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This study examines country of origin (CO) and brand effects on consumers’ quality perceptions, attitudes, and purchase intentions with respect to a service‐industry product: international cruise‐line packages in Singapore. Star Cruise (Malaysia) and Royal Caribbean Lines (USA) were selected as the brands and countries for the study. Respondents provided quality, attitude and purchase intention ratings. Contrary to prior evidence, CO does appear to be an important informational cue for consumers of services; CO effects were found to be stronger than brand effects for quality and attitude ratings, while brand was more significantly correlated with purchase intentions. A positive CO image compensated for a weak brand, suggesting that, where applicable, marketing efforts should emphasize an association with a positive CO perception. Conversely, a strong brand was not found to compensate for a negative CO perception; in this case, it would be appropriate to change the associated CO to one with a more positive image, as at least one major cruise line has already done.

Against the background of the popularity of social media and heritage tourism, this study aims to focus on world heritage sites, proposing a method to examine and compare the digital spatial footprints left by tourists using geographic information systems.

By analyzing user-generated content from social media, this research explores how digital data shapes the destination image of WHS and the spatial relationships between the components of this destination image. Drawing on the cognitive-affective model (CAM), it investigates through an analysis of integrated data with more than 20,000 reviews and 2,000 photos.

The creativity of this research lies in the creation of a comprehensive method that combines text and image analytics with machine learning and GIS to examine spatial relationships within the CAM framework in a visual manner.

The results reveal tourists' perceptions, emotions, and attitudes towards George Town and Malacca in Malaysia, highlighting several key cognitive impressions, such as history, museums, churches, sea, and food, as well as the primary emotions expressed. Their distributions and relationships are also illustrated on maps.

Tourism practitioners, government officials, and residents can gain valuable insights from this study. The proposed methodology provides a valuable reference for future tourism studies and help to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage for other heritage destinations.

This chapter proposes to understand the prospects of smart technologies that can transform tourism destinations and instigate regenerative development process. Bio-based resource consumption and technology-driven practices aimed for better sustainable development have been the need of the era. This study emphasizes the theory of regenerative tourism, which attempts to preserve and improve a destination's natural and cultural resources while contributing to the socio-economic development of the host communities. It examines how transformational technologies, like smart infrastructure, big data analytics and renewable energy systems, could assist the tourism industry achieve the transition to a green economy. This chapter illustrates the benefits and problems of integrating such technologies into the tourism infrastructure of a destination. Additionally, it highlights the necessity of cooperation among stakeholders and policymakers and examines the possible environmental, social and economic implications of using a regenerative approach to tourism. The results of this study contribute to the expanding body of knowledge on the development of sustainable tourism and shed light on the transformative potential of technology in creating a more sustainable and resilient future.

The potential for the adoption of a knowledge management system (KMS) is becoming a crucial matter in small and medium enterprises (SMEs); however, there is a scarcity of studies related to KMS adoption in SMEs. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to advance further our understanding of the factors that influence the KMS adoption process among SMEs.

The collected sample size was 247 respondents. For statistical analysis, Smart partial least square (PLS) (a structural model-based tool) was used to build, run and validate the process model. PLS regression techniques were used to analyze the latent constructs. Smart PLS exhibits both the measurement model and the structural model.

The results indicate that knowledge management capabilities, knowledge sharing, organizational learning capabilities and IT capabilities are the significant factors which influence KMS adoption. This study also identifies some unexpected results.

The number of responses obtained from the survey was rather small. However, a larger number of responses would probably have resulted in a more accurate finding. Additionally, this study should be verified via a larger sample to increase its generalization.

The result of this study will provide SMEs with valuable guidelines to better understand what factors should be considered as highly important and thus providing decision makers and managers with valuable insights to increase the adoption level of KMSs.

The study addresses the research gap by developing and empirically validating a research model of KMS adoption from a different perspective that incorporates critical issues which have never been simultaneously examined.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

This paper aims to find a suitable solution to degrade the C.I. Reactive Red 24 (RR24) dyeing wastewater by using sodium persulphate to recycle water and inorganic salts.

The effects of temperature, the concentration of inorganic salts and Na₂CO₃ and the initial pH value on the degradation of RR24 were studied. Furthermore, the relationship between free radicals and RR24 degradation effect was investigated. Microscopic routes and mechanisms of dye degradation were further confirmed by testing the degradation karyoplasmic ratio of the product. The feasibility of the one-bath cyclic dyeing in the recycled dyeing wastewater was confirmed through the properties of dye utilization and color parameters.

The appropriate conditions were 0.3 g/L of sodium persulphate and treatment at 95°C for 30 min, which resulted in a decolorization rate of 98.4% for the dyeing wastewater. Acidic conditions are conducive to rapid degradation of dyes, while ·OH or SO₄⁻· have a destructive effect on dyes under alkaline conditions. In the early stage of degradation, ·OH played a major role in the degradation of dyes. For sustainable cyclic dyeing of RR24, inorganic salts were reused in this dyeing process and dye uptake increased with the times of cycles. After the fixation, some Na₂CO₃ may be converted to other salts, thereby increasing the dye uptake in subsequent cyclic staining. However, it has little impact on the dye exhaustion rate and color parameters of dyed fabrics.

The recommended technology not only reduces the quantity of dyeing wastewater but also enables the recycling of inorganic salts and water, which meets the requirements of sustainable development and clean production.