Tourism and Hospitality Research in the Peripheries: Thematic Focus and a Research Agenda from Ghana

Increasing debates on decolonising tourism and hospitality knowledge production have emerged in the context of a largely Western-dominated canon of the research production and dissemination system. This paper contributes to these debates by highlighting and centring the research in and on Ghana. This is accomplished by reviewing and synthesising 238 tourism and hospitality articles authored by 520 authors over 31 years through content analysis. The sample shows a trend toward increased use of quantitative methodology, multiple authorship and underrepresentation of hospitality research. By outlining current thematic convergence, divergence and omissions, we set out a future research agenda. Our findings demonstrate that while research productivity has been increasing consistently , there is a very limited representation of Ghanaian (African) tourism and hospitality research scholarship in the top-tier tourism and hospitality journals. This raises concerns about the need and challenge of increasing the representation and visibility of tourism and hospitality research from the peripheries.

Localized Farmer’s Information Dissemination System in Nigeria Using Mobile Networks

Agricultural science performs a substantial function in monetary and societal growth in nearly all developing nations. Data on satisfactory excellence is an indispensable criterion for the development of all fields of farming. By means of the speedy growth of Information Technologies (ITs), data and information can be efficiently produced, warehoused, scrutinized, distributed, and utilized to reinforce agriculturalists and agricultural societies to enhance agricultural output and sustainability. Information facilities for agriculturalists at the nationwide and provincial levels are an auspicious novel field of investigation and presentation in the evolving field of e-agriculture. This paper aims to address the challenges associated with the dissemination of localized agricultural information to farmers within a localized region in Nigeria using mobile networks and explicitly examined the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in disseminating agricultural information to farmers in Nigeria. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that the government should establish information centers with up-to-date information technology infrastructures and mini-community libraries in all rustic regions in Nigeria where modern agricultural information can be easily obtained by the farmers.

Evaluating the Adoption of Agro Advisory Services Disseminated through the Interactive Information Dissemination System in the State of Telangana, India

The study was conducted in erstwhile Nalgonda and Khammam districts of Telangana state, where pilot testing of the Interactive Information Dissemination System was conducted during year, 2013. The present study adopted Ex-post facto research design and one hundred and twenty respondents were selected by following simple random sampling method, at the rate of sixty from each identified district. From the results of the revealed that, greater majority of the registered farmers belonged to the middle age, had high school level of education with medium level of farming experience. It was also observed that, 56.67 percent of the farmers had medium level of Information acquisition behaviour, high innovativeness and registered farmers (66.67%) used to visit KVKs for agriculture information. Further, an attempt was made to find out the factors contributing for adoption of agro advisory services and it was observed that, level of education, annual income level, level of farming experience, level of socio-political participation, information acquisition behavior, use of ICT tool, innovativeness and access to KVKs were found to be the contributing factors for adoption of the agro advisory services by the farmers. The services of the IIDS helped farmers in getting real time and personalized agro advisory services 24X7 and also facilitated them in sharing their success stories with their fellow farmers.