Search results for: dental tourism.

Authors: Mohammed Gamil Montasser, Angelo Battaglia

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Entrepreneurship is mostly related to the beginning of organization. In growing business organizations, entrepreneurship expands its conceptualization. It reveals itself through new business creation in the active organization, through renewal, change, innovation, creation and development of current organization, through breaking and changing of established rules inside or outside the organization and becomes more flexible, adaptive and competitive, also improving effectiveness of organization activity. Therefore, the topic of entrepreneurship, relates the creation of firms to personal / individual characteristics of the entrepreneurs and their social context. This paper is an empirical study, which aims to address these two gaps in the literature. For this endeavor, we use the latest available data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project. This data set is widely regarded as a unique source of information about entrepreneurial activity, as well as the aspirations and attitudes of individuals across a wide number of countries and territories worldwide. This paper tries to contribute to fill this gap, by exploring the key drivers of innovative entrepreneurship in the tourism sector. Our findings are consistent with the existing literature in terms of the individual characteristics of entrepreneurs, but quite surprisingly we find an inverted U-shape relation between human development and innovative entrepreneurship in tourism sector. It has been revealed that tourism entrepreneurs are less likely to have innovative products, compared with entrepreneurs in medium developed countries.

Keywords: GEM, human development, innovative entrepreneurship, occupational choice, tourism business, U-shape relation.

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Authors: R. A. Shahmiri, O. C. Standard, J. N. Hart, C. C. Sorrell

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The ceramic yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystal (Y-TZP) has been used as a dental biomaterial for several decades. The strength and toughness of this material can be accounted for by its toughening mechanisms, which include transformation toughening, crack deflection, zone shielding, contact shielding, and crack bridging. Prevention of crack propagation is of critical importance in high-fatigue situations, such as those encountered in mastication and para-function. However, the poor translucence of Y-TZP in polycrystalline form is such that it may not meet the aesthetic requirements due to its white/grey appearance. To improve the optical properties of Y-TZP, more detailed study of the optical properties is required; in particular, precise evaluation of the refractive index, absorption coefficient, and scattering coefficient are necessary. The measurement of the optical parameters has been based on the assumption that light scattered from biological media is isotropically distributed over all angles. In fact, the optical behavior of real biological materials depends on the angular scattering of light due to the anisotropic nature of the materials. The purpose of the present work is to evaluate the optical properties (including color, opacity/translucence, scattering, and fluorescence) of zirconia dental ceramics and their control through modification of the chemical composition, phase composition, and surface microstructure.

Keywords: Optical properties, opacity/translucence, scattering, fluorescence, chemical composition, phase composition, surface microstructure.

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Authors: Maral Mohamadi Zanjani

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In recent decade's tourism industry is one of main reasons of the social and economical development for many countries; so these countries try to gain more portion of it for themselves. The excessive natural and cultural touristy potentialities in Iran made this country to be one of the most attractive sightseeing areas, although; Iran has got the lowest rate of tourists. Khark Island is about 32 km. It is a beautiful coral reef coast; about 98% of oil export has been done through this place. The ecotourism potentialities of Khark and Kharko Islands (about 3.7km far from Khark) are the reason to consider ecotourism and the main activity in these islands which is exporting oil at the same time. This article refers to way of measuring the geographical coordination of the place, and the potentialities, ecotourism attraction of the islands and introduces some ideas in order to expand tourism in the islands.

Keywords: Ecotourism, expansion, tourism, attraction, dominant function, Khark and Kharko Islands

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Authors: Salma I. Dwidar, Amal A. Abdelsattar

