Search results for: tourism in Saudi Arabia

Authors: Manea A. I. Alqrad, Alaa Sirwi, Sabrin R. M. Ibrahim, Hossam M. Abdallah, Gamal A. Mohamed

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Phytochemical study of the methanolic extract of the air dried powdered of the parts of Viscum schemperi Engl. (Family: Viscaceae) using different chromatographic techniques led to the isolation of five compounds: -amyrenone (1), betulinic acid (2), (3β)-olean-12-ene-3,23-diol (3), -oleanolic acid (4), and α-oleanolic acid (5). Their structures were established based on physical, chemical, and spectral data. Anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic activities of oleanolic acid in a mouse model of acute hepatorenal damage were assessed. This study showed the efficacy of oleanolic acid to counteract thioacetamide-induced hepatic and kidney injury in mice through the reduction of hepatocyte oxidative damage, suppression of inflammation, and apoptosis. More importantly, oleanolic acid suppressed thioacetamide-induced hepatic and kidney injury by inhibiting NF-κB/TNF-α-mediated inflammation/apoptosis and enhancing SIRT1/Nrf2/Heme-oxygenase signalling pathway. These promising pharmacological activities suggest the potential use of oleanolic acid against hepatorenal damage.

Keywords: oleanolic acid, viscum schimperi, thioacetamide, SIRT1/Nrf2/NF-κB, hepatorenal damage

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Authors: Seraj Makkawi, Abdulaziz A. Alqarni, Himyan Alghaythee, Suzan Y. Alharbi, Anmar Fatani, Reem Adas, Ahmad R. Abuzinadah

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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that involves both the upper and lower motor neurons. Familial ALS, including superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) mutation, accounts for 5-10% of all cases of ALS. Typically, the symptoms of ALS are purely motor, though coexistent sensory symptoms have been reported in rare cases. In this report, we describe the case of a 47- year-old man who presented with progressive bilateral lower limb weakness and numbness for the last four years. A nerve conduction study (NCS) showed evidence of coexistent axonal sensorimotor polyneuropathy in addition to the typical findings of ALS in needle electromyography. Genetic testing confirmed the diagnosis of familial ALS secondary to the SOD1 genetic mutation. This report highlights that the presence of sensory symptoms should not exclude the possibility of ALS in an appropriate clinical setting.

Keywords: Saudi Arabia, polyneuropathy, SOD1 gene mutation, familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

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Authors: Razan Salem

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Men and women are different, and so their investment behaviors may also vary. To the author’s best knowledge, women's investment behavior and its association with demographic factors have not been explored directly in the behavioral finance literature, however, particularly in respect to the Arab region. Thus, this study extends the literature by focusing on examining the association of demographic factors (age, annual income, and education) with Arab women’s investment behavior. To achieve the study’s aim, the researcher distributed 600 close-ended online questionnaires to a sample of Arab male and female individual investors in both Saudi Arabia and Jordan; using Kruskal-Wallis H Test and the Mann-Whitney U Test to analyze the data. The findings reveal that age, education, and level of income are associated with Arab women’s investment behavior. Educational level and level of income are positively associated with Arab women investment confidence level. On the contrary, age is negatively associated with Arab women financial risk tolerance. According to annual income, Arab women with lower incomes have lower confidence and investment literacy levels. Overall, the study concludes that age, income, and education are important demographic factors that must be considered when investigating the investment behavior of women in the Arab region.

Keywords: Arab region, demographic factors, investment behavior, women investors

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Authors: Awangku Hassanal Bahar Pengiran Bagul, Fauziahton Ag. Samad

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The focus of this study is to outline the development of Community-Based Ecotourism (CBET) in order to achieve sustainability. The CBET in Desa Cinta Kobuni is a result of a collaboration between Kampung Kobuni, Kota Kinabalu City Hall or DBKK (Dewan Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu), and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS). It is located in Inanam, a sub-district of Kota Kinabalu city. The current ecotourism activities are still in the growth stage and mainly focused on cultural tourism products and activities that showcase their traditional food, clothing, language, history, values, beliefs, dance, arts, and crafts. The study’s methodological approach is qualitative with narrative inquiry, also known as storytelling. This enables the study to access valuable insight with rich data into the complexity of developing community-based ecotourism. The results show that there are three major impacts on the Desa Cinta Kobuni, which are, 1) the increment of secondary income, 2) the advancement of women’s empowerment, and 3) the enhanced sustainability initiatives of the villagers. The experience in developing their first CBET has resulted in the Kota Kinabalu City Hall producing the Framework for Sustainable Community Based Ecotourism that integrates Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (GCET) for future CBET development in other parts of the city. The paper concludes that there is a significant positive transformation of the village and the villagers while reaffirming that Community-Based ecotourism (CBET) is a sustainable form of tourism that improves the quality of life of hosts at the tourist destination.

