Consumers Preference for Hotel Amenities and Willingness to Pay in Lagos

The paper investigated user demand and pricing determinants ofhotel facilities in Lagos. The main objective was to develop a model of these perceptions that will serve as a tool or framework for prospective investors and management staff of related investments. Using information obtained from personal interviews and structured questionnaires served on users of selected hotels in Lagos Island (Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki), Hedonic Model was developed with the aid of certain identified attributes. The findings revealed that security and safety attributes, location attributes, recreation and entertainment (including food and beverages), hospitality and basic attributes are some of the significant factors affecting demand and pricing of hotel in the study area. It is recommended that investors and managers should take into consideration attributes ofhotels in line with customers' value hierarchy when making investment decisions to realize optimum sustainability; and that hoteliers need to ensure that the qualities of these hotel attributes are maintained at an acceptable level by constantly reviewing customers' feedback.Keywords: Hedonic pricing; Hotels; Lagos Island; Pricing; Users demand

Hearing the silences: Adult Nigerian women's accounts of 'early marriages'

‘Early marriage’ is a relatively common but under-researched global phenomenon, associated with poor physical and mental health and educational and occupational outcomes, particularly for young girls. In this article, we draw on qualitative interviews with six Nigerian women from Sokoto state, who were married between the ages of 8 and 15. The interviews explored young women’s experiences of the transition to marriage, being married, pregnancy and their understanding of the marital and parental role. Using interpretive phenomenological analysis, we explore women’s constrained articulations of their experiences of early marriage, as they are constituted within a social context where the identity of ‘woman’ is bound up in values and practices around marriage and motherhood. We explore the complexity of ‘hearing’ women’s experiences when their identities are bound up in culturally overdetermined ideas of femininity that function explicitly to silence and constrain the spaces in which women can speak

Margin of Valuation Error Among Nigerian Valuers: Postulating an Acceptable Limit

Study on margin of error aims at capturing the response of Nigerian valuers and their clients from the financial sector to their permissable margin of error with a view to establishing the bracket outside which the valuer is considered incompetent. The opinion of 300 Estate Surveyors and Valuers were sampled using simple structered questionnaires in five cities in Nigeria. The work also relied on secondary data deduced from previous studies convering clients' response from the financial institutions as they have centralized lending policy across their branches. The paper employed descriptive and inferential statistics to analyze the data. The results revealed that 56.7% of valuers favoured ±10% and clients between ±5% - ±13.16%. The study postulated that margin of valuation error of between ±5% - ±15% should be adopted in the Nigerian setting depending on the complexity of the property and owing to unstable market and dearth of transaction data bank. It is recommended that the authorities regulating the practice of Estate surveyors and Valuers in Nigeria should make an effort to adopt margin of error principles to ensure standardization of practice in the face of market globalization and sophistication.Keywords: Accuracy; margin of error; valuation; varianc

Effect of coupled catalyst loading and ionomer binder on oxygen reduction reaction in high-temperature pemfc

Polybenzimidazole (PBI) was studied as an ionomer binder at varying ratios (1-7) in a 20~40 wt% Pt–Pd/C cathode-coupled catalyst layer for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in a high-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell (HT-PEMFC). Catalytic activity was examined by CV and LSV, while the properties of the catalysts were characterized by FESEM-EDX, N2 adsorption–desorption, XRD and FTIR. The results showed that the distribution of metals on the carbon surface, carbon wall thickness and the interaction between ionomer and coupled catalysts affected the ORR performance. The fabricated membrane electrode assembly with 5:95 PBI: 30 wt% Pt–Pd/C catalyst ratio exhibited the best performance and highest durability for HT-PEMFC at 170°C, yielding a power density of 1.20 Wcm-2 with 0.02 mgPt/cm Pt loading. This result was comparable to those reported by other studies [1-4], highlighting a promising catalyst for fuel cell application