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Alexandria city is one of the greatest cities in the world. It confronted different civilizations throughout the ages due to its special geographical location and climate which left many archaeological areas of great heritage (Ptolemaic, Greek, Romanian, especially sunken monuments, Coptic, Islamic, and finally, the Modern). Also, Alexandria city contains areas with different patterns of urban planning, both Hellenistic and compacted planning which merited the diversity in planning. Despite the magnitude of this city, which contains all the elements of tourism, the city was not included in the tourism map of Egypt properly comparing with similar cities in Egypt. This paper discusses the importance of heritage areas in Alexandria and the relationship between heritage areas and modern buildings. It highlights the absence of a methodology to deal with heritage areas as touristic areas. Also, the paper aims to develop multiple touristic routes to visit archaeological areas and other sights of significance in Alexandria. The research methodology is divided into two main frameworks. The first framework is a historical study of the urban development of Alexandria and the most important remaining monuments throughout the ages, as well as an analytical study of sunken monuments and their importance in increasing the rate of tourism. Moreover, it covers a study of the importance of the Library of Alexandria and its effect on the international focus of the city. The second framework focuses on the proposal of some tourism routes to visit the heritage areas, archaeological monuments, sunken monuments and the sights of Alexandria. The study concludes with the proposal of three tourism routes. The first route, which is the longest one, passes by all the famous monuments of the city as well as its modern sights. The second route passes through the heritage areas, sunken monuments, and Library of Alexandria. The third route includes the sunken monuments and Library of Alexandria. These three tourism routes will ensures the touristic development of the city which leads to the economic growth of the city and the country.

Keywords: Archeological buildings, heritage buildings, heritage tourism, planning of Islamic cities.

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Authors: Yanqi Yang, Chongshan Liao, Cheuk Hin Ho, Susan Bridges

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Aim: To investigate students’ perceptions of using e-models in an inquiry-based curriculum. Approach: 52 second-year dental students completed a pre- and post-test questionnaire relating to their perceptions of e-models and their use in inquiry-based learning. The pre-test occurred prior to any learning with e-models. The follow-up survey was conducted after one year's experience of using e-models. Results: There was no significant difference between the two sets of questionnaires regarding students’ perceptions of the usefulness of e-models and their willingness to use e-models in future inquiry-based learning. Most students preferred using both plaster models and e-models in tandem. Conclusion: Students did not change their attitude towards e-models and most of them agreed or were neutral that e-models are useful in inquiry-based learning. Whilst recognizing the utility of 3D models for learning, students' preference for combining these with solid models has implications for the development of haptic sensibility in an operative discipline.

Keywords: E-models, inquiry-based curriculum, education.

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Authors: Y. R. Li, Y. Y. Wang

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After allowing direct flights from Mainland China to Taiwan, Chinese tourists increased according to Tourism Bureaustatistics. There are from 0.19 to 2 million tourists from 2008 to 2011. Mainland China has become the main source of Taiwan developing tourism industry. Taiwanese government should know more about comments from Chinese tourists to Taiwan in order toproperly market Taiwan tourism and enhance the overall quality of tourism. In order to understand Chinese visitors’ comments, this study adopts content analysis to analyze electronic word-of-mouth on Web. This study collects 375 blog articles of Chinese tourists from Ctrip.com as a database during 2009 to 2011. Through the qualitative data analysis the traveling destination imagesis divided into seven dimensions, such as senic spots, shopping, food and beverages, accommodations, transportation, festivals and recreation activities. Finally, this study proposes some practical managerial implication to know both positive and negative images of the seven dimensions from Chinese tourists, providing marketing strategies and suggestions to traveling agency industry.

Keywords: Destination Image, Content Analysis, Electronic Word-of-Mouth.

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Authors: A.Gandomkar, F. Khorasanizadeh

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Tourism is a phenomenon respected by the human communities since a long time ago. It has been evoloving continually based on a variety of social and economic needs and with respect to increasingly development of communication and considerable increase of tourist-s number and resulted exchange income has attained much out come such as employment for the communities. or the purpose of tourism development in this zone suitable times and locations need to be specified in the zone for the tourist-s attendance. One of the most important needs of the tourists is the knowledge of climate conditions and suitable times for sightseeing. In this survey, the climate trend condition has been identified for attending the tourists in Isfahan province using the modified tourism climate index (TCI) as well as SPSS, GIS, excel, surfer softwares. This index evoluates systematically the climate conditions for tourism affairs and activities using the monthly maximum mean parameters of daily temperature, daily mean temperature, minimum relative humidity, daily mean relative humidity, precipitation (mm), total sunny hours, wind speed and dust. The results obtaind using kendal-s correlation test show that the months January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December are significant and have an increasing trend that indicates the best condition for attending the tourists. S, P, T mean , T max and dust are estimated from 1976-2005 and do kendal-s correlation test again to see which parameter has been effective. Based on the test, we also observed on the effective parameters that the rate of dust in February, March, April, May, June, July, August, October and November is decreasing and precipitation in September and January is increasing and also the radiation rate in May and August is increasing that indicate a better condition of convenience. Maximum temperature in June is also decreasing. Isfahan province has two spring and fall peaks and the best places for tourism are in the north and western areas.

