Introduction Hyper Inflation Has Plagued Most Of The Worlds Developin

Introduction Hyper inflation has plagued most of the world's developing countries over the past decades. Countries in the industrialised world, too, have at times duelled with dangerously high inflation rates in the post WWII era. With varying degrees of success, all have employed great efforts to bring their inflation rates within acceptable limits. Generally, a moderate rate of inflation has been the ultimate goal. More recently, however, a few countries have pursued policies that strive to eradicate inflation altogether through complete price stability. This has proven to be a contentious enterprise, which clearly indicates that there is still no universally accepted solution to the inflation problem. Indeed, there is not even an agreed consensus regarding the source of inflation itself. The monetarist perception that the root of inflation is solely the excessive creation of money remains. So too does the belief that inflation originates in the labour market. And amongst a variety of others, the opinion that inflation "serves the critical social purpose of resolving incompatible demands by different groups" is also strong. This last, and more widely accepted, case shows that the problem is hardly a technical one; but rather a political one. It highlights the now unquestionable fact that politics and inflation are inextricably linked. And as with all inherently political issues, consensus is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. But, political characteristics do provide flexibility. In some countries, high rates of inflation have clearly been compatible with rapid economic growth and fast rising standards of living. In such cases, it is quite reasonable to suggest that higher rates of inflation are acceptable--perhaps even necessary. In this setting, it is by no means clear that pursing a policy to stop moderate inflation is either required, or in the best interests of the mass of the population at all. While inflation guarantees that some will gain at th e expense of others, the redistributions of income and wealth which do take place can, on normal value grounds, be quite desirable. In other circumstances, it may be quite desirable to place strict controls on inflation, or strive to keep it at ?zero' level. Policies aimed at virtual price stability have been in use by central banks in Europe, New Zealand, and Canada over the past few years. Such policies have been particularly focused in Canada. As noted by Pierre Fortin, "the only objective the Bank of Canada has pursued since 1989 has been to establish and maintain the inflation rate at ?zero level', which it sees as a CPI inflation rate that is clearly below two percent" (italic added). To the surprise of many, it has been incredibly successful, achieving its objective several years before schedule. Although separated by only a few percentage points, Canada's policy is a sharp contrast to the moderate and balanced approach used in the U.S. "Since 1989 the Federal Reserve has bee n satisfied with achieving an inflation rate of around 3 percent. In setting the interest rate, it has continued to pay explicit attention to real economic growth and employment, with the result that the U.S. unemployment rate is currently in the 5 to 6 percent range." Based on this statistic alone, it can be argued that the more moderate U.S. approach has enjoyed greater success than the deflation oriented policy pursued by the Bank of Canada: Canada continues to be burdened with a higher rate of unemployment. Yet, it continues to believe that the unemployment costs of low inflation are ?transitory and small' . The directors of most European Central Banks also continue to support this dogma. Clearly, the credibility of the "classical idea that the Phillips trade off between inflation and unemployment disappears in the long run" is still very high throughout the world. But, in Canada, as in most of Europe, the waiting continues. This is not to suggest that the waiting game has been silent and entirely pleasant. Indeed, the relative lack (or lag!) of success of zero inflation policies and strict price controls has spurred much heated debate. As a case in point, more people are curious why Canada has exclusively focused on inflation cutting and turned a blind eye to the more balanced, and arguably more successful, approach adopted by the

A Journey To The Center Of The Earth Essays - English-language Films

A Journey to the Center of the Earth In the novel, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, author Jules Verne tells the fictitious story of three men and their adventures as they descend into the depths of the earth. The leading character in this expedition is a fifty-year-old German professor named Hardwigg. He is an uncle to the narrator, Henry (Harry), a simple Englishman. The other man is Hans, a serene Icelandic guide. Professor Hardwigg finds a piece of parchment that written in Runic in a book. Harry finds out before his uncle that it says there is a way to get into the center of the earth through a mountain (Mt. Sneffels) in Iceland. Harry is reluctant to tell his uncle the message because he is afraid his uncle will actually want to visit the center of the earth. He was right because the professor wanted to explore as soon as possible. They head off to Iceland, and, along the way, receive Hans as their guide. The journey to the mountain itself takes a while. They reach the entrance to the center, and from there, they head inside. Once in the dark labyrinths, they descend (this goes on for days). The three men then face difficulties: thirst, light, getting lost, injuries, and fatigue, were among them. They make many discoveries. They find that theres a sea, with fish and sea monsters. They find forests, giant mushrooms, animals that look like dinosaurs, and even what seems to be giant human beings. The idea of writing this story came from a scientist who explored the crater of a certain mountain. Verne got the idea that maybe it would be possible to descend even further into the earth. Many of Vernes fantasy stories have come true in the years following his death in the year 1905. A Journey to the Center of the Earth is farthest from reality. Even with the technology we have today, it would be impossible for one to descend into the earth. For one thing, we know now that the earth cant be hollow because of extreme pressures and temperatures. People became interested in Vernes stories during his time because though they were unrealistic, they were too interesting and entertaining to pass up. Some people even believed he had traveled to the many places that he wrote of. While checking into a hotel once, the woman told him to rest well in the room because he must be tired from his many adventures. She probably thought this because Verne uses facts of science so well the story can seem as if it were actually the real thing. Vernes writings about submarines, space travel, helicopters were prophecies of the future. It is a mystery how he came up with such ideas for wonderfully told adventures. Verne grew up when steam engines were changing the world. He was the first writer to proclaim that scientific discovery could prompt remarkable stories. I found A Journey to the Center of the Earth thoughtful and mind-boggling at the same time. The discoveries they find are truly unbelievable: Sea monsters, a sea, giants, forests and giant mushrooms. These are surely non-existent because nothing like them could live in such circumstances. The characters in this story must have also been extremely strong and determined, since theyre able to live for so long underground in darkness (somewhat). The beginning of the story is quite slow; they take a long time to start descending into the earth. Once you get into the story, its quite easy to find yourself in the midst of the channels of granite. A Journey to the Center of the Earth is a wonderfully well written book. The very idea of a person being able to travel into the earth is remarkable in itself. To put seas and creatures into the story is exceptional. Jules Verne is such a great writer, he makes this adventure seem as if it actually happened; as if it werent just some fantasy, but an undeniable existence.

Characteristics of Okwonko in Things Fall Apart

Characteristics of Okwonko in Things Fall Apart This essay aims to reveal the significance of Okwonko, the central character in Chinua Achebe’s, Things Fall Apart. It exposes the characteristics of Okwonko, the village hero by how he relates with his family, friends and community. In addition, it traces his love for his community, passion for war and violence. Finally, it displays his hopelessness when his community accepts the British.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Characteristics of Okwonko in Things Fall Apart specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In his most acclaimed book, Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe depicts Okwonko as a hero. The story is set in colonial Africa under the rule of British imperialists in Nigeria. Okwonko is man who believes in African values and customs, but he has a big ego. He treats his mates and family (Nwoye) arrogantly and shamefully. Okwonko thinks he should be the leader of his community. He also feels Africans should not imi tate white man’s traditions and customs. In addition, Okwonko thinks women are supposed to be slaves to men as revealed in the way he treats them violently. When finally his community embraces the ways of the white man, Okwonko commits suicide to show his hopelessness. In behaving this way, Okwonko is proving his manhood in a society that does not respect women. He also calls his mates ‘women’. It reveals that he is a boastful man who does not value his friends. Okwonko is also obsessed with war and violence. This is revealed the way he picks quarrels with his friends and challenges them for a fight. He also beats up his wives and children (Nwoye) whenever they have done wrong. On the other hand, Okwonko is a community defender. This is by sticking to the African customs and traditions. Finally, in killing himself, Okwonko reveals the despair that engulfed most communities when the colonialists succeeded in corrupting the minds of Africans. Okwonko depicts many African characteristics in his behavior. First, his passionate defense of his community reveals Africans had their own ways of living. They had their methods of schooling and entertainments in the form of village duels where Okwonko became a hero by beating his rival. Second, the way he treats his wives without respect and decorum show Africans who looked down upon women. Their roles were only to cook and sire children. Third, by treating his friends arrogantly, Okwonko displays a community that believed in manhood. A man had to stand up to be counted. Lastly, on taking his own life, he becomes the voice of hopeless Africans who detested the imperialists. Generally, Okwonko is a symbol of uncolonised Africa.Advertising Looking for essay on literature languages? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Okwonko does all these to make an African point. First, when he bullies his wives and sons in the homestead, he reveals to th e white man that, in Africa, a man is the head of the family. Second, when he calls his mates ‘women’ and challenges them for war, Okwonko proves to his community heroism and strength is the epitome of a village warrior. Okwonko is ready to defend his community at all costs. Third, his hatred for British colonizers and adoration for African values e.g. their own governance, education and entertainments, the village hero confirms to the white man the superiority of Africa. Finally, in committing suicide, Okwonko demonstrates to his community a terrible hopelessness of accepting the British values and customs. In conclusion, Chinua Achebe aims at revealing Africa that had it forms of education, governance and entertainments before coming of the British. Through Okwonko, the writer reveals the village fights, the family traditions and the challenges of Africa. Heroism of Okwonko is the courage of Africa during the colonial period. In addition, his destruction is the hopele ssness and despair Africa felt under British colonization.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome essays

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome essays Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is a series of mental and physical birth defects The manifestations of these defects are associated with a mothers ingestion of alcohol during pregnancy. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome annually affects between 1.3 and 2.2 children per 1,000 live births in North America. Researchers estimate that cases of Alcohol-Related Birth Defects (ARBD) exceed those of FAS by a ratio of 2:1 to 3:1. This would indicate that women in the U.S. annually give birth to between 16,548 and 22,064 children exhibiting the effects of prenatal exposure to alcohol. Alcohol use or abuse by the pregnant woman subjects her to the same range of risks that alcohol does in the general population. However, it poses extreme and unique risks to the fetus and is associated with FAS. Timing of alcohol use during pregnancy is also of importance. Alcohol use during the second trimester is more damaging than use in the third trimester. Alcohol ingested by a pregnant woman easily passes across the placental barrier to the fetus. Because of this, drinking alcohol can adversely affect the development of the baby. Research of the Effects of parental exposure to alcohol. Research on the extent and effects of prenatal exposure to alcohol is sometimes contradictory. It is done much the same way as any other medical research conducted under non-experimental conditions. It is sometimes difficult to find appropriate candidates for study. Most hospitals lack protocols for identifying pregnant women who use alcohol and/or other drugs; in addition, such protocols have limited use because people often do not admit such behavior. Toxicology assessments can result in false positives or fail to reveal alcohol or other drug uses because those substances have metabolized. Researchers frequently fail to base their prevalence estimates on samples representative of the general population. Researchers often have trouble establishing a matched control group...

