The Attitude of Consumers towards Organised Food Retailing: An Application of Attitude-towards-Object Model

Organised retail sector is booming in metros, cities and now even in small towns; and organised food retailing is one of the fastest growing sector among them. The different types of food retail formats have its own characteristics, focus and target market. The customer or consumer has their own criteria to select a particular food retail format. The selection is based on the attitude of the customer or consumer towards the attribute of the retail format. There are many model to find the attitude of customer or consumer towards any product, service and brands. This study is an attempt to find out the customer's or consumer's attitude towards three major food retailing formats i.e Big Bazaar, a hypermarket; Reliance Fresh, a convenience store and Suvidha, a supermarket.

Management Practices in Hospital Administration: a study of the Challenges Faced by the Healthcare Organisation in South India

This paper accentuates the need for quality assurance and standardization norms for hospital administration which is the need of the hour. Lack of effective administration practices in the hospital and hospitality sector necessitate the need for a total quality management approach in the Healthcare Sector. Application of quality control systems is a vital aspect that hospitals in South India cannot disregard. It would lead the South in a new direction by ensuring quality and enhancing customer satisfaction. Hence, this paper makes an attempt to understand the hospital management practices in South India effectively. The research addresses Medical Tourism as a ‘cost effective’ private medical care initiative in collaboration with the tourism industry for patients needing surgical and other forms of specialised treatment. This process is being facilitated by the corporate sector involved in medical care as well as the tourism industry – both private and public. There is also a constant effort taken by corporate hospitals to support medical tourism to its fullest potential. India today has copious opportunities to compete with other developed nations and building a quality health care system of its own.

Dental Tourism Development in India: An Emopirical Study

Medical Tourism in India has emerged as one of the fastest growing segments of the tourism industry despite the global economic downturn. High cost of treatments in the developed counties, particularly the USA and UK, have been forcing patients from such regions to look for alternative and cost-effective destinations to get their treatments done. The Indian medical tourism industry is presently at a nascent stage, but has enormous potential for future growth and development. As a significant component of the colossal medical tourism, Dental Tourism is emerging in the Third World countries, especially in India. Dental tourists are mainly generated from developed countries such as USA and European countries as theya re looking for developing countries to get their dental treatment coupled with participating in tourism activities. The lower cost of treatment and availability are the most significant reasons for choosing developing countries as dental tourism destinations. Dental tourism forms 10 percent of the total Indian medical tourism which is projected to grow at 30 percent to Rs 9,500 crore by 2015. India produces over 18,000 dentists annually from 238 dental colleges. The country has around 1,500 oral and maxillofacial surgeons. A few studies were carried out on various problems faced by the dental tourism industry in India. The dental tourist’s perception towards Indian dental tourism industry and their satisfaction level after getting treatment are a few concerns. This research paper is prepared based on primary and secondary data collected from various sources. The primary data have been collected from dentists, staff and dental tourists from two famous internationally recognised dental hospitals located in Bangalore, Karnataka.

The dynamics of host participation in tourism for effectively offsetting agrarian crisis in Wayanad

Wayanad, the green paradise of Kerala, is located in the Southern most part of the Deccan Plateau. Wayanad, where , majority of the population completely depend on agriculture for their livelihood, has been facing a high magnitude agrarian crisis in the last few years. This district has witnessed a number of farmer suicides and as a result of this; farmers are forced ato look our for some additional source of livelihood along with agriculture. Having a remarkable image of a beautiful tourist destination, the government of Kerala has identified Wayanad as a Tourism District and tourism is an emerging sector here. The scenic beauty, exotic landscape and rich heritage sites of Waynad offer several opportunities for a 360 degree tourism expansion in the district. Considering the district wise foreign tourist arrivals, Wayanad shows the highest variation among other districts of Kerala in the last few years. In a fast urbanising country like Kerala, places such as Wayanad is one of the few Indian districts which still retain its charm as a rural district. It is not swept by mindless urbanization like many other regions of India. Of course, this unique characteristic gives enourmous tourism potential to the place. Keeping in view the distinctive features of Wayanad, especially the natural attractions and the indigenous culture, a sustainable tourism model can be an effective alternative to offset the agrarian crisis of the district. The present scenario of host community participation in th various facets of tourism in Wayanad is intensively studied in this paper. It aims at proposing concrete ways in which the benefits from tourism can be channelized productively to uplift the affected sections of society facing agrarian crisis in Wayanad.