Keywords: Climate, Tourism, Correlation Test, Tourism Climate Index, Isfahan Province

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Authors: Nikou Javadi, Uğur Dağlı

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The importance of culture and tourism in the attractiveness and competitiveness of the countries is central, and many regions are evidencing their cultural assets, tangible and intangible, as a means to create comparative advantages in tourism and produce a distinctive place in response to the pressures of globalization. Culture and tourism are interlinked because of their obvious combination and growth potential. Cultural tourism is a crucial global tourism market with fast growing. Regions can develop significant relations between culture and tourism to increase their attractiveness as places to visit, live and invest, increasing their competitiveness. Accordingly, having new and creative approach to historical areas as cultural value-based destinations can improve their conditions to promote tourism. Furthermore, in 21st century, media become the most important factor affecting the development of urban cities, including public places. As a result of the digital revolution, re-imaging and re-linkage public places by media are essential to create more interactions between public spaces and users, interaction media display, and urban screens, one of the most important defined media. This interaction can transform the urban space from being neglected to be more interactive space with users, especially the pedestrians. The paper focuses on The Walled City of Famagusta. As many other historic quarters elsewhere in the world, is in a process, of decay and deterioration, and its functionally distinctive areas are severely threatened by physical, functional, locational, and image obsolescence at varying degrees. So the focus on the future development of this area through tourism promotion can be an appropriate decision for the monument enhancement of the spatial quality in Walled City of Famagusta. In this paper, it is aimed to identify the effects of these new digital factors to transform public spaces especially in historic urban areas to promote creative tourism. Accordingly, two different analysis methods are used as well as a theoretical review. The first is case study on site and the second is Close ended questionnaire, test many concepts raised in this paper. The physical analysis on site carried out in order to evaluate the walled city restoration for touristic purpose. Besides, theoretical review is done in order to provide background to the subject and cleared Factors to attract tourists.

Keywords: Historical areas, Media Facade, Sustainable tourism, Walled city of Famagusta.

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Authors: Wuttigrai Ngamsirijit, Yodmanee Tepanon

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Transportation is one of the main activities related to creating value for the tourists. Transport management in tourism mainly focuses on managing transfer points and vehicle capacity. However, transport service level must also be ensured as it now relates to tourist-s experiences. This paper emphasizes on the responsiveness as one of key service performance measures. An evaluation framework is developed and illustarted by using the case of small bus service in Pattaya city. It can be seen as a great potential for the city to utilize the small bus transportation in order to meet the needs of more diverse group of passengers and to support the expansion of tourist areas. The framework integrates with service operations management, logistics, and tourism behavior perspectives. The findings from the investigation of existing small bus service are presented and preliminarily validate the usability of the framework.

Keywords: Responsiveness, Demand responsive transportation, Tourism, Logistics

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Authors: L. S. Zavodna, J. Zavodny Pospisil

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The aim of this paper is to identify the factors for sustainability in the accommodation sector. Although sustainability is a current trend in tourism, not many facilities know how to apply the concept in practice. This paper presents a model for the implementation of sustainability in hotels, hostels, campgrounds, or other facilities. First, there are identified sections of each accommodation facility, which can contribute to sustainability. Furthermore, concrete steps are presented to transfer this model into reality.

Keywords: Accommodation sector, model, sustainable tourism, sustainability.

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Authors: A. H. Hendry, H. S. Mogindol

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There is an increasing worldwide demand on the field of interaction with wildlife tourism. Studies pertaining to the service quality within the sphere of interaction with wildlife tourism are plentiful. However, studies on service quality in wildlife attractions, especially on semi-captured wildlife tourism are still limited. The Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre (SORC) in Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia is one good example of a semi-captured wildlife attraction and a renowned attraction in Sabah. This study presents a gap analysis by measuring the perception and expectation of service quality at SORC through the use of a modified SERVQUAL, referred to as WILSERV. A survey questionnaire was devised and administered to 190 visitors who visited SORC. The study revealed that all the means of the six dimensions for perceived perceptions were lower than the expectations. The highest gap was from the dimension of reliability (-0.21), followed by tangible (-0.17), responsiveness (-0.11), assurance, (-0.11), empathy (-0.11) and wild-tangible (-0.05). Similarly, the study also showed that all six dimensions for perceived perceptions means were lower than the expectations for both local and foreign visitors.

