Tourist Profiles and Characteristics vis-à-vis Market Segmentation of Ecotourism Destinations in Kerala

Kerala, a classic ecotourism destination in India, provides significant opportunities for livelihood options to thepeople who depend on the resources from the forest and those who live in difficult terrains. This article analysesthe socio-demographic, psychographic and travel behavior patterns and its sub-characteristics in the backgroundof foreign and domestic tourists. The data source for the article has been obtained from a primary survey of 350randomly chosen tourists, 175 each from domestic and foreign tourists, visiting Kerala’s ecotourists destinationsduring August-December 2010-11. Several socio-demographic, psychographic and life style factors have beenidentified based on the inference from field survey. There is considerable divergence in most of the factorsidentified in the case of domestic and international tourists. Post-trip attributes like satisfaction and intentions toreturn show that the ecotourism destinations in Kerala have significant potential that can help communities in theregion.Keywords: Tourists, Ecotourism, Socio-demographic, Psychographic, Lifestyle, Motivation, Satisfaction,Revisi

Socio-Economic Aspects of Sustainable Ecotourism Development: The Case of Kerala

The paper is an attempt to shed light on the socio-economic aspects of the local communities on the development of ecotourism in Kerala. Most of the local communities in the ecotourism destinations are tribes who have been excluded from the mainstream society and are not a part of Kerala’s overall development setting. The paper also tries to situate the community perception on the sustainable livelihood of ecotourism sites of Kerala. Data for the study is obtained from a primary survey by dividing the ecotourism destinations in Kerala into three zones, 230 from south zone, 220 from central zone  and 200 from north zone  with a total sample size of 650 based on the notion of community based ecotourism initiatives of the state. The result of the study confirms that ecotourism has helped to enhance the livelihood of the marginalized community. With well-knit policies it is possible to tag ecotourism of Kerala as an important tourism destination in the global tourism map. Key Words: Perception, Livelihood, Marginalized community, Community based Ecotourism, Sustainabilit

Health, Education and Employment in a Forward-Backward Dichotomy Based on Standard of Living Index for the Tribes in Kerala

The Paper unfolds the paradox that exists in the tribal community with respect to the development indicators and hence tries to cull out the difference in the standard of living of the tribes in a dichotomous framework, forward and backward. Four variables have been considered for ascertaining the standard of living and socio-economic conditions of the tribes. The data for the study is obtained from a primary survey in the three tribal predominant districts of Wayanad, Idukki and Palakkad. Wayanad was selected for studying six tribal communities (Paniya, Adiya, Kuruma, Kurichya, Urali and Kattunaika), Idukki for two communities (Malayarayan and Muthuvan) and Palakkad for one community (Irula). 500 samples from 9 prominent tribal communities of Kerala have been collected according to multistage proportionate random sample framework. The analysis highlights the disproportionate nature of socio-economic indicators within the tribes in Kerala owing to the failure of governmental schemes and assistances meant for their empowerment. The socio-economic variables, such as education, health, and livelihood have been augmented with SLI based on correlation analysis gives interesting inference for policy options as high educated tribal communities are positively correlated with high SLI and livelihood. Further, each of the SLI variable is decomposed using Correlation and Correspondence analysis for understanding the relative standing of the nine tribal sub communities in the three dimensional framework of high, medium and low SLI levels. Tribes with good education and employment (Malayarayan, Kuruma and Kurichya) have a better living standard and hence they can generally be termed as forward tribes whereas those with a low or poor education, employment and living standard indicators (Paniya, Adiya, Urali, Kattunaika, Muthuvans and Irula) are categorized as backward tribes. Keywords: tribes, health, education, livelihood, standard of living index, correspondence analysi

Synthetic strategies to nanostructured photocatalysts for CO2 reduction to solar fuels and chemicals

Artificial photosynthesis represents one of the great scientific challenges of the 21st century, offering the possibility of clean energy through water photolysis and renewable chemicals through CO2 utilisation as a sustainable feedstock. Catalysis will undoubtedly play a key role in delivering technologies able to meet these goals, mediating solar energy via excited generate charge carriers to selectively activate molecular bonds under ambient conditions. This review describes recent synthetic approaches adopted to engineer nanostructured photocatalytic materials for efficient light harnessing, charge separation and the photoreduction of CO2 to higher hydrocarbons such as methane, methanol and even olefins

Design of Colloidal Composite Catalysts for CO2 Photoreduction and for CO Oxidation