Keywords: community, ecotourism, cultural tourism, sustainability, sustainable development

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Authors: Fahd Hamad Alqasham

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This longitudinal study investigates Saudi students’ use trajectory and experiences of Twitter as an innovative tool for in-class learning of the English language in a Saudi tertiary English as a foreign language (EFL) context for a 12-week semester. The study adopted van Lier’s agency theory (2008, 2010) as the analytical framework to obtain an in-depth analysis of how the learners’ could utilize Twitter to create innovative ways for them to engage in English learning inside the language classroom. The study implemented a mixed methods approach, including six data collection instruments consisting of a research log, observations, focus group participation, initial and post-project interviews, and a post-project questionnaire. The study was conducted at Qassim University, specifically at Preparatory Year Program (PYP) on the main campus. The sample included 25 male students studying in the first level of PYP. The findings results revealed that although Twitter’s affordances initially paled a crucial role in motivating the learners to initiate their agency inside the classroom to learn English, the contextual constraints, mainly anxiety, the university infrastructure, and the teacher’s role negatively influenced the sustainability of Twitter’s use past week nine of its implementation.

Keywords: CALL, agency, innovation, EFL, language learning

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Authors: Pongsiri Kingkan

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This research aims to study the Readiness of Thai Restaurant in Bangkok in Applying for Certification of Halal Food Services Standard for Tourism. This research was conduct by using mix methodology; both quantitative and qualitative data were used. 420 questionnaires were used as tools to collected data from the samples, the restaurant employees. The results were divided into two parts, the demographic data and the Readiness of Thai Restaurant in Bangkok in Applying for Certification of Halal Food Services Standard for Tourism. The majority of samples are single female age between 18–30 years old, who earn about 282.40 US dollars a month. The result of Thai restaurant readiness study demonstrated that readiness in foods and restaurant operating processes were scored at the lowest level. Readiness in social responsibility, food contact persons and food materials were rated at the low level. The readiness of utensils and kitchen tools, waste management, environmental management, and the availability of space to implement the establishment of halal food were scored at the average level. Location readiness, foods service safety and the relationship with the local community were rated at high level. But interestingly there is none of them rated at the highest level.

Keywords: availability, Bangkok, halal, Thai restaurant, readiness

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Authors: Zita Fomukong Andam

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The decision on where to host sport events does not depend on the national politicians or specific international sport event bodies but also involves the residents of the hosting country. Sport tourism is one of the fast growing industries in the world. Cameroonians consider sport as a point of unity and growth within the country. It has a huge variety of sporting activities like swimming, canoe racing, tug of war and most especially soccer well known as football. The football national team made an impact in 1990 at the FIFA world cup. They also won the African Nations Cup five times. Being the winner of the 2017 African Cup of Nations, they are to host the 2019 African cup of Nations. The purpose of this research is to analyse the impacts of sport tourism event in Cameroon and specifically examine how this event influences the residents. A deep research discourse conducted with randomly selected 300 inbound residents and 200 Cameroonian residents living abroad. Survey questionnaires, interviews and direct observations were carried out as a method of collecting data. The results showed that sport events brings a lot of prestige and honor to the country; generate revenues to the country’s economy and particularly to the local businesses. On the other hand, the results showed that the local residents lose their intimacy, privacy, and their daily life routine is affected. In addition to this, they face negative social inequalities and environmental impacts. Understanding these results the national government and international bodies might be able to contribute to future studies and propose efficient measures to maximize the positive benefits and minimize the negative benefits.

Keywords: sport Tourism, economic impact, resident altitude, african Cup of nations

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Authors: Huseyin Arasli, Maryam Abdullahi, Tugrul Gunay

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One of the prominence elements used by the destination marketing organization (DMO) as a marketing strategy is the application of Social media tools. During the current spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), travel restriction was placed in most countries of the world, leading to the closure of borders movement. It should be noted that most tourism travelers depend on social media to obtain and exchange different kinds of information about COVID-19 in an unprecedented scale. The situational information people received is valued, which calls for the response of the tourism industry on the epidemic. Therefore, it is highly important to recognize such situational information and to understand how people spread this propaganda on social media platforms so that suitable information that relates the COVID-19 epidemic is available in a manner that will not tarnish the marketing strategies, festival planners. Data for this research study was collected from the desk review, which is a secondary source data, online blogs, and interview through social media chat. The results of this research show that the widespread of COVID-19 pandemics led to rapid lockdown in states and cities all over Nigeria, causing declining demands in hotels, airlines, recreation, and tourism centers. Additionally, billions of dollars lost has been recorded in the high increase of hotels and travel bookings cancellations which caused hundreds and thousands of job loss in the country. The result of this research also revealed that COVID-19 is causing more havoc on the unemployment rate indices of the country. Similarly, the over-dependence of government on petroleum has further caused considerable revenue loss, thereby raising a high poverty rate among less privileged Nigerians. Based on this result, the study suggested that there is an urgent need for the government to diversify its economy by looking at other different sectors such as tourism and agricultural farm produce to harmonize other commercial trades sectors in the country.

Keywords: social media, destination marketing organizations, DMOs, cultural COVID-19, coronavirus, hospitality, travel tour, tourism

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Authors: L. A. Alfarani, M. McPherson, N. Morris

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The growth of mobile learning depends primarily on the participation of teachers and their belief in the possibilities that this technology has for enhancing learning. The need to integrate technology into education seems clear-cut, however, its acceptance in Saudi higher education remains low. Thus, determining the particular factors that affect faculty acceptance of technology is vital. This paper focuses on TAM which depends on two factors: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, this theory are used to predict faculty members’ behavioural intentions towards using mobile learning technology. 279 faculty members in one Saudi university have responded to the online questionnaire. The findings have revealed that there is a statistically significant difference in both usefulness and ease of using m-learning factors.