Keywords: Gap analysis, service quality, WILSERV, wildlife tourism.

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Authors: Veruska C. Dutra, Mary L. G. S. Senna, Afonso R. Aquino

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Tourists bring many benefits to a local community, encouraging it to be involved in that activity; however, it may also have detrimental effects like garbage, noise, violence, external culture and the damaging of the natural environment among others, which may promote community dissatisfaction. The contact between the tourist and the local community is a concern, especially when the community is located near protected areas. In this case, the community must know the tourist destination well, so it can collaborate in the tourism development without harming the environment. In this context, the present article aims to demonstrate the results of a research study conducted as part of a doctorate program in Sciences from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. It had as an objective to elaborate a methodology proposal to measure the local community satisfaction indicator, with applicability on a case study in the Mateiros community located in the surrounding area of the Parque Estadual do Jalapão –PEJ conservation unit in the state of Tocantins, Brazil. This is a study of an interdisciplinary nature that had the deductive method as its guide. The indicator result is going to be presented in this study. It pointed out as negative factors: there is no involvement between the local community and the tourism sector, and there is also dissatisfaction with regard to the town’s basic services. The study showed as positive the local community knowledge about the various attractions in the surrounding area and that the group recognizes the importance of the tourism for the town and life. Concerning the methodology that was used, the results showed that it can collaborate in seeking actions of improvement and involvement of the community in the planning and development of the local tourism. It comes out as an efficient analysis tool, thus enabling the perceiving of the local community point of view.

Keywords: Satisfaction indicator, tourism, community, Jalapão.

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Authors: Chanpen Meenakorn

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This research aims to study; (1) behavior of the tourists affecting the satisfaction level of tourism at the Amphawa floating market in Samut Songkhram province, (2) to study the satisfaction level of tourism at the Amphawa floating market. The research method will use quantitative research; data was collected by questionnaires distributed to the tourist who visits the Amphawa floating market for 480 samples. Data was analyzed by SPSS software to process descriptive statistic including frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and inferential statistic is t-test, F-test, and chi-square. The results showed that the behavior of tourists had known tourist attractions in the province comes from the mouth of relatives and friends suggested that he come here before and the reasons to visit is to want to pay homage to the various temples for the frequency to visit travel an average of 2-4 times and  the satisfaction of the tourists in the province found that the satisfaction level of tourists in the province at the significant level of the place, convenient  and services have a high level of satisfaction.

Keywords: Amphawa floating market behavior of the tourists, satisfaction level, sustainable tourism, Samut Songkhram province.

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Authors: Abdolvahab Ehsani Rad, Mohd Shafry Mohd Rahim, Alireza Norouzi

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Medical image analysis is one of the great effects of computer image processing. There are several processes to analysis the medical images which the segmentation process is one of the challenging and most important step. In this paper the segmentation method proposed in order to segment the dental radiograph images. Thresholding method has been applied to simplify the images and to morphologically open binary image technique performed to eliminate the unnecessary regions on images. Furthermore, horizontal and vertical integral projection techniques used to extract the each individual tooth from radiograph images. Segmentation process has been done by applying the level set method on each extracted images. Nevertheless, the experiments results by 90% accuracy demonstrate that proposed method achieves high accuracy and promising result.

Keywords: Integral production, level set method, morphological operation, segmentation.

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Authors: Ali Salehipour

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Studying literature theme in the fields of tourism and sustainable development and its importance in today world and their criteria in architecture, here in this article we will also study the area where the selected site is located; beside the Aab-Ask Village located in Larijan region in Mazandaran province on the way to Haraz – one of the tourism routes of Iran. After these studies by analyzing the site, its strong potentials – such as mineral water springs (hot springs), geothermal, landscapes and ideal climate - as a tourist attraction spot in the region, and considering sustainable development criteria – with regard to limits and available facilities – a plan was offered that could change the region to provide the needs of local people and in addition change it to a place where tourism services is offered to the visitors and make it an acceptable sample of stable building in Iran. Finally the reason to make design for this complex is recovery of natural and historical values of Aab-Ask area regarding development and sustainable architecture criteria in the form of a functional sample which can be a suitable place to fulfill this goal for having lots of strong points in attracting cultural and sustainable tourist.