In this doctoral dissertation, novel colloidal routes were used to synthesize nanomaterials with unique features. We have studied the impact of nanoparticle size of catalyst, role of high surface area of a photocatalyst, and the effect of varying elemental composition of co-catalytic nanoparticles in combination with core-shell plasmonic nanoparticles. We have demonstrated how physical and chemical characteristics of nanomaterials with these unique features play a role in catalytic reactions, specifically the oxidation of CO and the photoreduction of CO2. The first objective of this doctoral dissertation involved the preparation of CoO nanoparticles with discrete nanoparticles sizes (1-14 nm) using a colloidal thermal decomposition technique. The impact of size of CoO for CO oxidation reaction was studied using an in-situ FTIR reactor. By analyzing the reaction intermediates observed using in-situ IR, a two-step reaction mechanism was proposed. The average values of activation energies of step-1 and step-2 were ∼15 kJ/mol and ∼90 kJ/mol that showed step-2 was the rate determining step. From activation energy calculations for the catalysts of different CoO sizes, it was found that activation energy increased as nanoparticle size increased. The second objective of this doctoral research involved the development of high surface area TiO2 nanoshells using polymeric templates. The deposition of TiO2 was achieved by surface functionalization procedures. TiO2 was then deposited on colloidal SiO2 after the SiO2 surface was modified by grafting poly(NIPAAM) oligomers. TiO2 nanoshell composites possessed high surface of ∼35 m2/gm. The photocatalytic performances of TiO2 nanoshells and Pt deposited TiO2 nanoshells were evaluated for CO2 photoreduction reaction. Primary products from CO2 photoreduction reactions were carbon monoxide and methane. The product yield and product selectivity of hydrocarbons produced during CO2 photoreduction was measured using a home-built FTIR reactor. When Pt was deposited on TiO2 nanoshells, the overall yield was nearly doubled and the CH4 selectivity nearly quadrupled. The third objective pursued in this research project was to synthesize Ag, Pt and bimetallic Ag-Pt nanoparticles to demonstrate the role of elemental composition of metal co-catalysts for CO2 photoreduction reaction. The novel bimetallic nanoparticles played an important role in improving product selectivity in the photocatalytic reduction of CO2. Bimetallic Ag-Pt nanoparticles synthesized with low Pt content had 4-5 times higher CH4 selectivity compared to native TiO2. The final objective was to prepare Ag(core)/SiO2(shell) nanoparticles with specific core-shell structure to enhance photoactivity of TiO2 during catalytic reactions. Ag@SiO2 core-shell nanoparticles have plasmonic character that helped to improve product yield by increasing the number of electron-hole pair generations. When bimetallic Ag-Pt nanoparticles were used in combination with core-shell Ag@SiO2 plasmonic nanoparticles, the overall yield increased ∼8-fold compared to native TiO2

Health, Education and Employment in a Forward-Backward Dichotomy Based on Standard of Living Index for the Tribes in Kerala

The Paper unfolds the paradox that exists in the tribal community with respect to the development indicators and hence tries to cull out the difference in the standard of living of the tribes in a dichotomous framework, forward and backward. Four variables have been considered for ascertaining the standard of living and socio-economic conditions of the tribes. The data for the study is obtained from a primary survey in the three tribal predominant districts of Wayanad, Idukki and Palakkad. Wayanad was selected for studying six tribal communities (Paniya, Adiya, Kuruma, Kurichya, Urali and Kattunaika), Idukki for two communities (Malayarayan and Muthuvan) and Palakkad for one community (Irula). 500 samples from 9 prominent tribal communities of Kerala have been collected according to multistage proportionate random sample framework. The analysis highlights the disproportionate nature of socio-economic indicators within the tribes in Kerala owing to the failure of governmental schemes and assistances meant for their empowerment. The socio-economic variables, such as education, health, and livelihood have been augmented with SLI based on correlation analysis gives interesting inference for policy options as high educated tribal communities are positively correlated with high SLI and livelihood. Further, each of the SLI variable is decomposed using Correlation and Correspondence analysis for understanding the relative standing of the nine tribal sub communities in the three dimensional framework of high, medium and low SLI levels. Tribes with good education and employment (Malayarayan, Kuruma and Kurichya) have a better living standard and hence they can generally be termed as forward tribes whereas those with a low or poor education, employment and living standard indicators (Paniya, Adiya, Urali, Kattunaika, Muthuvans and Irula) are categorized as backward tribesCochin University of Science and TechnologyJournal of Economics and Sustainable Development,Vol.4, No.7, 201

Socio-Economic Aspects of Sustainable Ecotourism Development: The Case of Kerala

The paper is an attempt to shed light on the socio-economic aspects of the local communities on the development of ecotourism in Kerala. Most of the local communities in the ecotourism destinations are tribes who have been excluded from the mainstream society and are not a part of Kerala’s overall development setting. The paper also tries to situate the community perception on the sustainable livelihood of ecotourism sites of Kerala. Data for the study is obtained from a primary survey by dividing the ecotourism destinations in Kerala into three zones, 230 from south zone, 220 from central zone and 200 from north zone with a total sample size of 650 based on the notion of community based ecotourism initiatives of the state. The result of the study confirms that ecotourism has helped to enhance the livelihood of the marginalized community. With well-knit policies it is possible to tag ecotourism of Kerala as an important tourism destination in the global tourism mapCochin University of Science and TechnologyResearch on Humanities and Social Sciences,Vol 2, No.11, 201

Predictive Model for Box-office Success of Movies Using Social media

Social media comprises interactive applications and platforms for creating, sharing and exchange of user-generated contents. The past ten years have brought huge growth in social media, especially online social networking services, and it is changing our ways to organize and communicate. It aggregates opinions and feelings of diverse groups of people at low cost. Mining the attributes and contents of social media gives us an opportunity to discover social structure characteristics, analyze action patterns qualitatively and quantitatively, and sometimes the ability to predict future human related events.We have assessed how buzz and attention is created for different movies and how that changes over time. Movie producers spend a lot of effort and money in publicizing their movies, and have also embraced the Twitter medium for this purpose. Our hypothesis was the movies that are well talked about are well-watched.[2