Keywords: TAM theory, mobile learning technology acceptance, usefulness, ease of use

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Authors: Josip Arneric, Antonio Sostaric

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Crikvenica is one of the favourite tourist destinations at the Adriatic Sea in Croatia which attracts guests with its natural beauties and is one of the top destinations with the highest number of overnights stays. The main purpose of this research is to determine which elements of tourist offer should be improved to achieve sustainable development of the town of Crikvenica. Namely, the survey results from a random sample have shown that the most common reason of the visits is relaxation and vacation, and that more attention should be given to the following categories: restaurants and the working hours of stores and banks. We have also examined whether or not there is a correlation between an average daily expenditure and the overnight stay. The paper ends with the conclusion and the recommendations on how to improve the tourist offer of Crikvenica in order to increase guest satisfaction and to keep its reputation at a high level.

Keywords: tourism development, survey, Crikvenica, management sciences

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Authors: Luca Zarrilli, Miguel Brito, Marianna Cappucci

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Tourists recently awarded Lisbon as the best city break destination in Europe. This article analyses the various types of tourist experiences in the city of Lisbon. The research method is the questionnaire, aimed at investigating the choices of tourists in the area of mobility, their perception of the quality of life and their level of appreciation of neighbourhoods, landmarks and infrastructures. There is an obvious link between the quality of life and the quality of the tourist experience, but it is difficult to measure it. Through this questionnaire, we hope to have made a small contribution to the understanding of the perceptive sphere of the individual and his choices in terms of behaviour, which is an essential element of any strategy for tourism marketing.

Keywords: Lisbon, mobility, quality of life, perception, tourism, hospitality

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Authors: Maryam Khalili, Fateme Ghanei

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As one of the most significant phenomena of industrialized societies, tourism plays a key role in encouraging regional developments and enhancing higher standards of living for local communities in particular. Traveling is a formative experience endowed with lessons on various aspects of life. It allows us learning how to enhance the social position as well as the social relationships. However, people forget the need to travel and gain first-hand experiences as they have to cope with the ever-increasing rate of stress created by the disorders and routines of the urban dwelling style. In this paper, various spaces of such experiences were explored through a virtual tour with two underlying aims: 1) encouraging, informing, and educating the community in terms of tourism development, and 2) introducing a temporary release from the routines. This study enjoyed a practical-qualitative research methodology, and the required data were collected through observation and using a multiple-response questionnaire. The participants (19-48 years old) included 41 citizens of both genders (63.4% male and 36.6% female) from two regions in Tehran, selected by cluster-probability sampling. The results led to development of a spatial design for a virtual tour experience in Tehran where different areas are explored to both raise people’s awareness and educate them on their cultural heritage.

Keywords: ecotourism, education, gamification, social interaction, urban design, virtual tour

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Authors: Yarra Sulina, Nunna Tagore Sai Priya, Ankhi Banerjee

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With the rapid growth in tourist arrivals, there has been a huge demand for the growth of infrastructure in the destinations. With the increasing preference of tourists to stay near attractions, there has been a considerable change in the land use around tourist sites. However, with the inclusion of certain regulations and guidelines provided by the authorities based on the nature of tourism activity and geographical constraints, the pattern of growth of built form is different for various tourist sites. Therefore, this study explores the patterns of growth of built-up for a decade from 2009 to 2019 through two-dimensional and three-dimensional analysis. Land use maps are created through supervised classification of satellite images obtained from LANDSAT 4-5 and LANDSAT 8 for 2009 and 2019, respectively. The overall expansion of the built-up area in the region is analyzed in relation to the distance from the city's geographical center and the tourism-related growth regions are identified which are influenced by the proximity of tourist attractions. The primary tourist sites of various destinations with different geographical characteristics and tourism activities, that have undergone a significant increase in built-up area and are occupied with tourism-related infrastructure are selected for further study. Proximity analysis of the tourism-related growth sites is carried out to delineate the influence zone of the tourist site in a destination. Further, a temporal analysis of volumetric growth of built form is carried out to understand the morphology of the tourist precincts over time. The Digital Surface Model (DSM) and Digital Terrain Model (DTM) are used to extract the building footprints along with building height. Factors such as building height, and building density are evaluated to understand the patterns of three-dimensional growth of the built area in the region. The study also explores the underlying reasons for such changes in built form around various tourist sites and predicts the impact of such growth patterns in the region. The building height and building density around tourist site creates a huge impact on the appeal of the destination. The surroundings that are incompatible with the theme of the tourist site have a negative impact on the attractiveness of the destination that leads to negative feedback by the tourists, which is not a sustainable form of development. Therefore, proper spatial measures are necessary in terms of area and volume of the built environment for a healthy and sustainable environment around the tourist sites in the destination.