Keywords: Sustainable Architecture, Tourist Complex, Development, Landscape Preservation, Culture

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Authors: Rocío Abascal-Mena, Erick López-Ornelas

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We present the results of a case study aiming to assess the reflection of the tourism community in the Web and its usability to propose new ways to communicate visually. The wealth of information contained in the Web and the clear facilities to communicate personals points of view makes of the social web a new space of exploration. In this way, social web allow the sharing of information between communities with similar interests. However, the tourism community remains unexplored as is the case of the information covered in travel stories. Along the Web, we find multiples sites allowing the users to communicate their experiences and personal points of view of a particular place of the world. This cultural heritage is found in multiple documents, usually very little supplemented with photos, so they are difficult to explore due to the lack of visual information. This paper explores the possibility of analyzing travel stories to display them visually on maps and generate new knowledge such as patterns of travel routes. This way, travel narratives published in electronic formats can be very important especially to the tourism community because of the great amount of knowledge that can be extracted. Our approach is based on the use of a Geoparsing Web Service to extract geographic coordinates from travel narratives in order to draw the geo-positions and link the documents into a map image.

Keywords: Social web, tourism community, visual communication, travel stories, geo references.

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Authors: Hosni, N., Shinozaki, M.

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Cameron Highlands is known for upland tourism area with vast natural wealth, mountainous landscape endowed with rich diverse species as well as people traditions and cultures. With these various resources, CH possesses an interesting visual and panorama that can be offered to the tourist. However this benefit may not be utilized without obtaining the understanding of existing landscape structure and visual. Given a limited data, this paper attempts to classify landscape visual of Cameron Highlands using land use and contour data. Visual points of view were determined from the given tourist attraction points in the CH Local Plan 2003-2015. The result shows landscape visual and structure categories offered in the study area. The result can be used for further analysis to determine the best alternative tourist trails for tourism planning and decision making using readily available data.

Keywords: Visibility, landscape visual, urban planning, GIS

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Authors: João Paulo Teixeira, Paula Odete Fernandes

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The authors have been developing several models based on artificial neural networks, linear regression models, Box- Jenkins methodology and ARIMA models to predict the time series of tourism. The time series consist in the “Monthly Number of Guest Nights in the Hotels" of one region. Several comparisons between the different type models have been experimented as well as the features used at the entrance of the models. The Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models have always had their performance at the top of the best models. Usually the feed-forward architecture was used due to their huge application and results. In this paper the author made a comparison between different architectures of the ANNs using simply the same input. Therefore, the traditional feed-forward architecture, the cascade forwards, a recurrent Elman architecture and a radial based architecture were discussed and compared based on the task of predicting the mentioned time series.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network Architectures, time series forecast, tourism.

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Authors: Wen-Chieh, Hsieh

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The purpose of this study is to analyze the islands tourist travel information sources, as well as for the satisfaction of the tourist destination services. This study used questionnaires to the island of Taiwan to the Penghu Islands to engage in tourism activities tourist adopt the designated convenience sampling method, a total of 889 valid questionnaires were collected. After statistical analysis, this study found that: 1. tourists to the Penghu Islands travel information source for “friends and family came to Penghu". 2. Tourists feel the service of the outlying islands of Penghu, the highest feelings of “friendly local residents". 3. There are different demographic variables affect the tourist travel information source and service satisfaction. Based on the findings of this study not only for Penghu's tourism industry with the unit in charge of the proposed operating and suggestions for future research to other researchers.

Keywords: Island tourism, destination, travel information, service satisfaction.

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Authors: Joanna K. Konstantinou

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The aim of this study is to explore the need of small and medium-sized businesses in tourism and hospitality industry to adopt technology and enhance their degree of digitalization, along with the main benefits enjoyed by technology and the main challenges that hinder its adoption. Within a hermeneutic phenomenological perspective, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three hotel owners and the focus was to identify the main reasons of adoption of technology, enablers and barriers. The findings were grouped with the goal of identifying typology of business practices in using and adopting technology.

Keywords: Digitalization, hospitality, SME, Interpretative Phenomenology.

