Success factors in the development of farm vacation tourism

Farm vacation tourism allows many families to fully use their domestic resources; furthermore it generates social benefits for the surrounding community. We have conducted a study to examine the success factors of this type of tourism. The results clearly demonstrate that one of the key components relies on the entrepreneurial skills of the farmer

Success Factors in the Development of Farm Vacation Tourism

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Tradizione e tecnologia online a confronto. Il passaparola elettronico: perchè l'imprenditore agrituristico dovrebbe tenerne conto

Il passaparola elettronico può aiutare gli operatori agrituristici a relazionarsi in maniera più efficace con il consumatore. Il presente lavoro analizza, attraverso un esperimento, il grado di fiducia che hanno gli utenti nei riguardi delle recensioni digitali e offre degli spunti di riflessione per la commercializzazione dell’agriturismo in Internet

Luxusmarketing bei Lebensmitteln: Eine empirische Studie zu Dimensionen des Luxuskonsums in Deutschland

Heutzutage zeigt sich das Ernährungsverhalten der deutschen Konsumenten immer differenzierter und ist mit einem wachsenden Involvement beim Kauf von Lebensmitteln verbunden. In diesem Zusammenhang steigt die Nachfrage nach Qualitätslebensmitteln und Premium-Marken. Für das Marketing im Bereich hochpreisiger Lebensmittel ergibt sich die Frage nach den kaufmotivierenden Produkteigenschaften und der Abgrenzung zum Konsumentenverhalten auf dem allgemeinen Lebensmittelmarkt. Die Konzeptionierung zielgruppenspezifischer Marketingmaßnahmen erfordert die Kenntnis der Einstellungen und Einflussfaktoren von Konsumenten der sogenannten Luxus-Lebensmittel. Bislang sind unseres Wissens hierzu jedoch kaum empirische Studien vorhanden. Basierend auf einer explorativen Faktorenanalyse untersucht die vorliegende Studie, welche Produktdimensionen Konsumenten beim Kauf von hochpreisigen Lebensmitteln leiten und in welchem Zusammenhang diese mit dem allgemeinen Lebensmittelmarkt stehen. Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Kaufentscheidungen im Hochpreissegment wesentlich von den Attributen Qualität, Nachhaltigkeit und Genusswert beeinflusst werden.Nowadays, the nutritional behavior of German consumers appears to become more differentiated and is moreover related to a high involvement during the purchase of food. As a result, the demand for high quality food products has increased. The question arises which consumption motives are significant in the market for high-price food products and how these differ in comparison to the conventional food market. For the conception of target-group specific marketing strategies, new empirical consumer studies on the market for this so-called luxury food are needed. The developments on the German food market have a high topicality, but there is a lack of those investigations. Based on an explorative factor analysis, this study investigates which product dimensions decisively influence purchase intentions for high-price food products in Germany. Moreover, it highlights the links to the conventional German food market. Results of the analysis show that different dimensions emerge. Especially quality, sustainability and indulgence can be revealed as significant consumption motives on the market for high-price foods

The Impact of Online Reviews on the Choice of Holiday Accommodations

The Impact of Online Reviews on the Choice of HolidayAccommodationsKatia Laura Sidali,Holger Schulze, andAchim SpillerUniversity of G\uf6ttingen{Katia-Laura.Sidali, H.Schulze, A.Spiller}@agr.uni-goettingen.deAbstractIn order to reduce information asymmetries in the tourist industry, consumers refer to multipleinformation sources. Among these, e-reviews are supposed to better reflect quality ofinformation because they are based on consumers\u2019 past experiences. The first purpose of thisstudy is therefore to test within an experimental design whether e-reviews have a predominantor a complementary role on consumer behaviour in comparison with other sources ofinformation (hotel rating system, travel guides and recommendations of travel agents). Asexpected, e-reviews are the most referential information source. We further use a causal modelin order to detect the determinants of trust in e-reviews, and we can show that perceivedexpertness of e-reviews, credibility of the e-platform and brand familiarity explain more than60% of trust in e-reviews. The final part of the analysis is dedicated to our third researchpurpose which is the measurement of the impact of trust in e-reviews on choice ofaccommodations. A significant and positive influence can be demonstrated. Hence, scientificand managerial implications are discussed

A hybrid particle–ensemble Kalman filter for Lagrangian data assimilation

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Monthly Weather Review 143 (2015): 195–211, doi:10.1175/MWR-D-14-00051.1.Lagrangian measurements from passive ocean instruments provide a useful source of data for estimating and forecasting the ocean’s state (velocity field, salinity field, etc.). However, trajectories from these instruments are often highly nonlinear, leading to difficulties with widely used data assimilation algorithms such as the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF). Additionally, the velocity field is often modeled as a high-dimensional variable, which precludes the use of more accurate methods such as the particle filter (PF). Here, a hybrid particle–ensemble Kalman filter is developed that applies the EnKF update to the potentially high-dimensional velocity variables, and the PF update to the relatively low-dimensional, highly nonlinear drifter position variable. This algorithm is tested with twin experiments on the linear shallow water equations. In experiments with infrequent observations, the hybrid filter consistently outperformed the EnKF, both by better capturing the Bayesian posterior and by better tracking the truth.The work of Apte benefited from the support of the AIRBUS Group Corporate Foundation Chair in Mathematics of Complex Systems established in ICTS-TIFR. Spiller would like to acknowledge support by NSF Grant DMS-1228265 and ONR Grant N00014-11-1-0087. Sandstede gratefully acknowledges support by the NSF through Grant DMS-0907904. Slivinski was supported by the NSF through Grants DMS-0907904 and DMS-1148284.2015-07-0

Betriebswirtschaftliche und marktbezogene Analyse von Hoffesten als Instrument der Regionalvermarktung