Over-education in the graduate labour market Literature review

Over-education in the graduate labour market - Literature review Example The UK economy has increased the number of graduates in the labour force in the past two decades. In the UK, six in every ten individuals is a graduate. More people have refused to settle for the school exams such as GCSEs or A-levels by going a step further to get graduate level education. Among the European Union countries, the UK has the highest number of adults who have graduate-level qualifications (Zhang, 2007). Despite the financial crisis, investment in higher education in the UK is still high. The share of graduates has grown by 10 per cent, but the prevalence of overeducated graduates has remained stable at 30 percent (McGuiness, 2006). More women and the youth from minority groups have pursued higher education in recent years. These two groups have seen a better presentation in the graduate group than the workforce. Studies also show that graduates expect to get graduate level jobs three years or later after graduation and has settled for the idea to build a foundation for their careers (Zhang, 2007, p.46). In other studies, it is right to say that higher education may not be recognising the potential of non-traditional students. Only traditional students have higher degree classifications, higher satisfaction ratings in terms of experience and better outcome in the workforce. Graduates stand greater chances of attaining employment than non-graduates. They also stand a better position to hold management level jobs than the latter. Research also shows non-graduates between the ages of 21 and 30 have the highest rate of unemployment (Walter & Zhu, 2007). With time, graduate’s wages increase annually unlike that of non-graduates. Nonetheless, there are some jobs that are non-graduate, which require graduate skills from a degree. Most employers are focusing on skills and quality than knowledge. It is common practice, therefore, for graduates to take up a non-graduate job or voluntary work to add to their CV. According to research, approximately

Governance for Environmental Sustainability - Policy Analysis Essay

Governance for Environmental Sustainability - Policy Analysis - Essay Example The document provides an analysis of the background, aims and objectives of the NAP. It also addresses the implication beyond NAP areas in the consumption/market and health sector. Finally, the government’s accountability in development, implementation and evaluation, how much people are informed on the policy, and policy’s outcome. Keywords: National Agricultural Policy, Indian Government, Agricultural Sustainability, Food Security, Environmental Safety, Resources, Growth rate, Diversification, Farmers, Consumers, GMOs, Production, Bio-technologies, Food Prices, Initiatives, and Credit Institutions, Prior to the introduction of the policy in India, the country had experienced various agrarian reforms since the 80s. When the green revolution period set in agricultural production improved due to the technological breakthrough. This brought diversification in agricultural activities, influenced investment, change in economic policies and growth in output. However, the impact was not the same in regions of dry lands in India. In fact, such parts had not realized the benefits of technological breakthrough, meaning the policies and reforms that existed failed to serve equally the entire country. The Indian government tried to implement policies that sought to change the situation in the dry lands, but instead brought more confusion and challenges/opportunities for the agricultural sector. Chand states there was strong pressure for the Indian government to develop a formal agricultural plan to direct the sector in new and emerging sectors; this yielded the new agricultural policy of 2 000 intended to guide the sector for the next two decades (n.d.). It is a broad policy focused on addressing the challenges in Indian agriculture, one of which is sustainable agriculture and practices that affects environmental concerns. India has high population of people, second after China, which makes the government work on maintaining food security

The global automobile industry - an analysis of General Motors Case Study

The global automobile industry - an analysis of General Motors - Case Study Example General Motors has survived major economic whirlwinds that have rocked the United States and the global automobile industry. However, the company has had its fair share of challenges, some of which have threatened is very existence. Despite the good financial statistics that General Motors Corporation has posted over the years, it is worth noting that the company has faced a number of challenges, considering the dynamic nature of the automobile industry (Fear, 2004). However, the company has not attained its optimal performance because of two separate incidents of bankruptcy claims. In addition, General Motors has had to repossess most of its cars in the United States after widespread claims of faulty ignition systems. Both of these factors have affected the financial performance of GMC tremendously. Besides, General Motors faces stiff competition from a number of automobile companies with huge market shares in the United States. General Motors survived bankruptcy in 2009 after receiving help from the federal government. In essence, General Motors was on the verge of collapsing because it had closed Saturn, Hummer, and Pontiac brands. This move came at a time when General Motors had already closed its Saab brand, which was a Swedish brand. GM’s shareholders felt the hitch because they could not access the assets of the firm in some countries, especially in Europe and Asia. General Motors had a new positive twist in 2010 because it reverted to its old symbol on the New York Stock Exchange (Smolinsky, 2011). During the same year, GM traded its shares in the Toronto Stock Exchange. The company performed well throughout the year at the New York Stock Exchange after an initial public offering (IPO) of $23 billion at $33per share. The filing of bankruptcy by General Motors took the country a step back by a total of $ billion that was used to bail out the company. Indeed, GM’s bankruptcy affected the U.S. economy in a negative way because the

Nursing Theories Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Nursing Theories - Essay Example Nurses use both theories in their studies because no theory has been established supreme over the other. They have similarities but differ in major aspects as well. Therefore, the theories can be used interchangeably, depending on the individual clients. It is their vivid contrast that allows them to be used in different scenarios. In the care for college students who abuse drugs, Orem’s theory takes the lead in treating such patients. This is outlined in the evaluation of her theory, which promotes an advanced care for individuals who cannot make intelligent decisions owing to their lack of proper judgment. Orem’s theory states that one strives to take care of him or herself. Therefore, one would do activities that lead to safety (Orem, 2001). However, when one is incapable of doing so, then they should seek for assistance. At such a point, one is considered to be self care deficient. This is when nurses can offer their services to such an individual. The nurses work with the patient in order to restore them to a position they can be self-reliant. In order to illustrate her theory better, Dorothy has redefined the core components in nursing. She describes a person as one who can take care of oneself and one who is dependent on self. She defines health as the state of total wholeness which enables one to carry out self-care without assistance. The third aspect, environment refers to the external surroundings of a person. She is mostly vague on this issue. Finally, she defines nursing as the services offered to the unhealthy because they are not in a position to care for self. Nur ses are required to establish the capacity for one to act as a healthy individual. If they can determine that one has failed to carry out such a task then it lies upon the nurse to give care to such persons (Jaarsma et al, 1990). King focuses on the end result of nursing. She states that a nurse should formulate goals with a patient on their treatment.

Enviroment issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Enviroment issues - Essay Example Exhaust gasses that are emitted from factories and transportations can affect human health and life negatively. When these pollutant gasses are dispatched in the air sphere and inhaled by humans, the conditions sprout. When human beings inhale these pollutant gases, dire consequences arise, more so in the lungs. Gas pollution has also been known to result from smoking of cigarettes. Another environmental issue is water pollution. Waste plants that are produced by factories and the oil spills from industrial ships can cause water pollution. Indeed, the water becomes dirty and dangerous for human consumption. Water pollution can also arise from people littering the beach environments through such indecent behaviors as throwing trash in the water. Lastly, in this paper, there is noise pollution. Noise pollution can be caused by transportation systems. It is easily noticed in big and crowded cities such as New York, Los Angles and California. Human health is mainly affected by noise as it can cause stress, lack of sleep, headaches amongst other health related issues. Â   This paper has classified the pollution into three types; air, water, and noise. The issue of pollution is pertinent in the world, as it tends to pull people away from an ideal environment. In order to reduce the noise, air and water pollution the government needs to create laws for factories and different type of transportation systems. A good example is forcing them to put refinery on the exhaust products in factories and vehicle transmission systems. In addition, the government should create laws for factories, industrial ships and people that forbid them from throwing trash or polluting the water. Contravening of these laws by any of these groups should result in serious consequences. Â   I believe that the people can play an effective role in improving and protecting the environment. In fact, people can grow trees and plants in their backyards, especially

The Clean Air Act Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Clean Air Act - Essay Example The researcher states that since the World War II, the US economy has continued to grow. This growth can be attributed to increased manufacturing. The large number of industries in the US was a source of pollutants that continued to degrade the environment. Thus, the need to regulate the amount off pollutants that industries could discharge into the air arose. Efforts that culminated in the modern Clean Air Act (CAA) can be traced to the 1950s. The Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 was signed into law by President Eisenhower. The initial version of the law authorized the United States Surgeon General to provide assistance to the states on how to implement controls. The â€Å"killer smog† in London and New York in the 1960’s created concern about increased air pollution. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) was empowered by the 1963 CAA to act on interstate air pollution. According to Jonathan & Joseph, this act established a national authority that woul d intervene in air pollution which posed a danger to the health of any person. Four years later, President Johnson signed the Air Quality Act of 1967 which was an amendment of the 1963 Act. The 1967 Air Quality Act authorized HEW to set national air quality standards. The Act required states to set ambient air quality standards. These standards were expected to be in line with the criteria set by HEW. Roy notes that the Air Quality Act of 1967 had a shortcoming in that it did not establish enforcement procedures. The Clean Air Act was enacted in 1970. It brought about a shift in the strategy of tackling pollution. The amendments empowered the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish a National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). These standards are meant to protect the public by setting the levels of air quality that must be maintained. The 1970 Amendments created New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) program. NSPS authorized EPA to set standards that wo uld determine technology requirements for new or modified sources of air pollution. The amendments also brought about the regulation of air pollutants and air toxics. These amendments were controversial and brought about challenges to EPA in the implementation of the NAAQs (Jonathan & Joseph 12-14). Little success in achieving the goals of the 1970 Amendments prompted the 1977 amendments to the Clean Air Act. At the time, only few areas of the country had made progress in meeting the applicable NAAQS. Consequently, the amendments extended the time required for compliance. New pollution control criteria were set for areas that could not attain the standards set by the 1970 Amendments. These amendments aimed at defining the standards that industrial technologies would meet in order to control pollution (Roy, 1970). In 1990, Congress revised the Clean Air Act (The 1990 Amendments). These amendments knocked off some elements of the previous act and added new programs. The act strengthen ed the ability of EPA to enforce standards. It required that the air pollution control obligations of an individual pollution source be entrenched in a single permit that expired after five years. The states were allocated a three year period to develop permit programs. These permit programs had to be compliant with EPA standards. In summary, The 1990 Amendments set standards that would see a decrease in Ozone depletion, air toxics and motor vehicle pollution among other areas (Jolish 306). Industry Response to the Clean Air Act The 1990 Amendments forced corporations to create necessary budgetary allocations that would cater for equipment, research and product development. Companies started integrating environmental