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Authors: Nino Abesadze, Marine Mindorashvili, Nino Paresashvili

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At present actual tourism indicators cannot be calculated in Georgia, making it impossible to perform their quantitative analysis. Therefore, the study conducted by us is highly important from a theoretical as well as practical standpoint. The main purpose of the article is to make complex statistical analysis of tourist expenses of foreign visitors and to calculate statistical attractiveness indices of the tourism potential of Georgia. During the research, the method involving random and proportional selection has been applied. Computer software SPSS was used to compute statistical data for corresponding analysis. Corresponding methodology of tourism statistics was implemented according to international standards. Important information was collected and grouped from major Georgian airports, and a representative population of foreign visitors and a rule of selection of respondents were determined. The results show a trend of growth in tourist numbers and the share of tourists from post-soviet countries are constantly increasing. The level of satisfaction with tourist facilities and quality of service has improved, but still we have a problem of disparity between the service quality and the prices. The design of tourist expenses of foreign visitors is diverse; competitiveness of tourist products of Georgian tourist companies is higher. Attractiveness of popular cities of Georgia has increased by 43%.

Keywords: Tourist, expenses, indexes, statistics, analysis.

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Authors: Veruska C. Dutra, Mary L. G. S. Senna, Felipe S. Spindler

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The State Park Jalapão - PEJ proved to be one of the protected areas that has attracted tourists from all over the world with its unique scenic landscapes. Although the region already has a considerable tourist flow, to our knowledge there is a lack of continuity of studies in the region capable of drawing a plan of activities, such as the profile of the tourist and analysis of their experiences in the region, carried out from 2006-2007. Therefore, this study was proposed to know the profile and experiences of tourists visiting the park today, making a connection with the earlier study, in order to generate subsidies to trace improvement actions. We conducted interviews with tourists in the main tourism season 2015. The results show that after eight years of carrying out the first study, there were no changes, highlighting the lack of a tourism plan for the park.

Keywords: Jalapão, profile tourist, level of satisfaction.

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Authors: Luan Mavriqi, Ilma Robo, Emin Kuzimi, Egresa Baca

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The process of skeletal growth in an adolescent significantly affects the displacement of implants placed in the palatine suture. The problems caused by this process have an impact on the dental function and aesthetics of the affected data. If fixed prostheses are placed based on implants, the whole structure would impede maxillary growth. This is the significant difference between the maxilla and the mandible, as the lower jaw has no growth process that affects the movement of the implants or the latter to inhibit the growth of the jaw. In a teenager patient an accident occurred accompanied by loss of maxillary central incisors. The main complaint of patients is aesthetics and phonetics. Dental history of patients refers to the presence of a Maryland bridge that was accompanied by dissatisfaction on the part of the patient. Implant placement is not indicated as jaw augmentation may lead to displacement of the implant. The treatment plan includes the placement of implants in the palatum where this bone thickness allows as a procedure.in this article only the first stage of treatment is presented. Implant treatment is ongoing, will be followed by the second phase of treatment when the patient has reached the age of 18 years.

Keywords: Implants, palatum, adolescent, primary incisor teeth.

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Authors: Miguel José Oliveira, Fátima Farinha, Elisa M. J. da Silva, Rui Lança, Manuel Duarte Pinheiro, Cátia Miguel

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The Observatory of Sustainability of the Algarve Region for Tourism (OBSERVE) will be a valuable tool to assess the sustainability of this region. The OBSERVE tool is designed to provide data and maintain an up-to-date, consistent set of indicators defined to describe the region on the environmental, sociocultural, economic and institutional domains. This ongoing two-year project has the active participation of the Algarve’s stakeholders, since they were consulted and asked to participate in the discussion for the indicators proposal. The environmental and sociocultural indicators chosen must indicate the characteristics of the region and should be in alignment with other global systems used to monitor the sustainability. This paper presents a review of sustainability indicators systems that support the first proposal for the environmental and sociocultural indicators. Others constraints are discussed, namely the existing data and the data available in digital platforms in a format suitable for automatic importation to the platform of OBSERVE. It is intended that OBSERVE will be a valuable tool to assess the sustainability of the region of Algarve.

Keywords: Sustainability, observatory, environmental indicators, sociocultural indicators, development, tourism, Algarve.

