Customer Engagement in Tourism and Hospitality Services in Kasama and Shiwa Ng’andu, Zambia.

A large and growing body of literature has investigated on tourism development and potentials in Zambia. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the level of customer engagement in hospitality and tourism services in general, in Zambia. This article provides a Zambian case study that focuses on customer engagement in Tourism and Hospitality services in Kasama and Shiwa Ng’andu districts in the Northern Tourism Circuit of Zambia. The objectives of the study were to ascertain means used to engage customers, to find out opportunities and challenges hospitality and tourism organizations encounter when fostering customer engagement, to examine existing and potential consumers’ motivations and barriers to engage customers on various platforms. The study used a case study research design with a qualitative research approach. Both Snowball and Convenient sampling techniques were used to select 46 participants in the study. An interview guide was used to collect data from ethically acquired respondents. The findings indicate that lodge proprietors in the hospitality industry, private tourist site proprietor’s engage customers on various platforms while government owned tourist sites customers were not actively engaged on any platform. Furthermore, results showed that engagement of customers enabled hospitality and tourism proprietors to improve service delivery. The results of study further showed that disruptions in service provision pose a challenge to engage customers. Furthermore, the study has reviewed that quality of standard and special services offered at no cost to overnight customers at various hospitality and tourist sites motivates customers to be engaged at various platforms while communication breakdown between service providers and customers due to overlapping dates where customers want a service at the same time creates a barrier between service providers and customers to engage on various platforms. It became clear that minimal engagement of customers in hospitality and tourism services has affected the growth of hospitality and tourism industry in Kasama and Shiwa Ng’andu districts in the Northern tourism circuit. These findings have important implications for the management of customer towards brand loyalty and trust in the northern tourism circuit

Iron availability increases the pathogenic potential of Salmonella typhimurium and other enteric pathogens at the intestinal epithelial interface.

Contains fulltext : 108438.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Recent trials have questioned the safety of untargeted oral iron supplementation in developing regions. Excess of luminal iron could select for enteric pathogens at the expense of beneficial commensals in the human gut microflora, thereby increasing the incidence of infectious diseases. The objective of the current study was to determine the effect of high iron availability on virulence traits of prevalent enteric pathogens at the host-microbe interface. A panel of enteric bacteria was cultured under iron-limiting conditions and in the presence of increasing concentrations of ferric citrate to assess the effect on bacterial growth, epithelial adhesion, invasion, translocation and epithelial damage in vitro. Translocation and epithelial integrity experiments were performed using a transwell system in which Caco-2 cells were allowed to differentiate to a tight epithelial monolayer mimicking the intestinal epithelial barrier. Growth of Salmonella typhimurium and other enteric pathogens was increased in response to iron. Adhesion of S. typhimurium to epithelial cells markedly increased when these bacteria were pre-incubated with increasing iron concentration (P = 0.0001), whereas this was not the case for the non-pathogenic Lactobacillus plantarum (P = 0.42). Cellular invasion and epithelial translocation of S. typhimurium followed the trend of increased adhesion. Epithelial damage was increased upon incubation with S. typhimurium or Citrobacter freundii that were pre-incubated under iron-rich conditions. In conclusion, our data fit with the consensus that oral iron supplementation is not without risk as iron could, in addition to inducing pathogenic overgrowth, also increase the virulence of prevalent enteric pathogens

Detection of Cryptosporidium sp. in non diarrheal faeces from children, in a day care center in the city of São Paulo, Brazil Detecção de Cryptosporidium sp. em fezes não diarréicas de crianças, em uma escola de educação infantil de São Paulo, Brasil

The protozoan Cryptosporidium sp. has been frequently detected in faeces from children with persistent diarrhoea. This work achieved to investigate an outbreak of cryptosporidiosis, in a day care center, attending children of high socio-economic level, between 0 and six years old. The outbreak was detected through the network of public health, when stool samples, not diarrhoeic, were examined at the Parasitology Service of the Adolfo Lutz Institute. Among the 64 examined children, 13 (20.3%) showed oocysts of Cryptosporidium sp. in the faeces examined by Kinyoun technique: seven children one year old, three, two years old and three, three years old. Among the 23 examined adults, only a 22 years old woman, possibly having an immunocomprometiment, was positive. Clinical and epidemiological aspects were investigated by questionnaires, highlighting the occurrence of the outbreak in a very dry period.<br>O protozoário Cryptosporidium sp. tem sido detectado com freqüência em fezes de crianças com diarréia persistente. Este trabalho teve como objetivo investigar um surto de criptosporidiose, em uma escola de educação infantil, que atende crianças de classe média alta, de 0 a seis anos de idade. O surto foi detectado a partir de amostras fecais não diarréicas encaminhadas ao Instituto Adolfo Lutz através da rede de saúde pública. Das 64 crianças 13 (20,3%) apresentaram oocistos de Cryptosporidium nas fezes, examinadas pelo método de Kinyoun, sendo sete crianças com um ano de idade, três com dois anos de idade e três, com três anos de idade. Dos 23 adultos examinados, apenas uma mulher de 22 anos, com possível imunocomprometimento, foi positiva. Aspectos epidemiológicos e clínicos foram investigados por meio de questionários, ressaltando-se que o surto ocorreu em período muito seco