Short history of the theories regarding services quality

We could all observe how much has the importance of quality increased in every buyer’s life in the case of a product as well as in the case of a service. The term quality comes from the Latin “qualis”, which means “of the kind that” and it has been used as far back as the antiquity by the philosophers of the period, Cicero and Aristotle (Stanciu, 2005). The first standard related to quality control appeared in 1935 and it was called “Applying the statistical methods to the industrial standardization and to the industrial quality control”. After the Second World War, quality was approached more and more as a managerial function and in 1960 Japan chose the month of November to be the national month of quality, which, in a little while after that, transformed into the month of quality in the world. 1986 is the year in which the first international standard ISO 8402 appeared, standard concerning the terminology in the field of quality. Another important year is 1988 because in the United States of America, the “Malcom Baldrige” National Award for Quality was awarded to Motorola for the first time, due to the performances obtained in the field of quality. Nowadays, when the buyers’ and society’s exigencies are increasingly greater and the competition is much more ruthless, the following can be easily observed: quality has become “the strategic instrument of any company’s global management” because it is what can maintain its loyal customers and, at the same time, attract new buyers for the products or services offered by any company.quality, services, standard, strategy

Tourism, Architecture and Sustainable Development

The problems of environmental damage, economic unsustainability and social dislocation caused by rapid and extensive places for recreation growth might suggest that the key to greater sustainability lies in setting limits to urbanization and changing the rules in architecture and planning for tourism.Architecture; Sustainable development; Tourism.

Tourism and e-commerce

Consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. It can involve electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), automated inventory management systems and automated data collection systems. It typically uses electronic communication technology such as the Internet, extranet, e-mail, e-books, database, and mobil phones. All these are usually used in tourism activity. E-commerce was initially used for advertising the products and services offered by the tour- operators. At present this way of commerce is more and more used by the potential tourists. Romanian tourism agencies and tour-operators have begun to line at the global trends and they are building the sites, not only for information, but also for selling touristic products and services. For example, in September 2006, from 695 ANAT’s (National Association for Tourism Agencies) members, 657 (94.53%) have an e-mail and 435 (62.59%) have sites.E-commerce; Tourism; Reservations; Site.

Modelling a Trusted Mechanism for Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge sharing has been identified as a major focus area for knowledge management. Efforts are made with a view to identify the most effective ways to share knowledge, as a step towards improving organizational performance. In this striving, various factors have been identified as impediments for knowledge sharing, including inadequate organizational structures, sharing unfriendly organizational cultures, and denominational segregation. Related problems may occur when information systems, such as intranets, distributed libraries, document management systems, or groupware applications, are introduced to support knowledge sharing. The extensive use of the IT&C has only added new questions on how to address issues of trust within the present knowledge -rich environment. This paper proposes a new way of approaching knowledge sharing in the context of information and communication technology development. The study provides an overview of the manner and extent in which information assurance concepts of integrity, authenticity, availability, non-repudiation and access-control may be employed to ensure a trusted and effective knowledge sharing process.knowledge sharing; sharing policy; access control; trusted knowledge sharing; barriers in knowledge sharing.

The Challenge of Ensuring Business Security in Information Age

Every day, thousands of businesses rely on the services and information ensured by information and communication networks. As the dependence on information systems grows, so the security of information networks becomes ever more critical to any entity, no matter if it is a company or a public institution. The asymmetrical threat posed by cyber attacks and the inherent vulnerabilities of cyberspace constitute a serious security risk confronting all nations. For this reason, the cyber threats need to be addressed at the global level. Given the gravity of the threat and of the interests at stake, it is imperative that the comprehensive use of information technology solutions be supported by a high level of security measures and be embedded also in a broad and sophisticated cyber security culture. This paper provides arguments regarding the need to implement coherent information security policies at national level, based on cooperation between public and private sectors and in coordination with international initiatives in the field. Since information security is vital for developing and running an efficient business, this study may constitute a strategic approach to improve the information security posture of Romanian organizations.information security; information security risk management; security threats; confidentiality; integrity; availability.

Demand for Vacations /Travel in Protected Areas – Dimension of Tourists’ Ecological Behavior

Tourism, in itself, is one of the main users of the environment and, implicitly, an important contributor to its deterioration. Intensification of tourist travel will naturally generate an increase of the negative environmental impacts and, in the long term, a decline in tourism development opportunities. In this context, more and more emphasis is placed on finding and promoting low environmental impact forms of travel, including eco-tourism, rural tourism, tourism in protected areas, cultural tourism, adventure tourism, etc., at the same time on encouraging, inciting potential tourists to consume these categories of products (holidays). Globally conducted studies have revealed a good understanding of and an increasing receptivity to sustainable forms of travel among tourists. Nevertheless, the place they hold in the structure of tourist circulation is still modest, mainly due to the insufficient supply, in its turn determined by ignorance of the demand and by the additional requirements the consumer of such holidays has to meet, especially in regard to behavior. In line with these developments and trends, this study aimed to identify the behavior of tourists in protected areas and its determinants, to encourage a responsible attitude towards the environment and its quality. For this purpose, desk and field researches were made to allow the characterization of holiday request in protected areas and to formulate proposals regarding tourists’ education.tourist demand, protected areas, ecological behavior, ecotourism, sustainable tourism development, eco(logical) tourism products

Commercialization of Holidays in the Protected Natural Areas - Form of the Sustainable Development in Tourism

Sustainable development of tourism in the protected areas should be regarded as a continuous improvement process in the management quality of the protected natural areas that are included in the tourist circuit as well as of the ecological tourism products, merchandised by the travel agencies. In Romania, the best-represented types of protected natural areas are the biosphere reservations, our country having three of these areas, followed by 13 national parks and 14 natural parks. The total surface of the protected areas in Romania is of approximately 1.9 million hectares, which represents almost 8% from the total surface of the country. Regarding the structure, we notice the typological diversity and the alignment to the international standards and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) category system. The fieldwork done at the 2009 (March 19th – 22nd) Romanian Tourism Fair has shown the fact that, even if they recognize the benefits of the vacations in protected areas, the travel agencies’ preoccupations of creating specialized packages have been reduced, displaying a poor offer, or a special offer created at the tourists’ request. The research was realized within the project called “Dynamics of the implementation of community policies in the valuing of the Romanian protected areas through tourism and designing architecture of integrated management for them”. Consequently, considering, on the one hand, the advantages of the vacations in protected areas and, on the other hand, the tourists’ increasing interest towards this type of vacation is necessary in the future, a more intense involvement of the travel agencies, but also of the protected natural areas administrations in their promotion, fructification and sustainable development.natural protected areas, management, sustainable development, commercialization of tourist products, tourism agencies

Contemporary Approaches and Challenges of Tourism Sustainability

Tourism has one of the biggest contributions to sustainable development due to the dynamism and growth of this sector with direct implications on economic growth in tourist regions and destinations, as well as to the fact that tourism is based on a direct link between tourists, the industry, the environment and the local communities. The sustainable development of tourism, like in the case of other industries, has three independent aspects: economic, social-cultural and environmental. This means that sustainable tourism requires the optimal use of resources, minimizing the negative economic, socio-cultural and environmental impact, maximizing benefits for local communities, national economies and nature conservation. As a result, by developing its many forms of concrete manifestation, sustainable tourism ensures the natural and economic integrity of the environment and the rational use of natural and cultural resources, but maintains the potential for future generations