Public Health Past And Present Health And Social Care Essay

Public Health Past And Present Health And Social Care Essay Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (WHO, 2006). The concept of health is the main theme and focus of public health. The concept of Public health was defined by the American public health leader, Charles-Edward A. Winslow, in 1920 as, the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical health and efficiency through organized community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, the control of community infections, the education of the individual in principles of personal hygiene, the organization of medical and nursing service for the early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease, and the development of the social machinery which will ensure to every individual in the community a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health (Winslow, 1926) and also adopted as the definition by The Acheson Committee on Public Health in England, which reported in 198 8, at their first meeting which is cited in the Health Second Report of the House of Common (2001). What does this definition tell us about the meaning of public health? It means it is the organised efforts of society, implying some collective responsibility for health and prevention (Beaglehole et al, 2004) Public health is an aspect of health services concerned with threats to the overall health of a community based on population health analysis. It generally includes surveillance and control of infectious disease and promotion of healthy behaviours among members of the community in contrast to medicine which is focus on the overall health of the individual. Public health deals with the population while medicine deals with the individual. The population can be as small as of people who lives in one community or as large as all the people of several continents in the case of a pandemic. As public health become popular to this modern time tensions sometimes arise between medicine and public health. Each discipline has its distinct priorities. Medicine aims at cures for individual diseases and primarily dealing with individuals while public health emphasizes the prevention of disease of the population and health promotion. The Health Second Report of the House of Commons (House of Commons, 2001) mentioned in the paper that Public health, according to the Proprietary Association of Great Britain, is not a term understood by the majority of the public and one of the difficulties with the term public health is that it means different things to different people. In addition according to the report that Public Health can span everything from a medical specialty to a specialty which is an awful lot broader than medicine and to almost a philosophy and Public health can be variously defined so as to cover trends of disease in a population, the provision of preventive and health improving care, or a range of health-impacting factors including or excluding the NHS. According to Brieger (1999) and Kumar (2007) the history of public health has been a flourishing field in the last three decades. Yet despite a spate of excellent monographs about various epidemic diseases and many good collections about health and disease in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, as well as Europe and North America, the most recent textbook on the history of public health is four decade old. George Rosens venerable, A History of Public Health, was first published in 1958. In many ways, public health is largely a modern concept, although it has roots in antiquity and public health impact and influence has waxed and waned over the past 150 years (House of Commons, 2001). Tosh (1984) cited by Womack and Scally (2004) in his book The Pursuit of history wrote, To know about the past is to know that things have not always been as they are now, and by implication that they need not remain the same in the future and according to Carr (1987) cited by Womack and Scally (2004), history offers a dual function, to enable men and women to understand society of the past and to increase the mastery over the society of the present. The importance of the history, knowledge and understanding of the past public health and how it evolved, its success and failures, its highs and lows enable us to increase our understanding of the present. In this paper public health history is revisited to see how past shaped the public health today. Past and Present Throughout the human history, community attempts to prevent and limit the spread of diseases which are the main early historical ideas of public health. Evidence of the existence of the idea of public health can be found in the earliest evidence of communal living and existence of diseases similar to what we have today. Evidences of activities connected with community health were well documented by Rosen et al (1993) in the book A History of Public Health these community health activities have been found in the very earliest civilizations dated as early as four thousand years ago in India, where evidence showed that these early Indian cities where consciously planned in which the bathrooms and drains are common in excavated buildings, the streets were broad, paved and drained by covered sewers. In Middle Kingdom (2100-1700 BC) archaeologist discovered the ruin city of Kahun in Egypt and there is an evidence that care was taken to drain off water by means of masonry gutter in the cent re of the street. During the pre-Christian era, about two thousand years ago, the problem of procuring drinking water supply for larger communities had already been solved. In the book it was mentioned about the impressive engineering works of the Incas. They established well-drained cities that were adequately supplied with water, thus providing a good basis for the health of the community. In Greece, for example, the Cretan-Mycenean culture had large conduits, and in the Palaces, such as that of Konosos on Crete, which dates from the second pre-Christian millennium, there were not only magnificent bathing facilities but also water flushing arrangements for the toilets (Rosen et al, 1993). Kumar (2007) mentioned that Romans believe that ill health could be associated with, amongst other things, bad air, bad water, swamps, sewage, debris and lack of personal cleanliness. In some places, Rome included, it is impossible to avoid all of these unless something is physically done to alte r the environment. The Romans resolved these problems by the provision of clean water through aqueducts, removing the bulk of sewage through the building of sewers and development of a system of public toilets throughout their towns and citys and personal hygiene was encouraged through the building of large public baths. These historical evidences of public health community activities are the source of early information and strategies on the importance of housing and sanitation in public health. Rosen et al, (1993) discussed the concept of cleanliness and it was very evidence during early days. Cleanliness and personal hygiene are to be found among present-days primitive and very unquestionably practiced by pre-historic and early historic men. Primitive people dispose generally their excretions in sanitary way, although their reasons are quite different to the reasons of todays generation. During early days these practices are connected to religious practices. People kept clean to be pure and clean in the eyes of the gods and not for hygienic reason. An interesting example cited by Rosen et al (1993) was the connection between the cleanliness and religion in the Inca feast, Citua. Every year, in September, at the beginning of rainy season which is associated with diseases, the people led by the Inca carried out health ceremony. In addition to prayer all homes were thoroughly cleaned. Religious traditions against eating pork among Hebrews and Muslims reflect the special hazar ds of eating those foods when inadequately preserved or prepared. As often happens in public health, even without an understanding of the underlying etiology, effective preventive measures can be taken. Successes in prevention reinforce the concept that disease can be prevented through human action other than prayers and sacrifices to the gods, which in turn encourages additional attempts at prevention. Other ancient practices which created a great impact in health of our modern time such as those that can be found among the Indian cultures with a well-developed system of health-related practices called Ayurveda (the science of living) that extensively used herbs and yoga (body and breathing exercises) based on three broad parameters, loosely translated as air (vata), bile (pita) and phelgm (kapha). While the exact date of the origins of these practices are unknown, it is variously estimated to have been in existence since before 1000 B.C. It is generally believed that invasive medicines were discouraged within Ayurveda, though some translations of older works suggest that occasional operations were performed on exceptional cases. Ancient Indian cultures also cultivated systems of healing such as Pranic healing (Mishra, 2003). The Ancient Greek would not have been too unfamiliar with some of the health and fitness regimes that are used by people today. The word Regimen was used by t he Greeks to describe peoples lifestyles: from which can be derived the word regimented (as in organised). The Greek philosophy of Regimen covered what people ate, drank, the types and amount of exercise that they took and how much sleep they had. These ideas were very thorough: it demonstrates that the Greeks knew that lifestyle could affect the quality of life, as evidenced by their development and championing of the Olympics. Such is the quality of the remaining evidence that we can even see that doctors advice differed for those who were rich: and could therefore afford to spend time and money on relaxing, and those who worked or were poorer: and therefore couldnt maintain as healthy a lifestyle as possible many of which are still visible in places today (Kumar, 2007). In China, although it is not traditionally known as public health, but health practices were visible already during the early days. The earliest known work on Chinese herbs appeared as early as 100 B.C.E., the acu puncture and moxibution, both of which have been practiced as therapeutic techniques in China for more than 2,000 years, the Qi Gong, as an art of healing and health preservation, dates back to the Tang Yao period, some twenty centuries B.C.E. which is about dancing and body movements, and various ways of breathing, exhalation, and exclamation were recognized as ways to read-just some functions of the human body and treat diseases (Koenig et al, 2001). Public health problems are caused majority by diseases which are transmitted from one person to another. One example is tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was a very common problem all over the world until a good understanding of the disease helped scientists and doctors invent treatments. Less than 100 years ago, many famous people died from the disease, including artists, writers, philosophers, scientists, politicians and even some kings and queens. The history of diseases can be traced as early as the human existence. Paleopathology, the study of ancient diseases using fossils and other artifacts, reveals that early Homo sapiens, who were hunter-gatherers, suffered from essentially the same diseases that afflict people today for example, schistosomiasis, prevalent in Egypt today, has been found in Kidneys 3000 years old (Kloss and David, 2002) and skeletal remains show prehistoric humans (7000 BC) had TB (Hershkovitz et al, 2008), and tubercular decay has been found in the spines of mummi es from 3000-2400 BC (Zink et al, 2003). According to Rosen et al, (1993) the first clear accounts of acute communicable diseases occur in the literature of classical Greece such as the writings of Thucydides and Hippocrates. In Hippocratic collection several known diseases of today were already mentioned such as malarial fevers, colds, pneumonia, inflammation of the eyes, suggestive statements of the presence of cases of diphtheria (although not known yet as diphtheria) and other unknown diseases in those time. In the period of the Western European history from the fall of the West Roman Empire in the 5th to the 15th century is known as the middle ages (Dark ages) religion takes a firm hold on science (Koenig et al, 2001). During this time, the Western Europe experienced a period of social and political disintegration. Large cities disappeared, replaced by small villages surrounding the castles of feudal chiefs. The only unifying force was Christianity, and it was in the monasteries that the learning and culture of the Greco-Roman world was preserved. Furthermore, in many of these institutions, piped water supplies, sanitary sewers, privies, bathing facilities, and heating and ventilation were provided. In addition, some monasteries constructed hospices to shelter travellers and sick persons, though the medical care provided in them was primitive at best. In Eastern Europe and Asia Minor, however, feudalism did not exist, and medicine advanced and became centred in major secular hospitals e stablished in Byzantium, Baghdad, and Cairo (Conrad, 2006). The two most popular epidemics during the Middle Ages were Black Death and leprosy. Due to the specific environmental circumstances of medieval Europe and the religion of medieval people, these two epidemics had great social repercussions In early 1347, a fearful epidemic of bubonic plague broke out in Constantinople. From then on, this great plague would reach Europe and kill approximately from one-fourth to nine-tenths of the human population in the affected areas. Black Death or Plague from a modern medical point of view, it is a pneumonic type of an infection, highly contagious, which could be transmitted via inhalation, ingestion, or even slight abrasion of skin. Usually, lung lesions occur and death may occur from heart failure. The walls of blood vessels are attacked frequently causing haemorrhages and acute blood poisoning. It is fatal in almost all cases (Byrne, 2004). While leprosy spread in every civilized country in Europe during the Middle Ages. The Order of Lazarus was founded, and Lazarettoes built in a great numbers: the work and the purpose of the Order is to segregate and govern the afflicted and dangerous part of humanity. The disease was controlled through segregation and isolation of those who were afflicted of the disease (Rawcliffe, 2006), which is a very important concept of quarantine and isolation for the modern public health. Successes in prevention reinforce the concept that disease can be prevented through human action other than prayers and sacrifices to the gods, which in turn encourages additional attempts at prevention. By the 1600s, the practices of isolation and quarantine had begun to be employed to prevent the spread of certain diseases; by the 1800s these practices had become common in the American colonies. Methods of smallpox inoculation also began to be used and apparently mitigated some epidemics, even before Edward Jenners introduction of a safe vaccine based on cowpox virus (Schoenbach, 2000). In the early modern world, after about 1500, the West grew in wealth and world dominance, but it did not grow healthier. Infections that took a terrible toll on previously isolated societies, so-called virgin populations, became domesticated as world travel increased and urbanization progressed. Diseases that had been epidemic became endemic in urban centres (Brieger, 1999). During this period the development of crowded urban living, created the profoundest health problems. The contradiction between health and wealth of the nation was not lost. The promotion of fertility and personal hygiene education, the policing of sexually and socially transmitted diseases through policies of isolation and treatment and other major public health importance to the public health of modern time emerged