Biodiversity Recording at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

The results of recording wildlife at the Edinburgh site of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) are presented in partial fulfilment of the Garden’s obligation to deliver the Scottish Biodiversity Duty. So far, 383 animal species (94 birds, 6 mammals, 3 amphibians, 15 butterflies, 79 moths, 48 hymenopterans, 52 hoverflies, 7 dragonflies and damselflies, 48 other insects, 5 spiders, 8 gall-forming mites, 12 rotifers, 5 cladocerans and 1 copepod) have been recorded. Tables giving lists of the various animal groups are presented. Half of the 103 vertebrates are listed in national Red Lists, the Scottish Biodiversity List or the Edinburgh Local Biodiversity Action PlanList of Notable Species

The Marketing of Services--Implications for Leisure

Leisure is a service industry and traditional marketing approaches do not work well. New models are needed to improve the effectiveness of the leisure service industry

A Comprehensive Model Of Customer Satisfaction In Hospitality And Tourism: Strategic Implications For Management

Providing and maintaining customer satisfaction is one of the most important challenges facing business today.  Although this is a relatively new concept, research into this area has grown since the early 1980s. One ongoing debate in consumer satisfaction circles is the extent to which it is a cognitive process or an emotional state. The two theories that best explain customer satisfaction are disconfirmation paradigm and expectancy-value concept. Disconfirmation theory postulates that customers compare a new service experience with a standard they have developed.  Their belief about the service is determined by how well it measures up to this standard.  According to expectancy-value theory customers often make some judgment about a product, its benefits, and the likely outcomes of using the product.  People will learn to perform behavior that they expect will lead to positive outcomes.  There remains a need to provide a direct link between satisfaction and purchase.  Some models indicate a link between satisfaction and repeat purchase intention but not yet to actual purchase.  The most widely used model to translate theories of customer satisfaction into management practice is that of SERVQUAL.  In this model service quality is defined as the difference between customer expectations and customer perception of service received.  It is proposed that, at this time, the SERVQUAL model presents the best mechanism to explain customer satisfaction in hospitality and tourism.  A detailed examination of the model is provided together with suggested areas for further research to improve its applicability to hospitality and tourism

Meeting The Needs Of Business: Are We Teaching The Right Things?

It may be that business schools are not providing undergraduate business students with the competencies considered most important by company recruiters.  Research from Bentley College and the University of Guelph indicates that graduates and managers find that non-technical skills such as creativity, oral and written communication, decision-making and leadership are least adequately developed in undergraduate business students.  A study out of Wake Forest University indicates that recruiters consider the most important competencies for undergraduate business students to have are: Communication and interpersonal skills, Leadership skills and potential, Ability to work effectively within teams, Adaptability, including dealing with ambiguity, People and task management skills, Self-management skills.  ‘Specific functional expertise’ is listed as only of ‘medium’ importance.  Yet the overwhelming majority of undergraduate business courses cover the functional areas of accounting, finance, marketing, management, economics and information technology.  A variety of delivery approaches from various undergraduate business programs are examined to determine the best way to cover these important topics

An Academic Program for Resort Managers

Academic departments of park and recreation resources have recently moved to establish majors in commercial recreation in response to fewer job opportunities in the public sector combined with a lessening of demand from students for the traditional natural resource management career. It is proposed that a marketable career option for commercial recreation graduates 1s resort management. Resorts combine three elements-management of the natural resource base; management of guest activities; management of services. Because of the expertise in the first two areas found in departments of park and recreation resources a joint program with a hotel school, which provides education in the management of food and lodging, would ensure a graduate with the skills and education necessary to meet the challenge of resort management

Krummel's Oceanography

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Question format shifts bias away from the emphasised response in tests of recognition memory

The question asked to interrogate memory has potential to influence response bias at retrieval, yet has not been systematically investigated. According to framing effects in the field of eyewitness testimony, retrieval cueing effects in cognitive psychology and the acquiescence bias in questionnaire responding, the question should establish a confirmatory bias. Conversely, according to findings from the rewarded decision-making literature involving mixed incentives, the question should establish a disconfirmatory bias. Across three experiments (ns = 90 [online], 29 [laboratory] and 29 [laboratory]) we demonstrate a disconfirmatory bias - "old?" decreased old responding. This bias is underpinned by a goal-driven mechanism wherein participants seek to maximise emphasised response accuracy at the expense of frequency. Moreover, we demonstrate that disconfirmatory biases can be generated without explicit reference to the goal state. We conclude that subtle aspects of the test environment influence retrieval to a greater extent than has been previously considered.PostprintPeer reviewe