Tourism Development and its Impact on the Peripheral Society: A Case Study of Ladakh

Tourism has strongly been considered as an agent of change and widely used as a major tool for achieving the goals of development. Sinc the prefix, ‘sustainable’ has been added to the term development and subsequently applied to all major economic sectors, the dimensions of development stretched to a greater extent than before and desired goals of development have been redefined. Tourism industry, often regarded as a world’s largest and fastest growing economic sector has also come under the diameters of sustainable development. The impact of tourism is not limited to the economic sector only. This industry has proven to be a strong stimulus for socio-cultural changes too. These impacts become more apparent in remote and peripheral regions where the, societies are traditional and closed and where the cultural elements are preserved in authentic form. In this paper, an attempt has been made to examine the nature of tourism development in Ladakh, which is a peripheral region and explain how socio-cultural changes occur in this region since the introduction of tourism. Further, assumptions have been made through discussion regarding the future impact and the nature of tourism development in Ladakh.

Tourism Development and Exchequer's Encouragment

Despite the arguments against the development of tourism a large number of positive aspects can be noticed in favour of tourism development. The data presented in this paper substantiates the need for development of tourism in India. It is observed that the yields emanated from this sector percolate to every corner of the economy and society starting from advanced cities to hamlets. As a result it leads to balanced and inclusive growth. To tap the latent potential of the tourism sector, it is necessary to make integrated efforts from all corners of the economy. One such effort focussed in this paper, has been initiated by the Indian Tax System. The system has designed various special provisions to motivate the sector, but they are scattered in various Acts. The knowledge of these provisions facilitate a sound tax planning. This paper makes an attempt to put important tax provisions, relating to different players in the tourism sector scattered in various tax laws, in one place to provide a basic understanding. It concludes that the sops offered by the exchequer are inadequate looking at the needs of the industry. This sector is a cash-cow. Its yields outweigh the sops and efforts. Hence, this sector needs focused attention from the policy makers.

Strategic Planning and Marketing of Rural Tourism in Western Odisha

Rural Tourism is an increasingly important activity for the country’s economy. It is being used as a development strategy to improve the social and economic well being of the people in rural areas. Rural tourism includes an enormous range of activities, natural and manmade attractions, amenities and facilities, transportation, marketing and information systems. Rural tourism is very diverse and fragmented in terms of operational structures, activities, markets and operating environments. Benefits of rural tourism have been expressed as employment growth and broadening a region’s economic base, reproduction, social improvement and revitalization of local craft. In the contemporary world, an increasing number of enterprises, including rural tourism, businesses employ marketing methods and knowledge in their activities. Rural tourism has an exclusive link with nature. For this reason its services became very popular. Its development can be furthered by the right marketing system. In the article, the author highlights the strategic measures for rural tourism development in Western Odisha.

Tourism Development and its Impacts in Shaheed Dweep of Andaman and Nicobar Islands: An Understanding from the Host Community Perceptions

Tourism has both positive and negative impact on the host community. This paper tries to find out the perceptions of the host community towards tourism development and its impacts in Shaheed Dweep of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. A simple random household survey was conducted among 353 respondents of Shaheed Dweep to know about perceptions on two factors of impact: (i) Costs of Tourism Development and (ii) Benefits from tourism Development. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was applied for it. The findings reveal that tourism development has created lots of employment opportunities as one of the positive impacts but on the other side as a negative impact, it found that due to the seasonal nature it is creating more part-time job than full-time among the host community.

Coping with Covid – 19 In New Normal - Influence of Management Measures on Employee Wellbeing in Hotels

The hospitality industry is a place where there is high interaction among guests and employees. The employee should comply with protective measures against COVID-19. The management team should develop standards for employee wellbeing in hotels. This study was conducted to understand the influence of the management measures on the well-being of employees during COVID-19. Further, it aims to understand any relationship between the independent and dependent variables. Additionally, it also tries to find any significant difference between the age groups and gender categories. SPSS was used as a tool for analysis. 301 responses were collected for a nonparametric correlations test. Mann Whitney U test, univariate analysis of age variance was done to find if there is a significant difference between the variables and age group. The results show a high correlation between the working condition measures and employee wellbeing. This resulted in the acceptance of the null hypothesis.

Guests’ Desire for Relational Closeness with Hosts: The Roles of Attachment Styles

Extant research is increasingly recognizing the importance of customer attachment styles in service settings because of its significance with regard to relationship marketing. This study examined the impact of guest attachment styles on the desire for relational closeness with hosts using perceived hospitality as a mediator of service evaluation. Findings show that guests with higher levels of attachment anxiety seek closer relationships with hosts, and those with higher levels of attachment avoidance spurn efforts towards relational closeness. Also, perceived hospitality mediates only the impact of attachment avoidance on the desire for relational closeness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.