Do Blue Flag promotions influence tourists’ willingness to pay a price premium for coastal destinations?

The Blue Flag is a popular eco-label in tourism. This study aims at examining the effectiveness of Blue Flag promotion on tourists' willingness to pay a price premium to coastal destinations via two online experiments. Study 1 shows (n = 152) that the Blue Flag stimulates higher willingness to pay a price premium for coastal destinations directly as well as indirectly through self-congruity and destination brand identification. Study 2 (n = 160) used a new sample to enhance external validity and generalizability of the Study 1 findings. Study 2 shows that destination brand quality and destination brand identification serially mediate the effect of Blue Flag promotions on the tourist's willingness to pay a price premium. The findings suggest that destination managers should deploy the Blue Flag Logo in destination promotions to enhance self-congruence, destination brand identification, perceived destination quality, and the tourist's willingness to pay a price premium

Internationalization of E-commerce: A Comparison of Online Shopping Preferences of Turkish and American University Students

While international e-commerce has been as an efficient means of global transaction, it can be improved even more if it is tailored to differences in local markets in terms of economy, infrastructure and culture.  In trying to investigate the internationalization of e-commerce, we examined the online shopping preferences in the US (which has a well-developed market in e-commerce) and Turkey (which has more of a developing market with good potentials).  This empirical study indicated significant cross-national differences in online shopping preferences, particularly on attitude towards online credit card payment and online purchase involvement. It was also concluded that the culture based factors such as website design appeal is also significantly affected by nationality. Keywords: Online shopping; e-commerce; cultural difference

Neutron stars in a perturbative f(R)f(R) gravity model with strong magnetic fields

We investigate the effect of a strong magnetic field on the structure of neutron stars in a model with perturbative $f(R)$ gravity. The effect of an interior strong magnetic field of about $10^{17 \sim 18}$ G on the equation of state is derived in the context of a quantum hadrodynamics (QHD) model. We solve the modified spherically symmetric hydrostatic equilibrium equations derived for a gravity model with $f(R)=R+\alpha R^2$. Effects of both the finite magnetic field and the modified gravity are detailed for various values of the magnetic field and the perturbation parameter $\alpha$ along with a discussion of their physical implications. We show that there exists a parameter space of the modified gravity and the magnetic field strength, in which even a soft equation of state can accommodate a large ($> 2$ M$_\odot$) maximum neutron star mass through the modified mass-radius relation

Instability and Periodic Deformation in Bilayer Membranes Induced by Freezing

The instability and periodic deformation of bilayer membranes during freezing processes are studied as a function of the difference of the shape energy between the high and the low temperature membrane states. It is shown that there exists a threshold stability condition, bellow which a planar configuration will be deformed. Among the deformed shapes, the periodic curved square textures are shown being one kind of the solutions of the associated shape equation. In consistency with recent expe rimental observations, the optimal ratio of period and amplitude for such a texture is found to be approximately equal to (2)^{1/2}\pi.Comment: 8 pages in Latex form, 1 Postscript figure. To be appear in Mod. Phys. Lett. B. 199

The Perceived Country Of Origin Images In Turkey

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of country-of-origin image in quality perceptions of Turkish consumers. Since the research already supports the fact that country-of-origin image reflects a consumer’s general perception about the quality of products made in a particular country and the nature of people from that country, the authors aimed to search how consistent the Turkish consumers are in perceiving some products/product groups and the countries those products are associated with. The objective is to assess the matching of perceptions of some country images and the products. Both the product-country and the country-product match information can be used to assess consumers’ purchase intentions by both marketing practitioners and the state authorities in managing country images. This study examined country-of-origin in terms of the fit between countries and product categories as perceived by a sample of 500 students/professionals in both major universities and numerous business institutions in Turkey. The findings indicated that the respondents were not consistent in associating the names of the products and the names of the countries with each other