during this period (Porter, 1994). In 1848, after studying a typhus epidemic, the German pathologist Rudolf Virchow stated that all epidemics had social causes-most typically poverty, hunger, and poor housing. Virchow believed that improving social conditions would have a positive effect on public health. This important early perspective plays a significant role in todays thinking about public health, especially when there are major health disparities among social classes within an individual society or between rich and poor countries (Open Collections Program, 2008). The period from 1750 until the mid-nineteenth century was characterized by unprecedented industrial, social, and political developments, and the resulting societal impacts were immense, culminating in the Industrial Revolution (Porter, 1994). In the modern public-health advocates emerged in response to the slum and desperate working conditions of nineteenth-century Europe and North America. In centres like New York, London and Berlin the struggle for proper sewerage, decent housing, clean water, factory inspectors, district health officers and a regime of food inspections was born (Remington (chairman), 1988). First major written contribution in the field of public health was in Germany, Between 1779-1816, Johann Peter Frank, a leading clinician, medical educator, and hospital administrator. Franks fame rests on his massive System einer vollstà ¤ndigen medizinischen Polizey (9 vol., 1779-1827; System of a Complete Medical Policy), which covers the hygiene of all stages of a mans life. He undertook to systematize all that was known on public health and to devise detailed codes of hygiene for enactment. He was among the first to urge international regulation of health problems, and he endorsed the notion of medical police, whereby one of the duties of the state was to protect the health of its citizens (Frank, 2008). On the other hand in England 1788, Jeremy Bentham in the hope of making a political career, he settled down to discovering the principles of legislation. The great work on which he had been engaged for many years, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, was published in 1789. In this book he defined the principle of utility as that property in any object whereby it tends to produce pleasure, good or happiness, or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered. Mankind, he said, was governed by two sovereign motives, pain and pleasure; and the principle of utility recognized this state of affairs. The object of all legislation must be the greatest happiness of the greatest number. He deduced from the principle of utility that, since all punishment involves pain and is therefore evil, it ought only to be used so far as it promises to exclude some greater evil.(Bentham, 2008). Through Benthams work Chadwick was influenced to produce his famous work General Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain (1842). As secretary of the royal commission on reform of the poor laws (1834-46), Chadwick was largely responsible for devising the system under whi ch the country was divided into groups of parishes administered by elected boards of guardians, each board with its own medical officer. Later, as commissioner of the Board of Health (1848-54), he conducted a campaign that culminated in passage of the Public Health Act of 1848. This legislation embodied his belief that public health should be administered locally so as to encourage the people to participate in their own protection (Chadwick, 2008). In1854. London was in the middle of an outbreak of cholera. At the time, Europeans did not know what caused cholera. People saw that a lot of people were getting sick and dying, and they ran away to other places hoping they would not get sick too. The discovery owing largely to the work of a mid-nineteenth-century English doctor named John Snow. He watched who was getting sick very carefully. He made a map and put a mark on the map for each person who had got sick and died (Steven, 2006). Cholera is caused by a comma-shaped bacterium-Vibrio cholerae-whose role was identified by the German physician Robert Koch in 1883. By far the most common route of infection is drinking contaminated water. And, since water comes to contain V. cholerae through the excrement of cholera victims, an outbreak of the disease is evidence that people have been drinking each others feces (Steven, 2006). The classic investigations on the transmission of cholera by John Snow in 1854 and other diseases such as typhoid fever by William Budd in 1834, and puerperal fever by Ignaz Semmelweis in 1847 led to understanding and the ability to reduce the spread of major infections and other studies and researches and give rise to the birth of epidemiology (Schoenbach, 2000) which is a very important field in the modern public health. Two major points can be drawn from historical perspective with the 19th century the dramatic advances in the effectiveness of public health  ­ the great sanitary awakening and the advent of bacteriology and the germ theory (Schoenbach, 2000). The rapid advances in the scientific knowledge about causes and prevention of numerous diseases brought tremendous changes in public health. Many major contagious diseases were brought under control through science applied in public health. The identification of bacteria and the development of interventions such as immunization and water purification techniques provided a means of controlling and preventing the spread of diseases (Remington (chairman), 1988).The advance in understanding of infectious disease that constituted the arrival of the bacteriologic era at the end of the century dramatically increased the effectiveness of public health action. In one dramatic example, mosquito control brought the number of yellow fever deaths in Havana from 305 to 6 in a single. Cholera, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis, the great scourges of humanity, rapidly came under control in the industrialized countries (Schoenbach, 2000). However, with the decline in severity of infectious disease came a rise in mental illnesses, drug addictions, chronic diseases, cancer, and injuries and health damage associated with industrial labour and new emergence of infectious diseases associated with lifestyle such as HIV, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and re-emergence of diseases once thought defeated or least controlled like TB and malaria are back and have developed resistance to the drugs. Hospitals are today besieged by new forms of infection such as MRSA and C. dificiles that are resistant to most known antibiotics because of abuse and misuse of antibiotics. The changing demographic profile of the country such as increasing over 65 years population, the financial, health and care cost and provisions, ethnicity, diversity, the natural environment including source of water, types of food, clean air, different philosophies about animal use in research, technological advances such as bio-engineering, genetic engineering and human embryonic technology adds to the challenges of the modern public health. Over the course of history such as the Sanitary movement of the nineteenth century and the development of bacteriology substantially lowered death rates from enteric diseases and other serious health problems still existed (House of Commons). Despite remarkable success in lowering deaths from typhoid, diphtheria, and other contagious diseases, considerable disability continuous to exist in the population. It also became clear that diseases, even for treatment was available, still predominantly affected urban poor (Remington (chairman), 1988). In the Twentieth Century, health, as measured by life expectancy, has improved for the population of Britain to a remarkable extent. Life expectancy in England and Wales has increased from 52 years for men and 55 years for women in 1910, to 74 years and 79 years respectively in 1994. Over the same period infant mortality has fallen from around 105 per thousand to six per thousand. Over the past twenty years, overall mortality rates have continue d to decrease. However, health indicators such as mortality and morbidity rates have not improved at the same rates for everyone, with the result that health gap between the healthiest groups and the least healthy groups has now widened and is widening further (House of Commons, 2001). Health inequalities between develop countries and developing countries still exist at this modern time. Concern about health inequalities and other distributional aspects (disparity) of health status and service use has enjoyed varying degrees of attention over the years. During the 1970s and early 1980s, distributional concerns (i.e. a concern for about the health status of different socio-economic groups within society as distinct from the overall societal average) were dominant in thought about international health. These concerns then receded for about a decade, from around the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, as attention turned from equity to efficiency. Now, the pendulum has begun to swing back, and distributional concerns are on the rise (Gwatkin, 2002). Those who are most vulnerable to evolving health crises tend to be the poor and marginalized who already suffer from numerous inequities and lack of opportunities. Another striking example of the disparity in emerging health issues is found in environmental health. While the industrialized world, representing 15% of the worlds population, consumes more than 60% of world energy, the developing world shoulders the greater health burden from modern environmental hazards. According to the World Health Organization, more than 40% of the total disease burden (in disability adjusted life years lost DALYs) due to urban air pollution occurs in developing countries. Children are especially vulnerable to chemical, physical and biological hazards in their environments because they are in a very active growth stage and the ability of their bodies to detoxify is not fully developed (Global Health Council, 2008). Despite progress over the last decades, health conditions in many developing countries are still unsatisfactory and, in most instances, health outcomes in these economies remain below those attained in the developed countries, with a significant share of the populations suffering from reventable and/or easily treatable diseases. To a large extent, global inequalities in health outcomes eflect the enormous socio-economic disparities that exist between rich and poor countries. Simultaneously, inequalities in health outcomes are prevalent between or among different socio-economic, ethnic, racial, cultural groups in a country: for example, between male and female, between urban and rural populations, between rich and poor groups, the old and the young, etc. (CDP Working Group on Global Public Health, 2009) The world is entering a new era in which, paradoxically, improvements in some health indicators and major reversals in other indicators are occurring simultaneously. Rapid changes in an already complex global health situation are taking place in a context in which the global public-health workforce is unprepared to confront these challenges (Beaglehole et al, 2004). Modern technologies give rise to modern public health problems such as high rates of occupational diseases and industrial injuries led to programs for industrial hygiene and occupational health. Mental health (stress and depression) was identified as a public health issue, and specific nutritional deficiencies were recognized as risk factors for a spectrum of diseases and other health nutritional related diseases such as obesity and malnutrition. The urban development patterns and global trade policies have had a direct impact on the emergence of preventable injuries and tobacco use as major public health threats. In 2000, unintentional injuries (e.g. road traffic injuries and poisoning) and intentional injuries (e.g. interpersonal violence and war) accounted for 9% of the world deaths and 12% of the global burden of disease and according to WHOs Tobacco Free Initiative, tobacco use accounted for 6% of the world deaths in 1990; however, if current use patterns persist, deaths due to tobacco use are expected to increase to 18% by the year 2020 (Global health Council, 2008). Another modern public health issue is the concept of Drug abuse is a major public health problem that impacts society on multiple levels. Directly or indirectly, every community is affected by drug abuse and addiction, as is every family. Drugs take a tremendous toll on our society at many levels (National Institute of Drug Abuse, 2008) and the problem of infectious diseases is another issue of present public health. According to the World Health Organizations 2004 World Health Report, infectious diseases accounted for about 26 percent of the 57 million deaths worldwide in 2002. Collectively, infectious diseases are the second leading cause of death globally, following cardiovascular disease, but among young people (those under the age of 50) infections are overwhelmingly the leading cause of death. In addition, infectious diseases account for nearly 30 percent of all disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), which reflect the number of healthy years lost to illness. Todays infectious diseases can be a newly emerging disease, is a disease that has never been recognized before, such as HIV/AIDS is a newly emerging disease, as is severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Nipah virus encephalitis, and variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease while Re-emerging, or resurging, diseases are those that have been around for decades or centuries, but have come back in a different form or a different location. Examples are West Nile virus in the Western hemisphere, monkeypox in the United States, and dengue rebounding in B razil and other parts of South America and working its way into the Caribbean. Deliberately emerging diseases are those that are intentionally introduced. These are agents of bioterror, the most recent and important example of which is anthrax. Newly emerging, re-emerging, and deliberately emerging diseases are all treated much the same way from a public health and scientific standpoint (Fauci, 2006). Conclusion To tackle the major global health challenges effectively, the practice of public health will need to change. It is not sufficient to focus only on urgent health priorities, for example, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in Africa, or the narrowly focused Millennium Development Goals. Programmes and policies are required that respond to poverty-the basic cause of much of the global burden of disease-prevent the emerging epidemics of non-communicable disease, and address global environmental change, natural, and man-made disasters, and the need for sustainable health development. The justification for action is that health is both an end in itself-a human right-as well as a prerequisite for human development (Beaglehole et al, 2004) and it is important to recognised the potential value of historical research for studying health services and for influencing health care policy. Responsibility for the lack of use of history in formulating policy lies both with policy-makers and historia ns. History can help them realize the constraints they face and help them plan accordingly, a situation well expressed by Antonio Gramsci in the 1920s: man can affect his own development and that of his surroundings only so far as he has a clear view of what the possibilities of action open to him are. To do this he has to understand the historical situation in which he finds himself: and once he does this, then he can play an active part in modifying that situation. historys contribution complements those from other disciplines. It has an additional unique role. It can help policy-makers understand the limitations they inevitably face and, in doing so, can help them maintain realistic expectations. Carefully formulated policies to shape the future are always going