Keywords: sustainable tourism, growth patterns, land-use changes, 3-dimensional analysis of built-up area

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Authors: Gauranga Das

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People in cities have prosperity but there is immense pollution, chaos in the mind, anxiety and turbulence. People in the villages experience pristine pure environment but they also experience poverty. There is a need to find out ways by which the cities and the villages can complement each other through their strengths and take care of each other’s weaknesses. In order to do this, the case study of Govardhan Ecovillage has been explored in this paper. All its environment, social and economic initiatives along with eco-tourism and wellness features are being analyzed. The analysis shows that Govardhan Ecovillage is successfully able to harmonize its different initiatives and provide a package which has created a win-win solution for the city people and also the villagers. Such kind of Eco-tourism initiatives should be supported and replicated in other places in the world to benefit everyone.

Keywords: sustainability, ecotourism, ecology, rural development, wellness, biodiversity

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Authors: Sadeq Al Yaari, Fayza Al Hammadi, Ayman Al Yaari, Adham Al Yaari, Montaha Al Yaari, Aayah Al Yaari, Sajedah Al Yaari, Salah Al Yami

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Background: In recent years, the number of non-native speakers of the Arabic language has exponentially increased. Aims: This analytical study aims to investigate written grammatical errors committed by Arabic as a Second Language (ASL) learners. More specifically, it explores the reasons behind committing these errors and their effects on the daily communication of ASL learners. Methods: Ten (10) ASL senior learners of the Arabic Language Institute (ALI), College of Arts, King Saud University (KSU), Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) were randomly selected in this study. The participants were asked to write paragraphs about themselves and then their written work was linguistically analyzed and evaluated by the researchers and some Arabic Language experts before it was statistically analyzed. Conclusions: Results outline that written grammatical errors of ASL learners are characterized by the misuse of many grammatical items. Mainly, these items are proper nouns (PN), common nouns (CN), main verbs (MV), adjectives (adj.), time adverbs (T. Adv.), manner adverbs (M. Adv.), objective pronouns (OP), and central determiners (C Det.) including demonstratives (Dem.) and articles (Artic.), pronouns (Pron.) and prepositions (Prep.).

Keywords: written, grammatical errors, Arabic, second language, non-native learners, analysis.

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Authors: Farshad Kalantari

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Tourism industry has gained a progressive trend within the past years, which affect the cultural exchange among different nations. It is obvious that each country has its own culture, heritage and history, which can be manifested in the population lifestyle and pattern of living. the lifestyle can be considered as an indicator for health status, as the culture may affect way of living, which known as lifestyle and its components, including dietary pattern, physical activity status and other social behaviours. As a result, it seems that each culture can transfer the lifestyle to other societies by international communications. Moreover, different regions and countries may benefit from natural resources, which can be a leading cause for tourist attraction, in the other words, natural resources and culture, can affect the tourist turnover in a region, and as a result, it can be hypothesised that it may affect the exchange of lifestyle including dietary pattern and physical activity. In the positive way, this can make a region to health pole for other nationalities to gain benefit from that culture in order to improve their quality of life and health status. In this paper has aimed to assess the effect of culture and heritage on tourism rate and the effect of natural resources along with cultural lifestyle on public health and international exchange between other regions. It was hypothesised that by using culture in a positive manner, positive aspect of lifestyle, including ancient physical activity patter, can be transfer and exchange with other regions, which can improve health status as a result. Moreover, it was focused on how to design and recruit strategies to improve the way of gaining benefits from resources and lifestyle in order to improve tourism industry and its rate, which may bring beneficial outcomes, including financial, cultural and health outcomes.

Keywords: toursim, health, culture, sport, lifestyle

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Authors: Maha Awad M. Almuttairi

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This research aimed to measure the impact of the use of a mobile learning (iTunes U) app for the development of metacognition skills delivered in the enrichment program offered to gifted students at the secondary level in Jeddah. The author targeted a group of students on an experimental scale to evaluate the achievement. The research sample consisted of a group of 38 gifted female students. The scale of evaluation of the metacognition skills used to measure the performance of students in the enrichment program was as follows: Satisfaction scale for the assessment of the technique used and the final product form after completion of the program. Appropriate statistical treatment used includes Paired Samples T-Test Cronbach’s alpha formula and eta squared formula. It was concluded in the results the difference of α≤ 0.05, which means the performance of students in the skills of metacognition in favor of using iTunes U. In light of the conclusion of the experiment, a number of recommendations and suggestions were present; the most important benefit of mobile learning applications is to provide enrichment programs for gifted students in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as conducting further research on mobile learning and gifted student teaching.

Keywords: enrichment program, gifted students, metacognition skills, mobile learning

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Authors: G. Çetinkaya, M. Yıldız, P. Çetinkaya

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Tourism is one of the world’s largest industries and its total contribution to the global economy in 2014 was US$7.6 trillion, which equates to 9.8% of total economy GDP in 2014. Mountains are important regions for tourism industry and its second most popular tourist destinations after coastal regions. Hiking and trekking are most popular activity in mountains region and it is estimated that more than 50 million people visit mountains each year. So that hiking was come out to individual activity and it’s to be a massive event. Nowadays hiking is commercialized and mostly it’s become organized by travel agency and tour operators. Travel agency which is offering hiking activities to know the demands of the individuals involved in these activities and is required to submit to it for services. The aim of this study to determined hiking participant expectation from hiking by travel agency perspective. 34 travel agency officials participated in the study. Data were collected by questionnaire developed by the researchers. Results show that according to travel agency officials “visual quality” is the most important expectation factor for hikers. And other expectation factors are “safety”, “accessibility”, “unspoiled local service”, “walking grade”, “expert guidance service”, “popularity of trail”, “uncrowded trail”, “substructure facilities”, “relevant cost”, “guidebook” and “suitable climatic conditions”.

