Food Services Styles in Chinese Hotels: Traditions and Tourism Pressures Merge

Tourist often want to experience their hosts\u27 culture including cuisines. Their reactions can be negatively influenced by vastly different customs which confront them. What can be done, for example, when traditional food serving styles violate the tourist\u27s sanitation standards? The authors discuss a Chinese case study-- and tell what hoteliers in China gace done to make good serving more desirable, with minimal compromise to culinary traditions

Chinese and British Hotels: Cultural Differences and Management

Rapid tourism development in China has led to an influx of hotels invested in and operated by multi-national hotel companies. The authors examine the impact of cultural differences on employee behavior in China and UK hotels and offer recommendations for expatriate hotel managers to effectively develop human resource management styles while operating properties in China

Drive Tourists’ Lodging Demand Determinants for Highway Hotels and Motels in U.S.

The current research explores drive tourists’ lodging demand determinants and effects of external environment (e.g. fuel price and seasonality) on tourism. The authors assumed economic, socio-demographic and trip-related variables influence highway hotels and motels visitors’ lodging demand. Though 2SLS model, the effects were statistically tested, resulting in the identification of the drive tourism market’s characteristics and lodging demand determinants in highway hotel and motel industry. On the contrary to OLS estimation, 2SLS model showed good performance to deal with endogeneity problem and accurate results. The model verified economic variable’s effects on lodging demand. According to the descriptive analysis, typical profile of drive tourists take approximately 400 miles round trip and stay two nights at the hotel. It was revealed that gas price was highly influenced by seasonality. Gas price has played as instrument variable to reflect seasonal effect and travel cost. It was showed that fuel price/travel cost and income are most influential determinants for lodging demand in highway hotel and motel industry

Cultured Divergence of Consumption Values in Vacation Experience

The primary objective of this study is to identify and understand, from a cultural perspective, the departure of Chinese consumptive values from their U.S. counterparts on a vacation experience. Through analysis of travelogues by tourists from China and the U.S., three salient themes were identified. They are Scenery, Food and Mood. Although all three were emphasized by both Chinese and American tourists, a closer look revealed that they’re being valued quite differently. What is important to the overall satisfaction of an experience in fact differ for the two groups. These exhibited divergences are found to be underpinned by different cultural dispositions, which are pivotal in shaping and influencing distinctive values. The results allow meaningful understanding of the uniqueness of Chinese consumption values, which are buttressed by its complex cultural system

Moderate Effects of Brand Awareness on eWOM Intention: Perspectives in Community-based Festival Tourism

This study aim to understand how tourists’ festival experience influence destination/place brand equity building as well as moderate effect of brand awareness on eWOM intention. A web-based survey is prepared and is supposed to be performed in order to explore how tourists response eWOM dissemination. Based on customer-based brand equity (CBBE), moderate effect of brand awareness on eWOM intention is examined through second order structural equation modeling. Expected results provide insightful information about the importance of brand awareness in consumers\u27 brand knowledge transaction and marketing performance. Expected results will clarify festival tourists’ psychological characteristics in destination branding setting

A Human-Specific De Novo Protein-Coding Gene Associated with Human Brain Functions

To understand whether any human-specific new genes may be associated with human brain functions, we computationally screened the genetic vulnerable factors identified through Genome-Wide Association Studies and linkage analyses of nicotine addiction and found one human-specific de novo protein-coding gene, FLJ33706 (alternative gene symbol C20orf203). Cross-species analysis revealed interesting evolutionary paths of how this gene had originated from noncoding DNA sequences: insertion of repeat elements especially Alu contributed to the formation of the first coding exon and six standard splice junctions on the branch leading to humans and chimpanzees, and two subsequent substitutions in the human lineage escaped two stop codons and created an open reading frame of 194 amino acids. We experimentally verified FLJ33706's mRNA and protein expression in the brain. Real-Time PCR in multiple tissues demonstrated that FLJ33706 was most abundantly expressed in brain. Human polymorphism data suggested that FLJ33706 encodes a protein under purifying selection. A specifically designed antibody detected its protein expression across human cortex, cerebellum and midbrain. Immunohistochemistry study in normal human brain cortex revealed the localization of FLJ33706 protein in neurons. Elevated expressions of FLJ33706 were detected in Alzheimer's brain samples, suggesting the role of this novel gene in human-specific pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. FLJ33706 provided the strongest evidence so far that human-specific de novo genes can have protein-coding potential and differential protein expression, and be involved in human brain functions

SUMOylation Represses Nanog Expression via Modulating Transcription Factors Oct4 and Sox2

Nanog is a pivotal transcription factor in embryonic stem (ES) cells and is essential for maintaining the pluripotency and self-renewal of ES cells. SUMOylation has been proved to regulate several stem cell markers' function, such as Oct4 and Sox2. Nanog is strictly regulated by Oct4/Sox2 heterodimer. However, the direct effects of SUMOylation on Nanog expression remain unclear. In this study, we reported that SUMOylation repressed Nanog expression. Depletion of Sumo1 or its conjugating enzyme Ubc9 increased the expression of Nanog, while high SUMOylation reduced its expression. Interestingly, we found that SUMOylation of Oct4 and Sox2 regulated Nanog in an opposing manner. SUMOylation of Oct4 enhanced Nanog expression, while SUMOylated Sox2 inhibited its expression. Moreover, SUMOylation of Oct4 by Pias2 or Sox2 by Pias3 impaired the interaction between Oct4 and Sox2. Taken together, these results indicate that SUMOylation has a negative effect on Nanog expression and provides new insights into the mechanism of SUMO modification involved in ES cells regulation