Motivational Theories for Travel and Tourism

Motivational Theories for Travel and Tourism Abstract The purposes of this dissertation are to demonstrate how the motivational theories in travel and tourism can be used as a foundation for research into ceasing participation in organized leisure activities, and to discuss methodological implications that emerge from such an approach. The research problem is the identification of three motivational factors that mostly influence the choice of leisure activity in the Lebanese tourism sector. The dissertation will rely heavily on literature review and primary research that used university students and a focus group of industry professionals in Lebanon. The theoretical background of this study is structured according to Iso-Ahola’s motivational theory. Iso-Ahola’s theory asserts that personal escape, personal seeking, interpersonal escape, and interpersonal seeking motivate tourism and recreation. This dissertation operationalizes and empirically tests Iso-Ahola’s theory for similar tourism and recreation experiences. The motivation dimensions are monitored using scenario-based data for sporting events, beaches, amusement parks, and natural parks. The first investigation used confirmatory factor analysis to explore the efficacy of six competing motivational structures. Three of these competing models achieved superior and similar fit statistics, with one model incorporating the most parsimonious structure. This model gave equal and direct salience to each of the four motivations. The second investigation examined the differences in motivation levels for tourism and recreation experiences. Tourism experiences exhibited higher levels of motivation, particularly for the personal seeking and personal escape dimensions. The third investigation found no relationship between the number of recent domestic and international vacations and tourism motivations among the subjects. Chapter I Introduction This dissertation seeks to explore the rationale for, and difficulties of operationalizing, the measurement of tourists’ satisfaction with their experiences in particular destinations. It suggests that the on-going systematic measurement of satisfaction with destinations is a valuable exercise that will have tangible benefits, but acknowledges the difficulties of doing this in a meaningful manner. The principal argument presented is that the measurement of tourists’ satisfaction with a particular destination involves more than simply measuring the level of satisfaction with the services delivered by individual enterprises. There needs to be a much broader, more encompassing means of measuring satisfaction, one that relates closely to the motivations which tourists have for visiting the destination in the first place. The tourism industry consists of a number of different sectors including the travel, hospitality and visitor services sector. Within each of these sectors there are a number of individual enterprises that provide a range of services to people who are traveling away from their home environment. This travel could be for a variety of reasons including for pleasure, to visit friends and relatives, to work on a short term basis, to attend conferences, to participate in business activities, or any of a number of specific reasons. While the industry distinguishes between the various groups according to their purpose for travel, convention has it that all these short-term travelers are defined as ‘tourists† Likewise, the industry distinguishes between various ‘markets’ according to their place of origin (international, domestic, intra-state, interstate, etc). These distinctions are not relevant to this paper which is concerned with all these forms of tourism. Tourists visit destinations and engage in various activities while there. These destinations can be classified in various ways and at various scales of analysis. For example, Lebanon could be regarded as a destination for international visitors while Beirut could be one for people from northern Lebanon. At a different scale, a city or even a region could be regarded as a destination. This paper is concerned with all these levels. It is not concerned with individual enterprises which exist within certain destinations. As noted below, there appears to be adequate analysis of tourism satisfaction at the individual enterprise level. What is missing is a broader view that looks at the way tourists respond to the totality of their experiences in a particular destination irrespective of the particular activities that they engage in. I am going to provide an explanation of the Lebanese tourism economy because this market is the model that this dissertation uses as the benchmark for testing Iso-Ahola’s motivational theory. I have chosen this country due to its reputation of being the jewel of the Middle East and one of the most desired destinations in the region. The understanding of the characteristics of this market will play a critical role in laying the foundations for the research and would allow to increase the integrity and reliability of this research. Moreover, the market is highly concentrated and the geographic area is small; this aspect would play a paramount role in diminishing sources of error; and in case of their occurrence it would be easier to isolate and rectify. In addition, being my home country; I view studying this market as a personal passion which would allow me to present with a high â€Å"motivational† level. I will start by providing a review of the state of Lebanese tourism and highlight the trends, review precious research findings, and pinpoint the market characteristics. Tourism in the Lebanese Economy Over the last decade the tourism industry has emerged as a significant sector of the Lebanese economy generating approximately $5 billion in income, employing 1 in 9 Lebanese and contributing about $1.5 billion in export earnings. While approximately 55% of tourism activity involves domestic travel, the fastest growing sector is in-bound travel. This has been increasing significantly over the last decade with Lebanon receiving 1.1 million visits in 2004. Despite the recent downturn in the economies of major source countries, and the unstable political landscape visitor arrivals to Lebanon are expected to grow at an average annual rate of between 5.7 and 7.8 per cent to reach between 1.4 and 1.7 million visitors in 2010. Being a relatively new industry characterized by growth, the focus has been on marketing, visitor numbers, and length of stay, expenditure patterns and other measures of consumption. As the industry has begun to mature in the last five or so years; there has been an increasing interest in such things as quality of service, accreditation procedures, and measurement of client satisfaction. The issues discussed in this paper should be seen as part of this maturation process in which the industry is looking to achieve long-term sustainable growth that generates benefits for the industry, the clients and the community as a whole. Methodology of Research Collecting data in marketing research often involves several different strategies, such as interviewing and analyzing documents (Merriam, 1998). Using multiple sources of information is useful in our research since we have doubts that a single source of information will provide a complete and comprehensive understanding of the research problem, so in our research we use multiple sources of information. Basically, there are two forms of data: primary and secondary data. While writing the dissertation, I will use several different sources when collecting data in order to increase the validity of the collected data. Secondary data is the data that has been previously collected and published. The secondary data used in the beginning of our research, originated from various sources. In the preparatory period, we have started by studying literature related to relationship tourism marketing, tourism buying and motivational behavior and motivational marketing concepts in order to get deeper insight into and understanding of the researched area. The other sources used for collection of our secondary data were: newspaper and magazine articles, course materials, on-line sources (Internet databases) and tourism companies’ materials (internal and external). The methodology used for primary research will be depicted at greater length in the third chapter. Current Measurement of Tourist’s Satisfaction Levels Despite the large body of literature available on satisfaction research in general, only a few academic studies have focused directly on customer satisfaction amongst tourists. Of these, an even more limited number have been undertaken in Lebanon. The major studies include Fick and Ritchie (1991), Reisinger and Waryszak (1994), Arnold and Price (1993), Crompton and Love (1995), Geva and Goldman (1991), Maddox (1985) and Ryan (1995). Because of the limited material available in the academic literature, a preliminary survey of organizations that may have investigated tourist satisfaction was undertaken. Given the broad focus of the paper and the limited space, no attempt was made to look at individual tourism enterprises measuring the satisfaction level of clients as part of their on-going quality assurance program. The most common example of this is the questionnaire that is left in individual hotel rooms. These vary from single response questions to sophisticated instruments designed to elicit quite detailed responses from guests. Most of these are diagnostic in the sense that they are aimed at identifying specific measures that can be taken to improve the service. Some specifically enquire about customer’s perceptions of the service’s value for money. In some instances, particularly amongst 5 star hotel chains, these are used for benchmarking or as performance indicators. Because of this decision to exclude individual enterprises, the preliminary survey focused on the following organizations: Academic departments of Lebanese universities State tourist offices Non-government tourist industry organizations and associations The search found a range of studies has been completed most of which are primarily data-gathering research exercises rather than conceptual studies. The prime studies are described in appendix I. It is clear that some work has been done in this area by a smattering of agencies each of which approaches it from a quite different perspective. Despite acknowledgement of the potential value of the data, current efforts are not coordinated resulting in a lack of comparability that makes it impossible to identify trends and monitor changes in a systematic fashion. More importantly, the diversity of approaches demonstrates a need for substantial conceptual work on the nature of tourist satisfaction in general and the measurement of tourist satisfaction with destinations in particular. What is required is further exploration into the application of concepts and ideas drawn from the broader consumer literature to the specific challenge of measuring the satisfaction of tourists with particular destinations. This may require a quite different approach to that adopted for other services. Why measure satisfaction at the level of the destination? There are a number of reasons why it would be appropriate to look at extending the measurement of tourist satisfaction to the more global level of the tourist destination. It is critical to understand the underlying motivational factors in order to be able to get a clearer barometer for the measurement of satisfaction of tourists. Without pre-empting the nature of this measurement, these reasons include: Millions of dollars are spent each year on destination marketing by national and state tourism offices, airlines and regional tourism bodies. This includes detailed surveys of potential markets as well as extensive advertising and promotional campaigns in source countries. While there is considerable research into the impact of the promotional effort through awareness studies, tracking studies, etc, these all concentrate on the inputs (i.e. has the campaign reached its target audience?). What is missing is an understanding of the client’s reaction to the product offering, in particularly whether it meets the needs of the target market. This would become an integral part of the understanding what the market(s) is/are seeking. Peak organizations in the tourism industry recognize the need to encourage both new and repeat business. The latter can best be achieved by ensuring that our current offerings are satisfying the needs, expectations and desires of current tourists and their propensity to recommend the destination to others. The measure could become a barometer of the ‘health’ of the industry for strategic planning purposes. The tourism industry itself is grappling with the issue of service quality and recognizes that this is the key to long term success. At present its focus is on establishing accreditation mechanisms to ensure that individual firms conform to appropriate standards. Monitoring tourists’ satisfaction at the more global level would provide a valuable framework for this and enable comparison between the efforts of the individual enterprise and those of the industry as a whole. Government agencies are now recognizing the value of assessing the success of their programs in terms of outcomes rather than inputs. As Lebanese government agencies move in this direction the need for the systematic collection of the type of data proposed will increase. In the case of tourism, this is particularly relevant to national, state and regional tourism development bodies responsible for destination marketing. Using the level of satisfaction experienced by visitors to their destination as a measure of success would transfer the focus away from the efforts of the organization towards their achievements. Governments of all persuasions are looking critically at their financial commitments and questioning whether they should continue the traditionally high level of support. If the industry can demonstrate a relationship between the level of support and the satisfaction of visitors to their destination then the argument for continued support would be strengthened greatly. This would complement other measures such as visitor numbers, expenditure, etc. With an appropriate measurement instrument it could be possible for individual sectors of the industry to be compared with other sectors. In an industry where the success of the whole depends on the contribution of each part, this information will help to identify those sectors that need to improve. Recent developments in consumer protection have extended into the area of satisfaction. The 1993 European Union Directive on Travel has required member states to implement laws giving tourists the right to obtain compensation from packaged tour operators in the event that they are ‘dissatisfied’ with their holiday. This applies in all destinations, including Lebanon. The results of the proposed survey will help to focus the attention of the industry on this issue and provide data on how the industry is going and what needs to be improved. Perspectives on Measuring Tourists’ Satisfaction with a Destination Measuring tourists’ satisfaction with a destination is conceptually different from measuring satisfaction at the transaction specific level. Moreover, it is contended that while satisfaction at the destination level is influenced by the various transactions that occur at that destination, an individual’s level of satisfaction is influenced by much broader, global factors, some of which are beyond the capacity of the tourism industry to affect. The purpose of this section is to outline some ideas that should be taken into account when developing a