Evaluating and understanding the tourist experience: an empirical study in Jammu and Kashmir

The aim of the present study is to identify and understand the tourist experience construct, and how it differs by their age, sex, income level, education and to suggest and recommend the strategies to develop the Jammu and Kashmir as a tourist destination and enhance its brand image. The study was carried out by collecting relevant information from secondary data sources, which included books, journals and reports published by government of India, Government of Jammu and Kashmir. A self structured Questionnaire was designed and distributed among the domestic and international tourists who visited Jammu & Kashmir. The sample size was 291 and the study was conducted in the whole state of Jammu and Kashmir. Data analysis was done by applying factor analysis, and descriptive statistics. There were five factors those constituted the tourist experience like ''Transportation and Service by the different Carriers', 'Services at the Destination', 'Hotels and restaurants', 'Infrastructure at the destination' and Safety Security and Crowd Management' and out of these the first two leaves the implications for further improving and developing the destinations in Jammu and Kashmir. The outcomes of the study as whole have significant managerial implications for destination marketing managers.La intención del presente estudio es identificar y entender la construcción de la experiencia turística, y como difiere de acuerdo a la edad, el sexo, el nivel de ingresos, la educación y para sugerir y recomendar las estrategias para el desarrollo de Jammu y Kashmir como destinos turísticos y realzar la imagen de su marca. El estudio fue llevado a cabo mediante la recolección de información relevante de fuentes de datos secundarias, lo que incluye libros, revistas, y reportes publicados por el gobierno de la India, y el gobierno de Jammu y Kashmir. Un cuestionario auto estructurado fue diseñado y distribuido entre los turistas domésticos e internacionales que visitaron Jammu y Kashmir. La magnitud de la muestra fue de 291 y el estudio fue llevado a cabo en todo el estado de Jammu y Kashmir. El análisis de los datos fue realizado mediante la aplicación del análisis de factores y las estadísticas descriptivas. Había cinco factores que constituían la experiencia del turista como ‘’Transporte y servicio por los diferentes medios de transporte’’, ‘’Servicios en el destino’’, ‘’Hoteles y restaurantes’’, ‘’Infraestructura y destino’’ y ‘’Seguridad y poblada administración’’ y de esas, las dos primeras dejaban implicaciones para seguir mejorando y desarrollando los destinos en Jammu y Kashmir. Los resultados del estudio en su conjunto poseen implicaciones directivas significantes para gestores de marketing de destino

Pilgrim Experience and Revisit Intention Post COVID-19: An Exploratory Study of Amarnath Holy Shrine in Jammu and Kashmir, India

The present preliminary study seeks to explore the pilgrim tourist experience and their revisit intentions post-COVID pandemic. Data were collected at the Amarnath Holy Shrine in Jammu and Kashmir, India, using a combination of primary and secondary sources, including seven in-depth semi-structured telephone interviews with pilgrims using the snowball sampling technique. Five main themes were found regarding revisiting intentions, including ease of registration, safety and security, health facilities, accommodation facilities, food and beverage services, and connectivity of the destinations. The study highlights that despite COVID-19, most respondents agree to return to visit the holy Amarnath Cave as they felt that they would not be affected by COVID-19 in the future. This research has implications for tourists’ safety and security concerns at religious sites, including highlighting the need for proper infrastructure development to enhance the sustainability of religious destinations. Regarding social impacts, the local administration must make efforts to carry out the pilgrimage in a sustainable way post-COVID-19, following new procedures to ensure the safety and health of the tourist and the local community. The Shrine board and Local administration must formally implement these standards via formal Standards of Procedure (SOP)

Influence of Service Quality on Brand Image and Repeat Patronage in Hospitality Industry: A Content Analysis.

The present study explores the relationship between service quality constructs, brand image and guest repeat patronage in the hospitality industry. The current research was qualitative in nature, and therefore the method of content analysis was adopted to review the related literature and simultaneously to analyze the influence of service quality, and also the brand image on repeat patronage in the hospitality industry. It suggested that there was sufficient literature supporting the relationship between service quality dimensions of hotels, guest satisfaction, brand image and repeat patronage. The service quality dimensions and satisfaction are directly related to each other as it has been seen that good quality enhances guest satisfaction at the same time. The advent of innovation in service quality of hotels makes them more able to satisfy the guests. The literature depicts that more satisfaction/delight among guests increases their loyalty towards the particular hotel. Guests when feeling satisfied with the hotel, remain loyal patrons, and this affects their purchasing behavior. Moreover, it has been articulated that guest loyalty and service quality are significantly related to the brand image of a hotel. The loyalty among the guests increases their perception towards the hotel brand image. The guests’ satisfaction must be the primary objective of the hotels' service encounters. The hotels have to create a better image in the minds of the guests by increasing their comfort levels to increase repeat patronage. This will help the hotels to flourish by increasing their profitability and overall positive impacts on the economy as well. The study recommends that future research should empirically test the relationship between the constructs of service quality and repeat patronage