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Authors: Nélio Veiga, Paula Ferreira, Tiago Correia, Maria J. Correia, Carlos Pereira, Odete Amaral, Ilídio J. Correia

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Introduction: The application of fissure sealants is considered to be an important primary prevention method used in dental medicine. However, the formation of microleakage gaps between tooth enamel and the fissure sealant applied is one of the most common reasons of dental caries development in teeth with fissure sealants. The association between various dental biomaterials may limit the major disadvantages and limitations of biomaterials functioning in a complementary manner. The present study consists in the incorporation of a cariostatic agent – silver diamine fluoride (SDF) – in a resin-based fissure sealant followed by the study of release kinetics by spectrophotometry analysis of the association between both biomaterials and assessment of the inhibitory effect on the growth of the reference bacterial strain Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) in an in vitro study. Materials and Methods: An experimental in vitro study was designed consisting in the entrapment of SDF (Cariestop^® 12% and 30%) into a commercially available fissure sealant (Fissurit^®), by photopolymerization and photocrosslinking. The same sealant, without SDF was used as a negative control. The effect of the sealants on the growth of S. mutans was determined by the presence of bacterial inhibitory halos in the cultures at the end of the incubation period. In order to confirm the absence of bacteria in the surface of the materials, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) characterization was performed. Also, to analyze the release profile of SDF along time, spectrophotometry technique was applied. Results: The obtained results indicate that the association of SDF to a resin-based fissure sealant may be able to increase the inhibition of S. mutans growth. However, no SDF release was noticed during the in vitro release studies and no statistical significant difference was verified when comparing the inhibitory halo sizes obtained for test and control group.  Conclusions: In this study, the entrapment of SDF in the resin-based fissure sealant did not potentiate the antibacterial effect of the fissure sealant or avoid the immediate development of dental caries. The development of more laboratorial research and, afterwards, long-term clinical data are necessary in order to verify if this association between these biomaterials is effective and can be considered for being used in oral health management. Also, other methodologies for associating cariostatic agents and sealant should be addressed.

Keywords: Biomaterial, fissure sealant, primary prevention, silver diamine fluoride, S. mutans.

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Authors: Mohammad Tipu Sultan, Farzana Sharmin, Ke Xue

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Social media create a better opportunity for travelers to search for travel information, select destination and share their personal experiences of the travel. This study proposes a framework which describes the relationships between social media, and positive or negative tourism experience sharing impact on destination choice. To find out new trends of travelers behavioral intention, we propose an extended theoretical model, the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). We conducted a survey to analyze three external factors, subjective norms, and positive and negative experience influence on travel destination choice. Structural questionnaire analysis was employed to confirm the proposed research hypothesis within the relationship between consumer influences on the shared experience of social media. The results of the study confirm that sharing positive experiences influence the positive effect of destination choice, while negative experiences decrease the destination selection option. The results indicate that attitudes, subjective norms are passively influenced by shared experience. Moreover, we find that sharing live pictures of travel experiences through social media helps to reduce negative perceptions of the destination brand. This research contribution is useable to the research field as a new determination factor and the findings could be used by destination organization management (DMO) to enhancing their tourism promotion through social media.

Keywords: Destination choice, tourism experience sharing, Theory of Reasoned Action, social media.

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Authors: Ekrem Erdem, Can Tansel Tugcu

Abstract:

Improved resource efficiency of production is a key requirement for sustainable growth, worldwide. In this regards, by considering the energy and tourism as the extra inputs to the classical Coub-Douglas production function, this study aims at investigating the efficiency changes in the North African countries. To this end, the study uses panel data for the period 1995-2010 and adopts the Malmquist index based on the data envelopment analysis. Results show that tourism increases technical and scale efficiencies, while it decreases technological and total factor productivity changes. On the other hand, when the production function is augmented by the energy input; technical efficiency change decreases, while the technological change, scale efficiency change and total factor productivity change increase. Thus, in order to satisfy the needs for sustainable growth, North African governments should take some measures for increasing the contribution that the tourism makes to economic growth and some others for efficient use of resources in the energy sector.

Keywords: Data envelopment analysis, Economic efficiency, North African countries, Sustainable growth.

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Authors: Wanida Suwunniponth

Abstract:

The objectives of this research paper were to study the expectation and satisfaction of tourists in five tourism service quality dimensions, namely, website quality, service ability, trust ability, customer empathy, and responsiveness to customer and also to study the influences of satisfaction affecting loyalty toward quality service of the online tourism enterprises located in Bangkok Thailand. This research utilized both quantitative and qualitative research methods. In terms of quantitative method, a questionnaire was used as a tool to collect data from 400 tourists who were using in online travel services. Statistics analysis included descriptive statistics, t-test and Multiple Regression Analysis. In terms of qualitative analysis, an in-depth interview and content analysis were used along with 10 individual management levels of e-commerce enterprises.