Keywords: expectation, hikers, travel agency, mountain tourism

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Authors: Joao Ferreira Do Rosario, Maria De Lurdes Calisto, Ana Teresa Machado, Nuno Gustavo, Rui Gonçalves

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The tourism sector is increasingly important to the economic performance of countries and a relevant theme to academic research, increasing the importance of understanding how and why tourists evaluate tourism locations. The city of Lisbon is currently a tourist destination of excellence in the European and world-wide panorama, registering a significant growth of the economic weight of its tourist activities in the Gross Added Value of the region. Although there is research on the feedback of those who visit tourist sites and different methodologies for studying tourist sites have been applied, this research seeks to be innovative in the objective of obtaining insights on the competitiveness in terms of attractiveness of the city of Lisbon as a tourist destination, based the feedback of tourists in the Facebook pages of the most visited museums and monuments of Lisbon, an interpretation that is relevant in the development of strategies of tourist attraction. The intangible dimension of the tourism offer, due to its unique condition of simultaneous production and consumption, makes eWOM particularly relevant. The testimony of consumers is thus a decisive factor in the decision-making and buying process in tourism. Online social networks are one of the most used platforms for tourists to evaluate the attractiveness's points of a tourism destination (e.g. cultural and historical heritage), with this user-generated feedback enabling relevant information about the customer-tourists. This information is related to the tourist experience representing the true voice of the customer. Furthermore, this voice perceived by others as genuine, opposite to marketing messages, may have a powerful word-of-mouth influence on other potential tourists. The relevance of online reviews sharing, however, becomes particularly complex, considering social media users’ different profiles or the possible and different sources of information available, as well as their associated reputation associated with each source. In the light of these trends, our research focuses on the tourists’ feedback on Facebook pages of the most visited museums and monuments of Lisbon that contribute to its attractiveness as a tourism destination. Sentiment Analysis is the methodology selected for this research, using public available information in the online context, which was deemed as an appropriate non-participatory observation method. Data will be collected from two museums (Museu dos Coches and Museu de Arte Antiga) and three monuments ((Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, Torre de Belém and Panteão Nacional) Facebook pages during a period of one year. The research results will help in the evaluation of the considered places by the tourists, their contribution to the city attractiveness and present insights helpful for the management decisions regarding this museums and monuments. The results of this study will also contribute to a better knowledge of the tourism sector, namely the identification of attributes in the evaluation and choice of the city of Lisbon as a tourist destination. Further research will evaluate the Lisbon attraction points for tourists in different categories beyond museums and monuments, will also evaluate the tourist feedback from other sources like TripAdvisor and apply the same methodology in other cities and country regions.

Keywords: Lisbon tourism, opinion mining, sentiment analysis, tourism location attractiveness evaluation

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Authors: Manju Bala Jassi

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The Covid 19 pandemic has badly mauled Dubai’s GDP heavily dependent on hospitality, tourism, entertainment, logistics, property and the retail sectors. In the context of the World Health protocols on social distancing for better maintenance of health and hygiene, the revival of the battered tourism and hospitality sectors has serious lessons for designers- interiors and public places. The tangible and intangible aesthetic elements and design –ambiance, materials, furnishings, colors, lighting and interior with architectural design issues of tourism and hospitality need a rethink to ensure a memorable tourist experience. Designers ought to experiment with sustainable places of tourism and design, develop, build and projects are aesthetic and leave as little negative impacts on the environment and public as possible. In short, they ought to conceive public spaces that makes use of little untouched materials and energy, and creates pollution and waste that are minimal. The spaces can employ healthier and more resource-efficient prototypes of construction, renovation, operation, maintenance, and demolition and thereby mitigate the environment impacts of the construction activities and it is sustainable These measures encompass the hospitality sector that includes hotels and restaurants which has taken the hardest fall from the pandemic. The paper sought to examine building energy efficiency and materials and design employed in public places, green buildings to achieve constructive sustainability and to establish the benefits of utilizing energy efficiency, green materials and sustainable design; to document diverse policy interventions, design and Spatial dimensions of tourism and hospitality sectors; to examine changes in the hospitality, aviation sector especially from a design perspective regarding infrastructure or operational constraints and additional risk-mitigation measures; to dilate on the nature of implications for interior designers and architects to design public places to facilitate sustainable tourism and hospitality while balancing convenient space and their operations' natural surroundings. The qualitative research approach was adopted for the study. The researcher collected and analyzed data in continuous iteration. Secondary data was collected from articles in journals, trade publications, government reports, newspaper/ magazine articles, policy documents etc. In depth interviews were conducted with diverse stakeholders. Preliminary data indicates that designers have started imagining public places of tourism and hospitality against the backdrop of the government push and WHO guidelines. For instance, with regard to health, safety, hygiene and sanitation, Emirates, the Dubai-based airline has augmented health measures at the Dubai International Airport and on board its aircraft. It has leveraged high tech/ Nano-tech, social distancing to encourage least human contact, flexible design layouts to limit the occupancy. The researcher organized the data into thematic categories and found that the Government of Dubai has initiated comprehensive measures in the hospitality, tourism and aviation sectors in compliance with the WHO guidelines.