method to measure satisfaction at this relatively abstract level. Johnson, Anderson et al., (1995) have distinguished between two different general conceptualizations of satisfaction: transaction-specific satisfaction and cumulative satisfaction. The former is concerned with â€Å"satisfaction as an individual, transaction-specific measure or evaluation of a particular product or service experience† (Johnson, Anderson et al. 1995). Cumulative satisfaction, on the other hand, is â€Å"a cumulative, abstract construct that describes customer’s total consumption experience with a product or service† (Johnson, Anderson et al., 1995). As a customer’s overall evaluation of the purchase or consumption experience, cumulative satisfaction is the most relevant conceptualization when the focus is on the tourist’s evaluation of their overall experience at a destination. This is sometimes referred to as market-level satisfaction. The literature suggests that satisfaction measurement must be treated differently at these two levels of abstraction. Moreover, when considering consumer satisfaction with their consumption experiences, a major distinction has been made between the consumption of goods and services (Lovelock, 1991). Measures of satisfaction are not the same for these different consumption experiences, largely because of the role of the consumer in the service encounter. It could also be argued that tourism is a ‘special’ service in that, like recreation or education, it is largely self-produced (Williams, 1988). The individual plays a central role in determining the experiences achieved and the benefits derived. The ‘special’ nature of tourism can be understood by adopting the behavioral perspective first developed within the recreation and leisure literature. This literature demonstrates the value of perceiving recreation as activity that creates experiences which, in turn, result in benefits for the individual (Driver and Tocher, 1970; Mannel and Iso-Ahola, 1987). This created a focus on the factors which determine the quality of those experiences and the benefits derived. Measurement of satisfaction has therefore involved an assessment of whether the experiences have resulted in the desired benefits sought by the individual. In his seminal paper (Wagar 1966) suggested that the quality of recreation experience depends upon how well desired outcomes are realized. Satisfaction is therefore more a function of the needs and interests of the individual than the attributes and characteristics of the service provided. These ideas have gradually become the basis of the conceptualization of the tourist experience and informed much of the work about tourist motivations and expectations (Crompton and Love, 1995; Ryan, 1995). Therefore tourist experiences can be regarded as the result of an active endeavor by the individual to create a situation in which to achieve satisfaction. It is this active involvement of the individual in the creation of his or her personal experiences that needs to be acknowledged. In a similar vein, the early recreation literature also recognized the implications of this approach for the assessment of recreation service quality. It was recognized that â€Å"the quality of the experiences can be influenced by input factors provided by managers . . . but to a considerable extent the quality of experiences depends upon choices made by recreationists and how they use the many factors of production† (Brown, 1988: 413). In other words, the satisfaction levels experienced by recreationists are recognized as being a function of a number of different variables including those brought by the recreationist him/herself which are beyond the influence of the service provider. Drawing on the consumer literature, it is too easy to assume that the outcomes of the tourist activity are solely the creation of the tourist operators/industry. However, it is perhaps more enlightening to adopt a ‘transactional perspective’ outlined in the recreation literature. Here, the tourist â€Å"actively creates the recreation(tourist) experience, through a transaction with the physical and social setting, including what the recreationist (tourist) brings to the process in terms of history, perceptions, companions, skills, equipment, identities, hopes and dreams† (Williams, 1988). With this perspective, more emphasis is placed on the behavior of the individual and their role in creating the experience. Not all the responsibility for creating high levels of satisfaction rests with the service deliverer. With this in mind, (Crompton and Love, 1995) make a distinction between quality of opportunity and quality of experience. â€Å"Quality of opportunity is defined as qualities of the attributes of a service that are under the control of a supplier. Evaluation is concerned with judgments about the performance of the leisure opportunity supplier. . . . In contrast, quality of experience involves not only the attributes provided by a supplier, but also attributes brought to the opportunity by the visitor or recreationist. . Quality of experience is a psychological outcome or emotional response. . Satisfaction is measured by how well leisure activities are perceived to fulfill the basic needs and motives that stimulated the idea to participate in the activity (Crompton and Love, 1995:12)†. When the objective is to measure satisfaction with a holiday in a particular destination, it will be important to note this distinction and ensure that both aspects are included in the assessment. We have been reasonably good at assessing tourists’ perceptions of the quality of opportunity but largely ignored the question of quality of experience. A further perspective that could be of relevance here is that of Herzberg (1966). While his work mainly focused on the workplace, his theory of motivation has relevance to the expenditure of discretionary time such as going on a holiday. Herzberg (1966) suggests that all aspects of an experience can be classified as either a motivational or a hygienic factor. Motivational factors are those that positively encourage people to do something. For example, a desire to make new friends may motivate people to go on an organized tour rather than travel alone. On the other hand, hygienic factors are those things which would not encourage one to travel, but their absence would discourage such travel. A good example is the availability of clean drinking water. Having this available is unlikely to motivate someone to travel, while its absence could cause someone to not choose a particular destination. According to Roger James Associates (1996) â€Å"the absence of motivational factors does not lead to ‘dissatisfaction’ but rather to ‘unsatisfaction’ a sense of emptiness rather than a sense of anger or disappointment. On the other hand, the absence of a hygienic factor will lead to dissatisfaction. The presence of such a factor will not lead to ‘satisfaction’ but rather to ‘satisficing’, that is, a passive (albeit benign) feeling† (Roger James Associates, 1996 : 34). If we adopt this framework it could be suggested that we have tended to focus on the hygienic factors which are represented by the measurement of how well the services (hotels, airports, travel companies, etc) are provided. These are important because without these being done well, the customer would be very dissatisfied. However, we have not also measured the motivational factors. These are akin to the experience factors how well the destination facilitates the satisfaction of personal needs. The best way of ensuring that we are providing this is to understand the client’s needs, etc and to develop product that is relevant to these. In turn, this is linked to the benefits to be derived from the experience thus creating satisfaction. The work by Arnold and Price (1993) confirms the role that needs and desires play in the consumer’s evaluation of a particular experience. They present very clear evidence that the satisfaction of participants in this recreational (or possibly tourist?) activity is related to the extent to which the experience enhances their individual cultural script and are â€Å"interpreted within the broader narrative context of the consumer’s life† (Arnould and Price, 1993). They suggest that â€Å"satisfaction with river rafting . . . does not seem to be embodied in attributes of the experience such as amounts of time spent freezing in wet clothes, uncomfortable toilet facilities, bad food or any summary index of specific attributes of the trip† (Arnould and Price, 1993). These general thoughts appear to be in line with the fundamentals of the marketing concept most commonly described as â€Å"satisfying the needs and desires of the consumer† (Keith, 1960 :38) and the whole notion of benefit segmentation which suggests that purchases are selected on the basis of the benefits derived by consumers (Haley, 1968). It is also consistent with the recent work of Spreng and his associates which emphasizes the role that desires, as opposed to expectations, plays in determining satisfaction within the disconfirmation framework (Spreng, Mackenzie et al., 1996). Proposed Path Space does not permit an exhaustive examination of the extensive literature outlining the various models used as the basis for measuring customer satisfaction and gauging the behavioral aspects (see Parasuraman, Zeithaml et al., 1994). However, a review of this literature has uncovered a model that could be developed to provide a satisfactory method of evaluating tourists’ satisfaction at the level of the destination and their motivational map. This model has been developed by Iso-Ahola and has become the basis of extensive work at the national and international level. The index provided by the Iso-Ahola model provides a cumulative evaluation of a sector’s market offering coupled with individual evaluation of a specific transaction. Called the ‘Customer Satisfaction Index/Barometer’, it has been introduced in: Sweden, Germany and the United States of America (Fornell, Johnson et al, 1996). Taiwan and New Zealand are also in the process of introducing a similar national satisfaction indicator. While much work still needs to be done, the framework provided by Iso-Ahola model provides a good starting point. It should be possible to make the necessary changes required to produce a useful index that will contribute to the on-going development of this important industry. Chapter II Literature Review It is imperative to start with a review of literature that addressed motivation in the travel and tourism industry. By adopting this approach we will be able to present a much more comprehensive and inclusive approach to understanding the theories of motivation in the travel and tourism industry; and thus, we will be able to lay the foundations of clear parameters that can help scholars and decision makers measure the satisfaction of tourists and the underlying motivational factors. This part of the paper is dedicated to reviewing the literature that currently assesses the main theories of motivation. These theories span across a wide spectrum; therefore we will tackle the various theories of travel motivation in the first part and then we will focus our discussions on Iso-Ahola’s motivational theory. The main theories of travel motivation Knowledge of peoples travel motivations and its association with destination selection plays a critical role in predicting future travel patterns. The essay talks about the various theories propounded by the theorists and analyses their practical benefits for the tourism industry. Tourist motivation can be defined as the global integrating network of biological and cultural forces which gives value and direction to travel choices, behavior and experience. (Pearce, Morrison Rutledge, 1998) as cited by Allan R. Rhodes Espinoza. According to Seaton (1997) motivation is a state of arousal of a drive or need which impels people to activity in pursuit of goals. Once the goals have been achieved the need subsides and the individual returns to the equilibrium-but only briefly because new motives arise as the last one is satisfied. Krippendorf (1987), as cited in Seaton (1997) suggests that the motivation of the individual person to travel, to look outside for what he cannot find inside have been largely created by society and shaped by everyday life. People who live in cities, for example, are motivated to travel as tourists to wilderness areas because they need to escape from an artificial, monotonous environment. (Dann Matley, 1976) as cited in Mansfeld 1992). Grays travel-motivation theory, as noted by Mansfeld (1992), gives us two motives about why people go to natural settings. The first motive is the desire to go from a known to an unknown place, called in Grays theory wanderlust. Secondly, a place which can provide the traveler with specific facilities that do not exist in his or her own place of residence, referred in Grays theory as sun lust (Mansfeld, 1992). It is a common practice to consider traveler or tourist types as potential market segments for travel and tourism marketing (Smith, 1989 as cited in Theobald, 1996).Some of the motives which determine their travel choices are recreation, pleasure, new experiences, cultural interest, shopping. Any reader of literature of tourism motivation cannot help being struck by the similarity in findings by many researchers. The adjectives and categorizations of tourists based upon motivations may differ in number, but recurrent themes emerge. For example the need to escape from everyday surroundings for the purpose of relaxation, and discovering new things, places and people are often alluded to. According to Crompton (1979), as cited in Bello Etzel (1985), the need for relaxation, exploration, social interaction and enhancement of kinship relationships act as dominant push motives in the vacation decision. Reversely, pull motives are aroused by the destination and include factors like scenic attractions, historical sites. Push factors are thought to establish the desire for travel and pull factors are thought to explain actual destination choice. Seaton (1997) suggests that the push factors include avoidance of work, cultural/social pressures at home. The pull factors include seeking leisure /play, freedom and escape. Maslow (1943) identified two motivational types: tension-reducing motives; arousal-seeking motives. According to Maslow, there are five needs forming a hierarchy, progressing from the lower to the higher needs. Maslow argued that if the lower needs [physiological {hunger, thirst, rest}, safety {security}, belonging and love {affection, giving and receiving love}] are fulfilled the individual would be motivated by needs of the next level of the hierarchy [esteem {self-esteem and esteem for others}, self-actualization {personal self-fulfillment}]. Cooper et al(2005) criticizes Maslows theory saying that why and how Maslow selected the basic five needs remain unclear, although Page(2003) feels that it has relevance in understanding how human action is understandable and predictable compared to research which argues that human behavior is essentially irrational and unpredictable. Cooper et al (2005) also questions the arrangement of the needs. Though Cooper et al (2005) criticizes much about Maslows theory, he feels that tourism industry has borrowed a lot from Maslow because he provides a convenient set of containers that can be relatively labeled. Hudman (1980) as cited in Davidson and Maitland (1997) argue that Maslows (1943) hierarchy of needs provides a useful framework for understanding psychological motivational factors in tourism. Thus, for example, although the apparent purpose of a trip may be to visit friends and relatives, the underlying psychological motivation may be a need for belonging