Red Palm: exploring service quality and servicescape of the best backpacker hostel in Asia

The Red Palm was voted the best backpacker’s hostel in Asia for 2006. This study explores the reasons behind this phenomenal achievement by examining service quality and servicescape of the establishment. Using NVIVO software, data from 192 website comments and eighteen in-depth interviews were content-analysed. The results show that the most important dimension of service quality experience with the Red Palm is tangibles, followed by empathy and assurance. The most important tangible elements of the Red Palm are facilities and equipment, location and the atmosphere of friendliness, welcome and homeliness, and cleanliness. The excellent staff elements include their courtesy, individualised attention and willingness to help. The paper also presents the illustration of Bitner’s [(1992). Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees. The Journal of Marketing, 56(2), 57–71] servicescape framework in relation to the Red Palm

Asia as the new master of the business universe (Edited speech of Lord Digby Jones)

The global power has shifted from the West to the East. Currently, the main assets or investments for the future should be on education and value added skills, and universities must be well equipped to produce graduates with these qualities. Asia must rise to the current challenge to be leader of the world’s economy and take advantage of three main pillars of globalisation: the movement of ‘product and services’, ‘money’, and ‘people’. In Asia, two notable aspects which hinder the full potential of globalization are free trade protective policies and corruption. Despite the obvious future dominance of Asia economically, globalisation efforts should be directed towards achieving worldwide equality in terms of economy and cultural dominance. Asians must be willing to learn and ask questions, all of which benefit themselves, employers and businesses. In the journey to success, one should hold firmly on the integrity and have the willingness to include and guide others to achieve the same goal

A Survey on Web Forum Crawling Techniques

Abstract This paper focuses on the study of web forum crawling problem which is an important task in web applications such as web mining and search engines. Due to the richness of the information contributed by millions of internet users every day, web forum sites have become precious deposits of information on the web. As a result, mining knowledge from forum sites has become more important and more significant. However, forum sites exist in different layouts or styles and they are powered by different software packages which makes forum crawling, a tedious task. In addition, large amount of duplicate pages and uninformative pages on forum sites also makes forum crawling task inefficient. In this paper, various forum crawling techniques and their comparisons has been discussed

The experiential aspect of rural home-stay among Chinese and Malay students using diary method

Tourism involving home-stays is one of the Malaysian government's key efforts to diversify its cultural tourism product. Tourists to the programme are adopted by their foster families experience a more traditional life in Malay villages. Using a diary method, this study examines the experiential aspects of home-stay holidays among domestic students in Kampung Lonek. A total of 19 diaries were content-analyzed using NVivo, which is a qualitative data analysis (QDA) computer software package produced by QSR International. Based on the findings, the home-stay experiential model is developed which explains the different phases of travel experience and their components. The on-site experience reveals three distinct dimensions: ‘environmental experience’, ‘activity, culture and knowledge experience’ and ‘human interaction experience’. The study discusses the differences between Chinese and Malay students in their home-stay experience. The article highlights its methodological, theoretical and managerial contributions

Travel behaviour among inbound medical tourists in Kuala Lumpur

Despite recording the highest growth among tourism sub-sectors [Dhesi, D. (2009, March 25). Medical tourism rises in Malaysia despite economic downturn. The Star Online. Retrieved from http://www.malaysiahealthcare.com/; Leonard, T. (2009, July 24). Medical tourists to bring in RM 540 million by 2010. Retrieved from http:// www.malaysiahealthcare.com/; Tourism Malaysia. (2008). Profile of tourist by selected markets 2008. Kuala Lumpur: Tourism Malaysia], little is known empirically with regard to travel behaviour among inbound medical tourists in Malaysia. This study examined the demographic profile, travel motivation, healthcare consumption, and expenditure behaviour among them in Kuala Lumpur. Using the combination of purposeful and convenience sampling, a total of 138 questionnaires were completed, returned, and analysed. The majority of the respondents were female, middle aged, travelling with two others and Indonesians. Their main travel motivation factors were ‘value for money’, ‘excellent medical services’, ‘supporting services’, ‘cultural similarity’, and ‘religious factor’ in descending order of importance. Medical treatment, cosmetic procedure, surgical procedure, and medical check-up were important healthcare services sought after by the respondents. On average, medical tourists spent MYR 26,844.19 per visit, with females and tourists of European descent contributing significantly more. Tourists from ASEAN had stronger motivation of ‘cultural similarity’ compared with other tourists. This paper is unique in providing the empirical evidence of the city’s unique selling points (pull factors) in attracting inbound medical tourists. It also highlights the potential economic contribution and some managerial implications in terms of marketing and product development

The seven core virtues in medical professionalism

Singapore General Hospital Proceedings18373-7