Vor allem im ökologischen Landbau werden Hoffeste, also Veranstaltungen auf bäuerlichen Bio-Betrieben, sehr oft eingesetzt. Wegen des Fehlens offizieller Zahlen ist jedoch schwer einzuschätzen, welchen Beitrag diese Feste zu einer erfolgreichen Regionalvermarktung leisten. Hieran setzt die vorliegende Studie an, die sich folgendermaßen gliedert. Im ersten Teil wird eine betriebswirtschaftliche Analyse von 19 Hoffest-Veranstaltern durchgeführt, die eine sehr breite Streuung der Kennzahlen aufweist. Im Allgemeinen wird den Betriebsleitern empfohlen, sich Transparenz über Aufwand und Ertrag ihrer Veranstaltung zu verschaffen und die betriebswirtschaftlichen Ergebnisse im Hinblick auf die für das Fest formulierten Marketingziele zu bewerten. Der zweite Teil der Studie beschäftigt sich mit der Wahrnehmung der Hoffeste durch die Besucher. Hierfür wurden diese zunächst auf dem Hoffest selbst (n=788) und nochmals nach sechs Monaten (n=73) befragt. Die Gäste auf Hoffesten zeichnen sich durch eine sehr positive Wahrnehmung der Hoffeste aus. Während bei den Stammgästen das Biokauf-Verhalten durch Hoffeste bestätigt wird, bleibt die Langzeitwirkung auf Neukunden unklar. Die Studie zeigt Maßnahmen auf, durch die das Leistungsspektrum von Hoffesten erfolgreich zur Geltung kommt. Insgesamt zeigen die Ergebnisse eine hohe Individualität von Hoffesten auf ökologisch wirtschaftenden Betrieben auf. Aufgrund der Besucherwahrnehmung lässt sich sagen, dass die Hoffeste ein wirksames Kommunikationsinstrument mit hohem Glaubwürdigkeitsfaktor und Erlebnischarakter für die Direktvermarkter sind

A Qualitative Analysis of Sensory Experiences and Expectations in the European Organic Market: Findings from Italian and German Consumers

The organic food market grew steadily during the past decade (Hamm and Gronefeld 2004, Spiller 2006). This increase is accompanied by challenges in market structures, distribution channels as well as differentiation of expectations and buying motives of organic food consumers. On this regard, the “hedonistic” motives for purchasing of organic food, that also include sensory features like taste or appearance, gained importance in comparison to other motivations. Therefore, some scientists pointed out that sensory attributes are important elements that should be taken into account in the marketing strategies by organic food distributors (Brennan and Kuri 2002, Padel and Midmore 2005) than even before. The objective of this paper is to explore sensory experiences, expectations and perceptions of Italian and German organic consumers underlining differences between the two countries when purchasing and eating organic food. Ten focus group interviews composed by 6-10 consumers were performed during 2009 in different locations in Italy and Germany. The focus groups content was transcribed and then analyzed using qualitative content analysis.Results indicated that, although sensory attributes are not the main purchase driver, taste and, especially for Italy, odour are the most important sensory features taken into account by organic consumers especially for the first purchase. However, it seems that the ability to differentiate between various categories of sensory perception is characterized by a low level of development which may limit the set of possibilities when trying to reach consumers by affecting their senses. Furthermore, consumers were able to mention several aspects such as intensity, naturalness and authenticity that they consider to be important when it comes to the sensory properties of organic products. Other findings suggests that sensory perception is a learnable ability which offers an opportunity for the actors of the organic food market to bring their customers closer to their products by a corresponding training of consumers’ sensory abilities.Regarding the concept of standardisation consumers pointed out that sensory properties should not be standardized, especially for heavy users. In both countries, one part of the organic consumers seem to appreciate sensory marketing activities whereas another part apparently does not. For Italian consumers who appreciate sensory marketing, non-subjective as well as subjective marketing information is considered to be suitable, whereas in Germany non-subjective aspects seem to be predominant. Further research may be useful in order to detect the right marketing tools that are able to support a sensory-based strategy of product presentation and positioning

Colonic Gene Expression and Fecal Microbiota in Diarrhea-predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome : Increased Toll-like Receptor 4 but Minimal Inflammation and no Response to Mesalazine

Background/Aims Diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D) has been previously associated with evidence of immune activation and altered microbiota. Our aim is to assess the effect of the anti-inflammatory agent, mesalazine, on inflammatory gene expression and microbiota composition in IBS-D. Methods We studied a subset of patients (n = 43) from a previously published 12-week radomized placebo-controlled trial of mesalazine. Mucosal biopsies were assessed by immunohistochemistry and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction for a range of markers of inflammation, altered permeability, and sensory receptors including Toll-like receptors (TLRs) at randomization after treatment. All biopsy data were compared to 21 healthy controls. Patient's stool microbiota composition was analysed through 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing. Results We found no evidence of increased immune activation compared to healthy controls. However, we did find increased expression of receptors in both sensory pathways and innate immune response including TLR4. Higher TLR4 expression was associated with greater urgency. TLR4 expression correlated strongly with the expression of the receptors bradykinin receptor B2, chemerin chemokine-like receptor 1, and transient receptor potential cation channel, subfamily A, member 1 as well as TLR4's downstream adaptor myeloid differentiation factor 88. Mesalazine had minimal effect on either gene expression or microbiota composition. Conclusions Biopsies from a well-characterized IBS-D cohort showed no substantial inflammation. Mesalazine has little effect on gene expression and its previous reported effect on fecal microbiota associated with much greater inflammation found in inflammatory bowel diseases is likely secondary to reduced inflammation. Increased expression of TLR4 and correlated receptors in IBS may mediate a general increase in sensitivity to external stimuli, particularly those that signal via the TLR system.Peer reviewe