Keywords: Covid 19, design, Dubai, hospitality, public spaces, tourism

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Authors: Eman Alzahrani

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Date palm trees are abundant and cheap natural resources in Saudi Arabia. In this study, an activated carbon was prepared from palm trunks by chemical processes. The chemical activation was performed by impregnation of the raw materials after grinding with H3PO4 solution (63%), followed by placing of the sample solution on a muffle furnace at 400ºC for 30 min, and then at 800ºC for 10 min. The morphology of the fabricated material was checked using scanning electron microscopy that showed the rough surfaces on the carbon samples. The use of fabricated activated carbon for removal of eosin dye from aqueous solutions at different contact time, initial dye concentration, pH and adsorbent doses was investigated. The experimental results show that the adsorption process attains equilibrium within 20 min. The adsorption isotherm equilibrium was studied by means of the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms, and it was found that the data fit the Langmuir isotherm equation with maximum monolayer adsorption capacity of 126.58 mg g-1. The results indicated that the home made activated carbon prepared from palm trunks has the ability to remove eosin dye from aqueous solution and it will be a promising adsorbent for the removal of harmful dyes from waste water.

Keywords: activated carbon, date palm trunks, H3PO4 activation, adsorption, dye removal, eosin dye, isotherm

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Authors: Alexander S. Burnasov, Anatoly V. Stepanov, Maria Y. Ilyushkina

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In the conditions of transition to the digital economy, the digital environment of the city becomes one of the key factors of its tourism attractiveness. Modern digital environment makes travelling more accessible, improves the quality of travel services and the attractiveness of many tourist destinations. The digitalization of the industry allows to use resources more efficiently, to simplify business processes, to minimize risks, and to improve travel safety. The city promotion as a tourist destination in the foreign market becomes decisive in the digital environment. Information technologies are extremely important for the functioning of not only any tourist enterprise but also the city as a whole. In addition to solving traditional problems, it is also possible to implement some innovations from the tourism industry, such as the availability of city services in international systems of booking tickets and booking rooms in hotels, the possibility of early booking of theater and museum tickets, the possibility of non-cash payment by cards of international payment systems, Internet access in the urban environment for travelers. The availability of the city's digital services makes it possible to reduce ordering costs, contributes to the optimal selection of tourist products that meet the requirements of the tourist, provides increased transparency of transactions. The users can compare prices, features, services, and reviews of the travel service. The ability to share impressions with friends thousands of miles away directly affects the image of the city. It is possible to promote the image of the city in the digital environment not only through world-scale events (such as World Cup 2018, international summits, etc.) but also through the creation and management of services in the digital environment aimed at supporting tourism services, which will help to improve the positioning of the city in the global tourism market.

Keywords: competitiveness, digital environment, travelling, Yekaterinburg

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Authors: Nasibeh Mohammadpour, Ali Rajabzadeh, Adel Azar, Hamid Zargham Borujeni,

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Generally, various industries development depends on their stakeholders and beneficiaries supports. One of the most important stakeholders in tourism industry ( which has become one of the most important lucrative and employment-generating activities at the international level these days) are host communities in tourist destination which are affected and effect on this industry development. Recognizing host community and its segmentations can be important to get their support for future decisions and policy making. In order to identify these segments, in this study, clustering of the residents has been done by using some tools that are designed to encounter human complexities and have ability to model and generalize complex systems without any needs for the initial clusters’ seeds like classic methods. Neural networks can help to meet these expectations. The research have been planned to design neural networks-based mathematical model for clustering the host community effectively according to multi criteria, and identifies differences among segments. In order to achieve this goal, the residents’ segmentation has been done by demographic characteristics, their attitude towards the tourism development, the level of satisfaction and the type of their support in this field. The applied method is self-organized neural networks and the results have compared with K-means. As the results show, the use of Self- Organized Map (SOM) method provides much better results by considering the Cophenetic correlation and between clusters variance coefficients. Based on these criteria, the host community is divided into five sections with unique and distinctive features, which are in the best condition (in comparison other modes) according to Cophenetic correlation coefficient of 0.8769 and between clusters variance of 0.1412.

Keywords: Artificial Nural Network, Clustering , Resident, SOM, Tourism

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Authors: Maja Martinovic, Valentina Zarkovic, Hrvoje Maljak

