quantitative and qualitative methods; utilizing Bayesian statistics, decision theory, contractual examinations, surveys and meetings, statistical analysis, decision support systems, and system dynamics simulation. The research has various intellectual merits as it tackles important research areas that have not been explored before and improves areas which needed improvement. The research also has practical merits as it provides project stakeholders with models and tools that are used in multiple stages of the project cycle to mitigate disputes. The intellectual and practical outcomes of this research will partake in further understanding construction projects, minimizing disputes at different stages, and promoting healthier contracting environments

Blue Economy and Resilient Development: Natural Resources, Shipping, People, and Environment

This book is a pivotal publication that seeks to address contemporary challenges to the blue economy in view of the growth in exploration and utilization of natural resources, transport connectivity, effects of climate change, sustainable fisheries management, food security, and social and economic issues of human well-being in coastal areas. Coastal territories and water areas are changing at an unprecedented pace in ways that fundamentally affect ecosystems, people, biodiversity, and sustainability. Such changes are driven primarily by rapid social and economic developments, economic disparities between countries, the internationalization of production and value chains, and industrialization. In this context, this publication supplements the existing literature by summoning political, economic, environmental, and social factors that influence various dimensions of the sustainable development of blue economy, as well as translating the findings into workable approaches and policies for the benefit of the economic actors, people, and the environment

Space industrialization. Volume 2: Space industrialization background, needs, and opportunities

For abstract, see N78-25107

Antioxidant and DPPH-Scavenging Activities of Compounds and Ethanolic Extract of the Leaf and Twigs of Caesalpinia bonduc L. Roxb.

Antioxidant effects of ethanolic extract of Caesalpinia bonduc and its isolated bioactive compounds were evaluated in vitro. The compounds included two new cassanediterpenes, 1α,7α-diacetoxy-5α,6β-dihydroxyl-cass-14(15)-epoxy-16,12-olide (1)and 12α-ethoxyl-1α,14β-diacetoxy-2α,5α-dihydroxyl cass-13(15)-en-16,12-olide(2); and others, bonducellin (3), 7,4’-dihydroxy-3,11-dehydrohomoisoflavanone (4), daucosterol (5), luteolin (6), quercetin-3-methyl ether (7) and kaempferol-3-O-α-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1Ç2)-β-D-xylopyranoside (8). The antioxidant properties of the extract and compounds were assessed by the measurement of the total phenolic content, ascorbic acid content, total antioxidant capacity and 1-1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) and hydrogen peroxide radicals scavenging activities.Compounds 3, 6, 7 and ethanolic extract had DPPH scavenging activities with IC50 values of 186, 75, 17 and 102 μg/ml respectively when compared to vitamin C with 15 μg/ml. On the other hand, no significant results were obtained for hydrogen peroxide radical. In addition, compound 7 has the highest phenolic content of 0.81±0.01 mg/ml of gallic acid equivalent while compound 8 showed the highest total antioxidant capacity with 254.31±3.54 and 199.82±2.78 μg/ml gallic and ascorbic acid equivalent respectively. Compound 4 and ethanolic extract showed a high ascorbic acid content of 2.26±0.01 and 6.78±0.03 mg/ml respectively.The results obtained showed the antioxidant activity of the ethanolic extract of C. bonduc and deduced that this activity was mediated by its isolated bioactive compounds

Second Chance

In this intimate memoir, Ruth Rosengarten explores the subject of evocative objects through a series of interconnected essays. Evocative objects reflect our attitudes to our own lives and how we seek to display ourselves to ourselves. They are therefore, closely linked to our memories, and how we filter, process and reconstruct them. Rosengarten explores the themes and associations invoked by her own evocative objects, which are frequently shabby things of no material value. They are, importantly, often objects that, in their materiality, bear traces of actions, of something-having-been. Through the associative pathways that these objects have paved, she discusses her experiences with the losses she has undergone, her family’s migrations, and what it means to be a childless woman. This leads her to address the question of what will become of her storied objects and the memories attached to them when she is no longer in existence. This memoir offers an interdisciplinary approach to collecting and compiling fragments of one’s life, paying close attention to the evocative objects that embody us. In doing so, these essays explore loss, memory, childlessness, longing, family history, literature and art theory through material entities which reveal the immaterial ‘things’ at the heart of this study. This book is sure to be of interest to anyone stimulated by memory work and the relationship between humans and their possessions

Second Chance

In this intimate memoir, Ruth Rosengarten explores the subject of evocative objects through a series of interconnected essays. Evocative objects reflect our attitudes to our own lives and how we seek to display ourselves to ourselves. They are therefore, closely linked to our memories, and how we filter, process and reconstruct them. Rosengarten explores the themes and associations invoked by her own evocative objects, which are frequently shabby things of no material value. They are, importantly, often objects that, in their materiality, bear traces of actions, of something-having-been. Through the associative pathways that these objects have paved, she discusses her experiences with the losses she has undergone, her family’s migrations, and what it means to be a childless woman. This leads her to address the question of what will become of her storied objects and the memories attached to them when she is no longer in existence. This memoir offers an interdisciplinary approach to collecting and compiling fragments of one’s life, paying close attention to the evocative objects that embody us. In doing so, these essays explore loss, memory, childlessness, longing, family history, literature and art theory through material entities which reveal the immaterial ‘things’ at the heart of this study. This book is sure to be of interest to anyone stimulated by memory work and the relationship between humans and their possessions