Crisis-led transformation or no transformation at all? A multifaceted inquiry towards destination recovery

Though there has been an upward rise in the number of publications on COVID-19, tourism and hospitality, researchers have turned a blind eye towards conducting a multifaceted stakeholder assessment of its impact on a given destination and the possible effects of recent developments on the destination’s recovery. To address the latent gap, this study first attempts to assess the impact of COVID-19 on various aspects of a destination’s businesses, workforce and the local community. Taking into consideration the recent pharmaceutical developments and ease in travel restrictions, it then explores the effects of such an intervention on the destinations’ recovery process. 142 valid questionnaires were collected from employees of travel agents, tour operators, transport operators and hotels in the northern part of India. Subsequently, PLS-SEM (partial least squares structural equation modeling) was applied using SmartPLS to test the proposed hypotheses. Through two individual studies in September 2020 and November 2021 i.e. at different stages of the pandemic, this study not only offers insights into the current status of destination recovery but also tests the validity and applicability of recent publications, their proposed recommendations and future practices. Recovery at a destination was found to be a result of the recovery of its businesses, workforce and community. These factors also had positive and negative impacts on each other. The article further suggests the low transformational ability of the pandemic in the context of tourism and hospitality. It is amongst the first few studies to have carried out a temporal assessment of stakeholders for an investigation into the pandemic’s impact on destinations in addition to their recovery

Irreversible depletion of intestinal CD4+ T cells is associated with T cell activation during chronic HIV infection

HIV infection in the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract is thought to be central to HIV progression, but knowledge of this interaction is primarily limited to cohorts within Westernized countries. Here, we present a large cohort recruited from high HIV endemic areas in South Africa and found that people living with HIV (PLWH) presented at a younger age for investigation in the GI clinic. We identified severe CD4(+) T cell depletion in the GI tract, which was greater in the small intestine than in the large intestine and not correlated with years on antiretroviral treatment (ART) or plasma viremia. HIV-p24 staining showed persistent viral expression, particularly in the colon, despite full suppression of plasma viremia. Quantification of mucosal antiretroviral (ARV) drugs revealed no differences in drug penetration between the duodenum and colon. Plasma markers of gut barrier breakdown and immune activation were elevated irrespective of HIV, but peripheral T cell activation was inversely correlated with loss of gut CD4(+) T cells in PLWH alone. T cell activation is a strong predictor of HIV progression and independent of plasma viral load, implying that the irreversible loss of GI CD4(+) T cells is a key event in the HIV pathogenesis of PLWH in South Africa, yet the underlying mechanisms remain unknown

Contrasting Inflammatory Signatures in Peripheral Blood and Bronchoalveolar Cells Reveal Compartment-Specific Effects of HIV Infection

The mechanisms by which HIV increases susceptibility to tuberculosis and other respiratory infections are incompletely understood. We used transcriptomics of paired whole bronchoalveolar lavage cells (BLCs) and peripheral blood mononuclear cells to compare the effect of HIV at the lung mucosal surface and in peripheral blood. The majority of HIV-induced differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were specific to either the peripheral or lung mucosa compartments (1,307/1,404, 93%). Type I interferon signaling was the dominant signature of DEGs in HIV-positive blood but not in HIV-positive BLCs. DEGs in the HIV-positive BLCs were significantly enriched for infiltration with cytotoxic CD8+ T cells. Higher expression of type 1 interferon transcripts in peripheral CD8+ T cells and representative transcripts and proteins in BLCs-derived CD8+ T cells during HIV infection, including IFNG (IFN-gamma), GZMB (Granzyme B), and PDCD1 (PD-1), was confirmed by cell-subset specific transcriptional analysis and flow cytometry. Thus, we report that a whole transcriptomic approach revealed qualitatively distinct effects of HIV in blood and bronchoalveolar compartments. Further work exploring the impact of distinct type I interferon programs and functional features of CD8+ T cells infiltrating the lung mucosa during HIV infection may provide novel insights into HIV-induced susceptibility to respiratory pathogens

HIV infection drives interferon signaling within intestinal SARS-CoV-2 target cells