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Europe is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, in which tourism occupies a significant place among the most relevant economic activities, and this applies to the Republic of Croatia as well. Based on this study, the authors intended to encourage and support the creation of an effective tourism policy in Croatia that would be based on the profiling of certain target groups. Another objective was to compare the results obtained from the customer analysis with the market analysis of the tourism industry in Croatia. The objective is to adapt the current tourist offer according to the identified needs and expectations of a particular tourist group in order to increase the attractiveness of Croatia as a tourist destination and motivate greater attendance of the targeted tourist groups. The current research was oriented towards the Russian market as the target group. Therefore, the authors wanted to encourage a discussion on how to attract more Russian guests. Consequently, the intention of the research was a detailed analysis of Russian tourists, in order to gain a better understanding of their travelling motives and tendencies. Furthermore, attention was paid to the expectations of Russian customers and to compare them with the Croatian tourist offer, and to determine whether there is a possibility for an overlap. The method used to obtain the information required was a survey conducted among Russian citizens about their travelling habits. The research was carried out on the basis of 166 participants of different age, gender, profession and income group. The sampling and distribution of the survey took place between May and July 2016. The results provided from the research indicate that Croatian tourism has certain unrealized potential considering the popularization of Croatia as a tourist destination, and there is a capacity for increasing the revenues within the group of Russian tourists. Such a conclusion is based on the fact that the Croatian tourist offer and the preferences of the Russian guests are compatible, i.e. they overlap in many aspects. The results demonstrate that beautiful nature, cultural and historical heritage as well as the sun and sea, play a leading role in attracting more Russian tourists. It is precisely these elements that form the three pillars of the Croatian tourist offer. On the other hand, the profiling revealed that the most desirable destinations for the Russian guests are Italy and Spain, both of which provide the same main tourist attractions as Croatia. Therefore, the focus of the strategic ideas given in the paper shifted to other tourism segments, such as type of accommodation, sales channels, travel motives, additional offer and seasonality etc., in order to gain advantage in the Russian market, the Mediterranean region and tourism in general. The purpose of the research is to serve as a foundation for analysing the attractiveness of the other tourist destinations in the Russian market, as well as to be a general basis for a more detailed profiling of the various specific target groups of the Russian and other tourist groups.

Keywords: Croatia, Russian market, target groups, tourism, tourist destination

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Authors: Amr A. El Hanafy, Muhammad I. Qureshi, Jamal Sabir, Mohamed Mutawakil, Mohamed M. Ahmed, Hassan El Ashmaoui, Hassan Ramadan, Mohamed Abou-Alsoud, Mahmoud Abdel Sadek

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β-Lactoglobulin (β-LG) is the dominant non-casein whey protein found in bovine milk and of most ruminants. The amino acid sequence of β-LG along with its 3-dimensional structure illustrates linkage with the lipocalin superfamily. Preliminary studies in goats indicated that milk yield can be influenced by polymorphism in genes coding for whey proteins. The aim of this study is to identify and evaluate the incidence of functional polymorphisms in the exonic and intronic portions of β-LG gene in native Saudi goat breeds (Ardi, Habsi, and Harri). Blood samples were collected from 300 animals (100 for each breed) and genomic DNA was extracted using QIAamp DNA extraction Kit. A fragment of the β-LG gene from exon 7 to 3’ flanking region was amplified with pairs of specific primers. Subsequent digestion with Sac II restriction endonuclease revealed two alleles (A and B) and three different banding patterns or genotypes i.e. AA, AB and BB. The statistical analysis showed that β-LG AA genotype had higher milk yield than β-LG AB and β-LG BB genotypes. Nucleotide sequencing of the selected β-LG fragments was done and submitted to GenBank NCBI (Accession No. KJ544248, KJ588275, KJ588276, KJ783455, KJ783456 and KJ874959). Two already established SNPs in exon 7 (+4601 and +4603) and one fresh SNP in the 3’ UTR region were detected in the β-LG fragments with designated AA genotype. The polymorphisms in exon 7 did not produce any amino acid change. Phylogenetic analysis on the basis of nucleotide sequences of native Saudi goats indicated evolutional similarity with the GenBank reference sequences of goat, Bubalus bubalis and Bos taurus.

Keywords: β-Lactoglobulin, Saudi goats, PCR-RFLP, functional polymorphism, nucleotide sequencing, phylogenetic analysis

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Authors: Zayed Alsulami, Asma Aldosseri, Ahmed Ezziden, Abdulrahman Alonazi

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Children are more susceptible to medication errors than adults. Medication administration process is the last stage in the medication treatment process and most of the errors detected in this stage. Little research has been undertaken about medication errors in children in the Middle East countries. This study was aimed to evaluate how the paediatric nurses adhere to the medication administration policy and also to identify any medication preparation and administration errors or any risk factors. An observational, prospective study of medication administration process from when the nurses preparing patient medication until administration stage (May to August 2014) was conducted in Saudi Arabia. Twelve paediatric nurses serving 90 paediatric patients were observed. 456 drug administered doses were evaluated. Adherence rate was variable in 7 steps out of 16 steps. Patient allergy information, dose calculation, drug expiry date were the steps in medication administration with lowest adherence rates. 63 medication preparation and administration errors were identified with error rate 13.8% of medication administrations. No potentially life-threating errors were witnessed. Few logistic and administrative factors were reported. The results showed that the medication administration policy and procedure need an urgent revision to be more sensible for nurses in practice. Nurses’ knowledge and skills regarding the medication administration process should be improved.