Motivational Theories for Travel and Tourism Motivational Theories for Travel and Tourism Abstract The purposes of this dissertation are to demonstrate how the motivational theories in travel and tourism can be used as a foundation for research into ceasing participation in organized leisure activities, and to discuss methodological implications that emerge from such an approach. The research problem is the identification of three motivational factors that mostly influence the choice of leisure activity in the Lebanese tourism sector. The dissertation will rely heavily on literature review and primary research that used university students and a focus group of industry professionals in Lebanon. The theoretical background of this study is structured according to Iso-Ahola’s motivational theory. Iso-Ahola’s theory asserts that personal escape, personal seeking, interpersonal escape, and interpersonal seeking motivate tourism and recreation. This dissertation operationalizes and empirically tests Iso-Ahola’s theory for similar tourism and recreation experiences. The motivation dimensions are monitored using scenario-based data for sporting events, beaches, amusement parks, and natural parks. The first investigation used confirmatory factor analysis to explore the efficacy of six competing motivational structures. Three of these competing models achieved superior and similar fit statistics, with one model incorporating the most parsimonious structure. This model gave equal and direct salience to each of the four motivations. The second investigation examined the differences in motivation levels for tourism and recreation experiences. Tourism experiences exhibited higher levels of motivation, particularly for the personal seeking and personal escape dimensions. The third investigation found no relationship between the number of recent domestic and international vacations and tourism motivations among the subjects. Chapter I Introduction This dissertation seeks to explore the rationale for, and difficulties of operationalizing, the measurement of tourists’ satisfaction with their experiences in particular destinations. It suggests that the on-going systematic measurement of satisfaction with destinations is a valuable exercise that will have tangible benefits, but acknowledges the difficulties of doing this in a meaningful manner. The principal argument presented is that the measurement of tourists’ satisfaction with a particular destination involves more than simply measuring the level of satisfaction with the services delivered by individual enterprises. There needs to be a much broader, more encompassing means of measuring satisfaction, one that relates closely to the motivations which tourists have for visiting the destination in the first place. The tourism industry consists of a number of different sectors including the travel, hospitality and visitor services sector. Within each of these sectors there are a number of individual enterprises that provide a range of services to people who are traveling away from their home environment. This travel could be for a variety of reasons including for pleasure, to visit friends and relatives, to work on a short term basis, to attend conferences, to participate in business activities, or any of a number of specific reasons. While the industry distinguishes between the various groups according to their purpose for travel, convention has it that all these short-term travelers are defined as ‘tourists† Likewise, the industry distinguishes between various ‘markets’ according to their place of origin (international, domestic, intra-state, interstate, etc). These distinctions are not relevant to this paper which is concerned with all these forms of tourism. Tourists visit destinations and engage in various activities while there. These destinations can be classified in various ways and at various scales of analysis. For example, Lebanon could be regarded as a destination for international visitors while Beirut could be one for people from northern Lebanon. At a different scale, a city or even a region could be regarded as a destination. This paper is concerned with all these levels. It is not concerned with individual enterprises which exist within certain destinations. As noted below, there appears to be adequate analysis of tourism satisfaction at the individual enterprise level. What is missing is a broader view that looks at the way tourists respond to the totality of their experiences in a particular destination irrespective of the particular activities that they engage in. I am going to provide an explanation of the Lebanese tourism economy because this market is the model that this dissertation uses as the benchmark for testing Iso-Ahola’s motivational theory. I have chosen this country due to its reputation of being the jewel of the Middle East and one of the most desired destinations in the region. The understanding of the characteristics of this market will play a critical role in laying the foundations for the research and would allow to increase the integrity and reliability of this research. Moreover, the market is highly concentrated and the geographic area is small; this aspect would play a paramount role in diminishing sources of error; and in case of their occurrence it would be easier to isolate and rectify. In addition, being my home country; I view studying this market as a personal passion which would allow me to present with a high â€Å"motivational† level. I will start by providing a review of the state of Lebanese tourism and highlight the trends, review precious research findings, and pinpoint the market characteristics. Tourism in the Lebanese Economy Over the last decade the tourism industry has emerged as a significant sector of the Lebanese economy generating approximately $5 billion in income, employing 1 in 9 Lebanese and contributing about $1.5 billion in export earnings. While approximately 55% of tourism activity involves domestic travel, the fastest growing sector is in-bound travel. This has been increasing significantly over the last decade with Lebanon receiving 1.1 million visits in 2004. Despite the recent downturn in the economies of major source countries, and the unstable political landscape visitor arrivals to Lebanon are expected to grow at an average annual rate of between 5.7 and 7.8 per cent to reach between 1.4 and 1.7 million visitors in 2010. Being a relatively new industry characterized by growth, the focus has been on marketing, visitor numbers, and length of stay, expenditure patterns and other measures of consumption. As the industry has begun to mature in the last five or so years; there has been an increasing interest in such things as quality of service, accreditation procedures, and measurement of client satisfaction. The issues discussed in this paper should be seen as part of this maturation process in which the industry is looking to achieve long-term sustainable growth that generates benefits for the industry, the clients and the community as a whole. Methodology of Research Collecting data in marketing research often involves several different strategies, such as interviewing and analyzing documents (Merriam, 1998). Using multiple sources of information is useful in our research since we have doubts that a single source of information will provide a complete and comprehensive understanding of the research problem, so in our research we use multiple sources of information. Basically, there are two forms of data: primary and secondary data. While writing the dissertation, I will use several different sources when collecting data in order to increase the validity of the collected data. Secondary data is the data that has been previously collected and published. The secondary data used in the beginning of our research, originated from various sources. In the preparatory period, we have started by studying literature related to relationship tourism marketing, tourism buying and motivational behavior and motivational marketing concepts in order to get deeper insight into and understanding of the researched area. The other sources used for collection of our secondary data were: newspaper and magazine articles, course materials, on-line sources (Internet databases) and tourism companies’ materials (internal and external). The methodology used for primary research will be depicted at greater length in the third chapter. Current Measurement of Tourist’s Satisfaction Levels Despite the large body of literature available on satisfaction research in general, only a few academic studies have focused directly on customer satisfaction amongst tourists. Of these, an even more limited number have been undertaken in Lebanon. The major studies include Fick and Ritchie (1991), Reisinger and Waryszak (1994), Arnold and Price (1993), Crompton and Love (1995), Geva and Goldman (1991), Maddox (1985) and Ryan (1995). Because of the limited material available in the academic literature, a preliminary survey of organizations that may have investigated tourist satisfaction was undertaken. Given the broad focus of the paper and the limited space, no attempt was made to look at individual tourism enterprises measuring the satisfaction level of clients as part of their on-going quality assurance program. The most common example of this is the questionnaire that is left in individual hotel rooms. These vary from single response questions to sophisticated instruments designed to elicit quite detailed responses from guests. Most of these are diagnostic in the sense that they are aimed at identifying specific measures that can be taken to improve the service. Some specifically enquire about customer’s perceptions of the service’s value for money. In some instances, particularly amongst 5 star hotel chains, these are used for benchmarking or as performance indicators. Because of this decision to exclude individual enterprises, the preliminary survey focused on the following organizations: Academic departments of Lebanese universities State tourist offices Non-government tourist industry organizations and associations The search found a range of studies has been completed most of which are primarily data-gathering research exercises rather than conceptual studies. The prime studies are described in appendix I. It is clear that some work has been done in this area by a smattering of agencies each of which approaches it from a quite different perspective. Despite acknowledgement of the potential value of the data, current efforts are not coordinated resulting in a lack of comparability that makes it impossible to identify trends and monitor changes in a systematic fashion. More importantly, the diversity of approaches demonstrates a need for substantial conceptual work on the nature of tourist satisfaction in general and the measurement of tourist satisfaction with destinations in particular. What is required is further exploration into the application of concepts and ideas drawn from the broader consumer literature to the specific challenge of measuring the satisfaction of tourists with particular destinations. This may require a quite different approach to that adopted for other services. Why measure satisfaction at the level of the destination? There are a number of reasons why it would be appropriate to look at extending the measurement of tourist satisfaction to the more global level of the tourist destination. It is critical to understand the underlying motivational factors in order to be able to get a clearer barometer for the measurement of satisfaction of tourists. Without pre-empting the nature of this measurement, these reasons include: Millions of dollars are spent each year on destination marketing by national and state tourism offices, airlines and regional tourism bodies. This includes detailed surveys of potential markets as well as extensive advertising and promotional campaigns in source countries. While there is considerable research into the impact of the promotional effort through awareness studies, tracking studies, etc, these all concentrate on the inputs (i.e. has the campaign reached its target audience?). What is missing is an understanding of the client’s reaction to the product offering, in particularly whether it meets the needs of the target market. This would become an integral part of the understanding what the market(s) is/are seeking. Peak organizations in the tourism industry recognize the need to encourage both new and repeat business. The latter can best be achieved by ensuring that our current offerings are satisfying the needs, expectations and desires of current tourists and their propensity to recommend the destination to others. The measure could become a barometer of the ‘health’ of the industry for strategic planning purposes. The tourism industry itself is grappling with the issue of service quality and recognizes that this is the key to long term success. At present its focus is on establishing accreditation mechanisms to ensure that individual firms conform to appropriate standards. Monitoring tourists’ satisfaction at the more global level would provide a valuable framework for this and enable comparison between the efforts of the individual enterprise and those of the industry as a whole. Government agencies are now recognizing the value of assessing the success of their programs in terms of outcomes rather than inputs. As Lebanese government agencies move in this direction the need for the systematic collection of the type of data proposed will increase. In the case of tourism, this is particularly relevant to national, state and regional tourism development bodies responsible for destination marketing. Using the level of satisfaction experienced by visitors to their destination as a measure of success would transfer the focus away from the efforts of the organization towards their achievements. Governments of all persuasions are looking critically at their financial commitments and questioning whether they should continue the traditionally high level of support. If the industry can demonstrate a relationship between the level of support and the satisfaction of visitors to their destination then the argument for continued support would be strengthened greatly. This would complement other measures such as visitor numbers, expenditure, etc. With an appropriate measurement instrument it could be possible for individual sectors of the industry to be compared with other sectors. In an industry where the success of the whole depends on the contribution of each part, this information will help to identify those sectors that need to improve. Recent developments in consumer protection have extended into the area of satisfaction. The 1993 European Union Directive on Travel has required member states to implement laws giving tourists the right to obtain compensation from packaged tour operators in the event that they are ‘dissatisfied’ with their holiday. This applies in all destinations, including Lebanon. The results of the proposed survey will help to focus the attention of the industry on this issue and provide data on how the industry is going and what needs to be improved. Perspectives on Measuring Tourists’ Satisfaction with a Destination Measuring tourists’ satisfaction with a destination is conceptually different from measuring satisfaction at the transaction specific level. Moreover, it is contended that while satisfaction at the destination level is influenced by the various transactions that occur at that destination, an individual’s level of satisfaction is influenced by much broader, global factors, some of which are beyond the capacity of the tourism industry to affect. The purpose of this section is to outline some ideas that should be taken into account when developing a