The results revealed that the respondents had higher expectations than their level of satisfaction in all five categories. However, the respondents were more satisfied with online travel services than without online service. The demographic factors such as gender and age had no influence on the level of satisfaction whereas the demographic factors of education, occupation, and income had influenced the level of satisfaction. The test results also indicated that the level of satisfaction from responsiveness to customer had the highest influence on the loyalty of tourists who used online travel. The level of satisfaction from customer empathy had the highest influence on the tourists to recommend others to use online travel services. Also, the level of satisfaction from service ability had the highest influence on tourists to take an actual trip.

Keywords: Satisfaction, Loyalty, Service Quality, Online Tourism Enterprises.

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Authors: M. S. R. Waas, S. G. U. S. Chandrarathne, U. A. Kumara

Abstract:

The purpose of this quantitative study is to identify the impact of the destination attributes of Negombo on the coastal tourists’ visitor experience. As an island nation, Sri Lanka is identified and well renowned for its gold sandy beaches and natural scenic beauty. Among many tourist attractions, Negombo is identified as a developed beach centric tourist destination in the country. Yet, it is identified that there are low positive reviews on the internet for Negombo compared to other beach centric tourist attractions in Sri Lanka. Therefore, this study would help the policymakers and tourism service providers to identify the impact of destination attributes on international visitor satisfaction and to understand the visitors comprehensively so as to develop Negombo as a stable tourist destination while offering a memorable and satisfying experience for its visitors. In support, a self-administered questionnaire survey study was performed with 150 respondents (international tourists) in Negombo. The questions were designed based on the selected dimensions of destination attributes such as tourism service quality, infrastructure and superstructure developments, tourist information facilities and destination aesthetics and developments. The results showed that the overall satisfaction level of the international tourists who visit Sri Lanka is significantly affected by the destination attributes of Negombo. Yet, the dimensions of destination aesthetics and developments and tourist information facilities indicated a low level of mean satisfaction, paving the critique that Negombo as a beach centric tourist attraction is not serving well with its natural beauty and its destination management. Further, it is advocated that the policymakers and tourism service providers have a significant role in leading the way to attract more potential visitors to enhance their destination satisfaction and to encourage them to revisit Sri Lanka while recommending it to others. The survey was done during the off-peak season of the industry and it is suggested that the survey would have been conducted throughout a complete year.

Keywords: Destination attributes, coastal tourism, tourism development, tourist satisfaction.

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Authors: A. Pensiri, K. Nantaporn, P. Parichut

Abstract:

Tourism is very important to the economy of many countries due to the large contribution in the areas of employment and income generation. However, the rapid growth of tourism can also be considered as one of the major uses of water user, and therefore also have a significant and detrimental impact on the environment. Guest behavior in water usage can be used to manage water in hotels for sustainable water resources management. This research presents a study of hotel guest water usage behavior at two hotels, namely Hotel A (located in Kathu district) and Hotel B (located in Muang district) in Phuket Province, Thailand, as case studies. Primary and secondary data were collected from the hotel manager through interview and questionnaires. The water flow rate was measured in-situ from each water supply device in the standard room type at each hotel, including hand washing faucets, bathroom faucets, shower and toilet flush. For the interview, the majority of respondents (n = 204 for Hotel A and n = 244 for Hotel B) were aged between 21 years and 30 years (53% for Hotel A and 65% for Hotel B) and the majority were foreign (78% in Hotel A, and 92% in Hotel B) from American, France and Austria for purposes of tourism (63% in Hotel A, and 55% in Hotel B). The data showed that water consumption ranged from 188 litres to 507 liters, and 383 litres to 415 litres per overnight guest in Hotel A and Hotel B (n = 244), respectively. These figures exceed the water efficiency benchmark set for Tropical regions by the International Tourism Partnership (ITP). It is recommended that guest water saving initiatives should be implemented at hotels. Moreover, the results showed that guests have high satisfaction for the hotels, the front office service reveal the top rates of average score of 4.35 in Hotel A and 4.20 in Hotel B, respectively, while the luxury decoration and room cleanliness exhibited the second satisfaction scored by the guests in Hotel A and B, respectively. On the basis of this information, the findings can be very useful to improve customer service satisfaction and pay attention to this particular aspect for better hotel management.

Keywords: Hotel, tourism, Phuket, water usage.

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