Keywords: medication sasfety, paediatric, medication errors, paediatric ward

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Authors: Phoenix W. Y. Lam

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As one of the most important service-oriented industries in contemporary society, tourism has increasingly seen the influence of the Internet on all aspects of travelling. Travellers nowadays habitually research online before making travel-related decisions. One platform on which such research is conducted is destination forums. The emergence of such online destination forums in the last decade has allowed tourists to share their travel experiences quickly and easily with a large number of online users around the world. As such, these destination forums also provide invaluable data for tourism bodies to better understand travellers’ views on their destinations. Collecting posts from the Hong Kong travel forum on the world’s largest travel website TripAdvisor®, the present study identifies the top questions asked by TripAdvisor users about Hong Kong through a corpus-based discourse analytic approach. Based on questions posted on the forum and their associated meta-data gathered in a one-year period, the study examines the top questions asked by travellers around the world to identify the key geographical locations in which users have shown the greatest interest in the city. Questions raised by travellers from different geographical locations are also compared to see if traveller communities by location vary in terms of their areas of interest. This analysis involves the study of key words and concordance of frequently-occurring items and a close reading of representative examples in context. Findings from the present study show that travellers who asked the most questions about Hong Kong are from North America and Asia, and that travellers from different locations have different concerns and interests, which are clearly reflected in the language of the questions asked on the travel forum. These findings can therefore provide tourism organisations with useful information about the key markets that should be targeted for promotional purposes, and can also allow such organisations to design advertising campaigns which better address the specific needs of such markets. The present study thus demonstrates the value of applying linguistic knowledge and methodologies to the domain of tourism to address practical issues.

Keywords: corpus, hong kong, online travel forum, tourism, TripAdvisor

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Authors: Marianys Fernandez

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Gastronomic experiences generate a positive impact on the dynamization of the economy when they are managed in a sustainable manner, given that they value the identity of the destination, strengthen cooperation between stakeholders in the sector, contribute to the preservation of gastronomic heritage, and encourage the implementation of competitive and sustainable public policies. Having as its main aim the analysis of sustainable management of gastronomic experiences, this study analyses different elements associated with the promotion of the local economy. For this purpose, a systematic literature review was carried out to identify, select, synthesise, and evaluate the studies that respond to the research objectives in order to select more reliable articles for research and reduce the potential for bias within the review of literature. To obtain reliable, updated and relevant sources for scientific research, the Web of Science and Scopus databases were used, taking into account the following key words: (1) experiential tourism, (2) gastronomy experience, (3) sustainable destination management, (4) sustainable gastronomy, (5) sustainable economy, in which we obtained a final list of 76 articles. The analysis of the literature allowed us to identify the most pertinent elements referring to the objective of the study: (a) need for competitive policies in the gastronomic sector to promote sustainable local economic development, (b) incentive for cooperation between stakeholders in the gastronomic sector, to guarantee the competitiveness of the destination, (c) propose sustainable standards in the gastronomic tourism sector that link the local economy. Gastronomic experiences constitute a dynamic element of the local economy and promote sustainable tourism. We can highlight that sustainability is a mechanism for the preservation of regional identity in the gastronomic sector through the valuation of the attributes of gastronomy, promotion of the local economy, strengthening of strategic alliances between the stakeholders of the gastronomic sector and its relevant contribution to the competitiveness of the destination. The theoretical implications of the study are focused on suggesting planning, management, and policy criteria to promote the sustainable management of gastronomic experiences in order to promote the local economy. In the practical context, research integrates different approaches, tools, and methods to encourage the active participation of local actors in the promotion of the local economy through the sustainable management of gastronomic tourism.

Keywords: experiential tourism, gastronomy experience, sustainable destination management, sustainable economy, sustainable gastronomy

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Authors: K. Malak, A. Nourah, S.Liyakathunisa

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Nowadays, healthcare services are facing many challenges since they are becoming more complex and more needed. Every detail of a patient’s interactions with health care providers is maintained in Electronic Health Records (ECR) and Healthcare information systems (HIS). However, most of the existing systems are often focused on documenting what happens in manual health care process, rather than providing the highest quality patient care. Healthcare business processes and stakeholders can no longer rely on manual processes, to provide better patient care and efficient utilization of resources, Healthcare processes must be automated wherever it is possible. In this research, a detail survey and analysis is performed on the existing health care systems in Saudi Arabia, and an automated smart medical healthcare business process model is proposed. The business process management methods and rules are followed in discovering, collecting information, analysis, redesign, implementation and performance improvement analysis in terms of time and cost. From the simulation results, it is evident that our proposed smart medical records system can improve the quality of the service by reducing the time and cost and increasing efficiency

Keywords: business process management, electronic health records, efficiency, cost, time

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Authors: Sultan Ayoub Meo

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Environmental pollution is a highly challenging global concern of the 21st century and is a major cause of various communicable and non-communicable diseases. We investigate the impact of air pollution on "lung function, fractional exhaled nitric oxide, and cognitive function"in a group of one hundred young students studying in a traffic-polluted school. The students wereselected based on their age, gender, height, weight, and ethnicity. After the clinical history, one hundred students were recruited from the schoolnear and away from the polluted areas. The lung and cognitive functions were recorded. The results revealed that lung and cognitive function parameters were reduced in groups of students studying in a school located in a traffic-polluted area compared to thosestudying in a schoolsituated away from the traffic-polluted area. Environmental pollution impairs students' lung and cognitive functions studying in schools located within traffic-polluted areas. The health officials and policymakers establish strategies to minimize environmental pollution and its allied health hazards. Prof. Sultan Ayoub Meo, MD, Ph.D Professor, Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia Email. [email protected] / [email protected]

Keywords: environmental pOllution, lung physiology, cognitive functions, air pollution

Procedia PDF Downloads 118