method to measure satisfaction at this relatively abstract level. Johnson, Anderson et al., (1995) have distinguished between two different general conceptualizations of satisfaction: transaction-specific satisfaction and cumulative satisfaction. The former is concerned with â€Å"satisfaction as an individual, transaction-specific measure or evaluation of a particular product or service experience† (Johnson, Anderson et al. 1995). Cumulative satisfaction, on the other hand, is â€Å"a cumulative, abstract construct that describes customer’s total consumption experience with a product or service† (Johnson, Anderson et al., 1995). As a customer’s overall evaluation of the purchase or consumption experience, cumulative satisfaction is the most relevant conceptualization when the focus is on the tourist’s evaluation of their overall experience at a destination. This is sometimes referred to as market-level satisfaction. The literature suggests that satisfaction measurement must be treated differently at these two levels of abstraction. Moreover, when considering consumer satisfaction with their consumption experiences, a major distinction has been made between the consumption of goods and services (Lovelock, 1991). Measures of satisfaction are not the same for these different consumption experiences, largely because of the role of the consumer in the service encounter. It could also be argued that tourism is a ‘special’ service in that, like recreation or education, it is largely self-produced (Williams, 1988). The individual plays a central role in determining the experiences achieved and the benefits derived. The ‘special’ nature of tourism can be understood by adopting the behavioral perspective first developed within the recreation and leisure literature. This literature demonstrates the value of perceiving recreation as activity that creates experiences which, in turn, result in benefits for the individual (Driver and Tocher, 1970; Mannel and Iso-Ahola, 1987). This created a focus on the factors which determine the quality of those experiences and the benefits derived. Measurement of satisfaction has therefore involved an assessment of whether the experiences have resulted in the desired benefits sought by the individual. In his seminal paper (Wagar 1966) suggested that the quality of recreation experience depends upon how well desired outcomes are realized. Satisfaction is therefore more a function of the needs and interests of the individual than the attributes and characteristics of the service provided. These ideas have gradually become the basis of the conceptualization of the tourist experience and informed much of the work about tourist motivations and expectations (Crompton and Love, 1995; Ryan, 1995). Therefore tourist experiences can be regarded as the result of an active endeavor by the individual to create a situation in which to achieve satisfaction. It is this active involvement of the individual in the creation of his or her personal experiences that needs to be acknowledged. In a similar vein, the early recreation literature also recognized the implications of this approach for the assessment of recreation service quality. It was recognized that â€Å"the quality of the experiences can be influenced by input factors provided by managers . . . but to a considerable extent the quality of experiences depends upon choices made by recreationists and how they use the many factors of production† (Brown, 1988: 413). In other words, the satisfaction levels experienced by recreationists are recognized as being a function of a number of different variables including those brought by the recreationist him/herself which are beyond the influence of the service provider. Drawing on the consumer literature, it is too easy to assume that the outcomes of the tourist activity are solely the creation of the tourist operators/industry. However, it is perhaps more enlightening to adopt a ‘transactional perspective’ outlined in the recreation literature. Here, the tourist â€Å"actively creates the recreation(tourist) experience, through a transaction with the physical and social setting, including what the recreationist (tourist) brings to the process in terms of history, perceptions, companions, skills, equipment, identities, hopes and dreams† (Williams, 1988). With this perspective, more emphasis is placed on the behavior of the individual and their role in creating the experience. Not all the responsibility for creating high levels of satisfaction rests with the service deliverer. With this in mind, (Crompton and Love, 1995) make a distinction between quality of opportunity and quality of experience. â€Å"Quality of opportunity is defined as qualities of the attributes of a service that are under the control of a supplier. Evaluation is concerned with judgments about the performance of the leisure opportunity supplier. . . . In contrast, quality of experience involves not only the attributes provided by a supplier, but also attributes brought to the opportunity by the visitor or recreationist. . Quality of experience is a psychological outcome or emotional response. . Satisfaction is measured by how well leisure activities are perceived to fulfill the basic needs and motives that stimulated the idea to participate in the activity (Crompton and Love, 1995:12)†. When the objective is to measure satisfaction with a holiday in a particular destination, it will be important to note this distinction and ensure that both aspects are included in the assessment. We have been reasonably good at assessing tourists’ perceptions of the quality of opportunity but largely ignored the question of quality of experience. A further perspective that could be of relevance here is that of Herzberg (1966). While his work mainly focused on the workplace, his theory of motivation has relevance to the expenditure of discretionary time such as going on a holiday. Herzberg (1966) suggests that all aspects of an experience can be classified as either a motivational or a hygienic factor. Motivational factors are those that positively encourage people to do something. For example, a desire to make new friends may motivate people to go on an organized tour rather than travel alone. On the other hand, hygienic factors are those things which would not encourage one to travel, but their absence would discourage such travel. A good example is the availability of clean drinking water. Having this available is unlikely to motivate someone to travel, while its absence could cause someone to not choose a particular destination. According to Roger James Associates (1996) â€Å"the absence of motivational factors does not lead to ‘dissatisfaction’ but rather to ‘unsatisfaction’ a sense of emptiness rather than a sense of anger or disappointment. On the other hand, the absence of a hygienic factor will lead to dissatisfaction. The presence of such a factor will not lead to ‘satisfaction’ but rather to ‘satisficing’, that is, a passive (albeit benign) feeling† (Roger James Associates, 1996 : 34). If we adopt this framework it could be suggested that we have tended to focus on the hygienic factors which are represented by the measurement of how well the services (hotels, airports, travel companies, etc) are provided. These are important because without these being done well, the customer would be very dissatisfied. However, we have not also measured the motivational factors. These are akin to the experience factors how well the destination facilitates the satisfaction of personal needs. The best way of ensuring that we are providing this is to understand the client’s needs, etc and to develop product that is relevant to these. In turn, this is linked to the benefits to be derived from the experience thus creating satisfaction. The work by Arnold and Price (1993) confirms the role that needs and desires play in the consumer’s evaluation of a particular experience. They present very clear evidence that the satisfaction of participants in this recreational (or possibly tourist?) activity is related to the extent to which the experience enhances their individual cultural script and are â€Å"interpreted within the broader narrative context of the consumer’s life† (Arnould and Price, 1993). They suggest that â€Å"satisfaction with river rafting . . . does not seem to be embodied in attributes of the experience such as amounts of time spent freezing in wet clothes, uncomfortable toilet facilities, bad food or any summary index of specific attributes of the trip† (Arnould and Price, 1993). These general thoughts appear to be in line with the fundamentals of the marketing concept most commonly described as â€Å"satisfying the needs and desires of the consumer† (Keith, 1960 :38) and the whole notion of benefit segmentation which suggests that purchases are selected on the basis of the benefits derived by consumers (Haley, 1968). It is also consistent with the recent work of Spreng and his associates which emphasizes the role that desires, as opposed to expectations, plays in determining satisfaction within the disconfirmation framework (Spreng, Mackenzie et al., 1996). Proposed Path Space does not permit an exhaustive examination of the extensive literature outlining the various models used as the basis for measuring customer satisfaction and gauging the behavioral aspects (see Parasuraman, Zeithaml et al., 1994). However, a review of this literature has uncovered a model that could be developed to provide a satisfactory method of evaluating tourists’ satisfaction at the level of the destination and their motivational map. This model has been developed by Iso-Ahola and has become the basis of extensive work at the national and international level. The index provided by the Iso-Ahola model provides a cumulative evaluation of a sector’s market offering coupled with individual evaluation of a specific transaction. Called the ‘Customer Satisfaction Index/Barometer’, it has been introduced in: Sweden, Germany and the United States of America (Fornell, Johnson et al, 1996). Taiwan and New Zealand are also in the process of introducing a similar national satisfaction indicator. While much work still needs to be done, the framework provided by Iso-Ahola model provides a good starting point. It should be possible to make the necessary changes required to produce a useful index that will contribute to the on-going development of this important industry. Chapter II Literature Review It is imperative to start with a review of literature that addressed motivation in the travel and tourism industry. By adopting this approach we will be able to present a much more comprehensive and inclusive approach to understanding the theories of motivation in the travel and tourism industry; and thus, we will be able to lay the foundations of clear parameters that can help scholars and decision makers measure the satisfaction of tourists and the underlying motivational factors. This part of the paper is dedicated to reviewing the literature that currently assesses the main theories of motivation. These theories span across a wide spectrum; therefore we will tackle the various theories of travel motivation in the first part and then we will focus our discussions on Iso-Ahola’s motivational theory. The main theories of travel motivation Knowledge of peoples travel motivations and its association with destination selection plays a critical role in predicting future travel patterns. The essay talks about the various theories propounded by the theorists and analyses their practical benefits for the tourism industry. Tourist motivation can be defined as the global integrating network of biological and cultural forces which gives value and direction to travel choices, behavior and experience. (Pearce, Morrison Rutledge, 1998) as cited by Allan R. Rhodes Espinoza. According to Seaton (1997) motivation is a state of arousal of a drive or need which impels people to activity in pursuit of goals. Once the goals have been achieved the need subsides and the individual returns to the equilibrium-but only briefly because new motives arise as the last one is satisfied. Krippendorf (1987), as cited in Seaton (1997) suggests that the motivation of the individual person to travel, to look outside for what he cannot find inside have been largely created by society and shaped by everyday life. People who live in cities, for example, are motivated to travel as tourists to wilderness areas because they need to escape from an artificial, monotonous environment. (Dann Matley, 1976) as cited in Mansfeld 1992). Grays travel-motivation theory, as noted by Mansfeld (1992), gives us two motives about why people go to natural settings. The first motive is the desire to go from a known to an unknown place, called in Grays theory wanderlust. Secondly, a place which can provide the traveler with specific facilities that do not exist in his or her own place of residence, referred in Grays theory as sun lust (Mansfeld, 1992). It is a common practice to consider traveler or tourist types as potential market segments for travel and tourism marketing (Smith, 1989 as cited in Theobald, 1996).Some of the motives which determine their travel choices are recreation, pleasure, new experiences, cultural interest, shopping. Any reader of literature of tourism motivation cannot help being struck by the similarity in findings by many researchers. The adjectives and categorizations of tourists based upon motivations may differ in number, but recurrent themes emerge. For example the need to escape from everyday surroundings for the purpose of relaxation, and discovering new things, places and people are often alluded to. According to Crompton (1979), as cited in Bello Etzel (1985), the need for relaxation, exploration, social interaction and enhancement of kinship relationships act as dominant push motives in the vacation decision. Reversely, pull motives are aroused by the destination and include factors like scenic attractions, historical sites. Push factors are thought to establish the desire for travel and pull factors are thought to explain actual destination choice. Seaton (1997) suggests that the push factors include avoidance of work, cultural/social pressures at home. The pull factors include seeking leisure /play, freedom and escape. Maslow (1943) identified two motivational types: tension-reducing motives; arousal-seeking motives. According to Maslow, there are five needs forming a hierarchy, progressing from the lower to the higher needs. Maslow argued that if the lower needs [physiological {hunger, thirst, rest}, safety {security}, belonging and love {affection, giving and receiving love}] are fulfilled the individual would be motivated by needs of the next level of the hierarchy [esteem {self-esteem and esteem for others}, self-actualization {personal self-fulfillment}]. Cooper et al(2005) criticizes Maslows theory saying that why and how Maslow selected the basic five needs remain unclear, although Page(2003) feels that it has relevance in understanding how human action is understandable and predictable compared to research which argues that human behavior is essentially irrational and unpredictable. Cooper et al (2005) also questions the arrangement of the needs. Though Cooper et al (2005) criticizes much about Maslows theory, he feels that tourism industry has borrowed a lot from Maslow because he provides a convenient set of containers that can be relatively labeled. Hudman (1980) as cited in Davidson and Maitland (1997) argue that Maslows (1943) hierarchy of needs provides a useful framework for understanding psychological motivational factors in tourism. Thus, for example, although the apparent purpose of a trip may be to visit friends and relatives, the underlying psychological motivation may be a need for belonging