SARS-CoV-2 infects epithelial cells of the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract and causes related symptoms. HIV infection impairs gut homeostasis and is associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 fatality. To investigate the potential link between these observations, we analyzed singlecell transcriptional profiles and SARS-CoV-2 entry receptor expression across lymphoid and mucosal human tissue from chronically HIV-infected individuals and uninfected controls. Absorptive gut enterocytes displayed the highest coexpression of SARS-CoV-2 receptors ACE2, TMPRSS2, and TMPRSS4, of which ACE2 expression was associated with canonical interferon response and antiviral genes. Chronic treated HIV infection was associated with a clear antiviral response in gut enterocytes and, unexpectedly, with a substantial reduction of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 target cells. Gut tissue from SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals, however, showed abundant SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein in both the large and small intestine, including an HIV-coinfected individual. Thus, upregulation of antiviral response genes and downregulation of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 in the GI tract of HIV-infected individuals does not prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection in this compartment. The impact of these HIVassociated intestinal mucosal changes on SARS-CoV-2 infection dynamics, disease severity, and vaccine responses remains unclear and requires further investigation

HIV specific CD8+ TRM-like cells in tonsils express exhaustive signatures in the absence of natural HIV control

Lymphoid tissues are an important HIV reservoir site that persists in the face of antiretroviral therapy and natural immunity. Targeting these reservoirs by harnessing the antiviral activity of local tissue-resident memory (TRM) CD8+ T-cells is of great interest, but limited data exist on TRM-like cells within lymph nodes of people living with HIV (PLWH). Here, we studied tonsil CD8+ T-cells obtained from PLWH and uninfected controls from South Africa. We show that these cells are preferentially located outside the germinal centers (GCs), the main reservoir site for HIV, and display a low cytolytic and a transcriptionally TRM-like profile distinct from blood CD8+ T-cells. In PLWH, CD8+ TRM-like cells are expanded and adopt a more cytolytic, activated, and exhausted phenotype not reversed by antiretroviral therapy (ART). This phenotype was enhanced in HIV-specific CD8+ T-cells from tonsils compared to matched blood suggesting a higher antigen burden in tonsils. Single-cell transcriptional and clonotype resolution showed that these HIV-specific CD8+ T-cells in the tonsils express heterogeneous signatures of T-cell activation, clonal expansion, and exhaustion ex-vivo. Interestingly, this signature was absent in a natural HIV controller, who expressed lower PD-1 and CXCR5 levels and reduced transcriptional evidence of T-cell activation, exhaustion, and cytolytic activity. These data provide important insights into lymphoid tissue-derived HIV-specific CD8+ TRM-like phenotypes in settings of HIV remission and highlight their potential for immunotherapy and targeting of the HIV reservoirs

E-Learning: a virtual boon and the challenges in Tourism Higher Education

This paper presents a critical review of research on challenges for e-Learning with a particular focus on developing countries. A comprehensive literature review including 124 papers on e-Learning benefits and challenges was undertaken for the purpose of understanding how to implement e-Learning in developing countries. The literature study found 62 papers which were condensed to base on exclusion and inclusion criteria designed to find the research papers which match the criteria and objectives of the present study as well as papers that clearly investigated well-defined advantages and challenges of e learning in the education system. The research found 30 specific challenges which were grouped into four categories, viz.: courses, individuals, technology and context. The overall conclusion is that these advantages and challenges are equally valid for both developed and developing countries

Evaluating the influence of destination brand experience on tourist behavioral intention

The main objective of this research was to study the impact of destination brand experience on tourist behavioral intention. Sample area of the study included four essential tourism destinations of the Kashmir valley, India viz: Gulmarg, Pahalgam, Sonamarg and the famous Boulevard Road. The convenient sampling method was applied for sampling purposes and total responses obtained were 385 out of 450. SPSS 25.0 has been used to analyze data and study the overall impact of the destination brand experience on tourist's satisfaction and revisit intention. Several strategies are suggested that are based on the findings, like how to improve the different experiences. The results of the study demonstrate that tourists perceive a branded destination differently. The different kinds of experiences lead tourists dependent on destination. The different factors under brand experience that have been studied show how each factor contributes to tourists satisfaction and leads to their intentions in the futureEl objetivo principal de esta investigación era estudiar el impacto de la experiencia de la marca de destino en la intención del comportamiento del turista. La zona de muestra del estudio incluye cuatro destinos turísticos esenciales del valle Kashmir, India viz: Gulmarg, Pahalgam, Sonamarg, y la famosa Boulevard Road. Se aplicó este método conveniente de muestreo para esos fines, y el total de respuestas obtenidas fue 385 de 450. Se ha utilizado el SPSS 25.0 (un software de estadísticas) para analizar información, y estudiar el impacto total de la experiencia de la marca de destino en la satisfacción y la intención de volver del turista. Se sugieren varias estrategias basadas en los hallazgos, como cómo mejorar las diferentes experiencias. Los resultados del estudio demuestran que los turistas perciben una marca de destino de forma diferente. Los diferentes factores bajo la experiencia de marca que se ha estudiado, muestra cómo cada uno de ellos contribuye en la satisfacción del turista, y conduce a sus intenciones en el futuro