Because of the large supply of information is today's leisure travelers very enlightened and have firsthand knowledge of what can be demanded on a hotel stay. Along with business travelers, who are not price sensitive, they place higher demands on the standards and service they require. It has become increasingly important to attract the visitors in a unique way.The purpose of this study is to reveal those aspects which hotels focus on in their business in order to keep their guests, despite the strong competition and the new demands of the changing hotel industry. The study has examined more closely if the hotels have specific concepts in their approach, if their servicescapes (the environment where the service is assembled) are designed in a unique way to attract visitors and if the hotels have special relationships with their guests.The study is qualitative and in order to answer the purpose has observations of the selected hotels and interviews with managers and receptionists been made.One of the conclusions that we reached is that the most important aspect in the hotels business is their relationship to the guests. Each respective hotel strives to have a special and unique relationship with its guests conveyed by its staff.

In the history of scientific visualization techniques there is a lack of social science practices and methodologies. The advent of modern computer graphics brought the use of visualizations into a whole new era, but even though the tools by which such modern visualizations are created become easier to access and use, the lack of social science researchers harvesting the benefits of such tools still remain. This ease of use, increase in power and accessibility plus the ever growing need within the natural sciences to augment the human senses has further complicated the relationship between scientific methodologies, validity, reliability and the use of visualization techniques. This relationship must be explored, demystified and understood in order to fully grasp the impact of visualization practices when incorporated into any given scientific method. Within the social sciences there is one example of a tradition that has since its conception carried within it a graphical notion and a visualization practice.

The new cataloging code Resource Description and Access (RDA) provides a system of instructions for recording relationships between related resources by means of a controlled vocabulary of relationship designators. The purpose of this two years master?s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies is to examine the construction of this system, as well as its theoretical foundation. One theoretical point of departure is the necessity of operational definitions for consistent identification of bibliographic relationships. Another such point of departure is that the theoretical model on which RDA is based (the FRBR model) is not a complete description of the biblio­graphic universe, but merely a limited representation of a set of assumptions about that universe.The thesis first examines Barbara B.

This thesis sets out to investigate three questions, first, how the Belarusian democratization process has progressed since the country?s independence in 1991 to the year of 2006. Second, how the relationship between Russia and Belarus has progressed during this time and third, if and how Russia has affected the democratization process. The study has been conducted through qualitative method, mainly using books and articles as sources of information. It has been found that the democratization process in Belarus has evolved in a negative direction ever since the presidential election of 1994.

AbstractThere is a lot of confusion when it comes to defining Special Education. An example of this appears here by a statement from Assarson (2007) "Special Education initiates a special pedagogy, but contains no innate sense of what is the special component in it" (p. 52, authors? translation). This study is an attempt to clarify the elements of the concept.

The aim of this study was to develop a load prognosis model for Uppsala district heating system to be used as a tool for heat production optimization. The methodwas to build three models for the different customer types; housing, industry andoffices and then scale them for the total system using data from Uppsala districtheating system. The heat load consists of two parts, one that is temperaturedependent and one that is dependent of the social behavior of the customers. Thetemperature part was modelled with an ARX model using an outdoor temperatureprognosis as input signal. The social behavior part was modelled using the mean ofthe social behavior from some days before and additionally by distinguishing betweenweekdays and weekends.

Idag är många skogsägare i Sverige beroende av olika aktörer för att sköta och avverka sin skog. Dessa aktörer är ofta samma företag som de säljer sitt virke till. Skogspartner AB (vidare SP) är ett litet företag som vill positionera sig inom marknaden för skogsbruksplanering, som ett företag som erbjuder oberoende rådgivning och tjänster.Syftet med denna studie är att bedöma den framtida möjligheten att positionera SP som ett oberoende företag genom att undersöka marknadspotentialen för oberoende skogsbruksplaner. Marknaden för skogsbruksplaner består främst av skogsföretag som erbjuder planer som en del av en helhetsservice. Dessa företag lägger sedan ut planeringen åt underleverantörer.

The purpose of this study is to examine young people?s opinions about libraries using social media for communicative and marketing purposes. There are three research questions: What do young people think about libraries using social media for communicative and marketing purposes? Do they want to interact with libraries in social media and, if so, in what way? Are their opinions and their will to interact influenced by what kind of relationship they have with libraries, their reading habits, and whether or not they use libraries? digital services? Prior research is divided into three themes: library development, marketing, and young people. The theoretical framework is made up of a combination of relationship marketing, using Evert Gummesson?s three catchwords relationships, networks, and interaction, and the engagement pyramid, as depicted by Brit Stakston.

In a time of economic turmoil and financial crisis profitability matters rise higher and higher on company agendas. Many companies are pressured to find profitability to avoid layoffs or even bankruptcy. Profitability essentially depends on the margin on the product or service sold and the costs associated with selling these products or services and hence these areas are of vital importance if companies are to improve profitability. Previous research has focused, for the most part, on product profitability while customer profitability has received less attention. This study is based on a case study of a Swedish publishing house and aims to investigate how the company?s Cost-to-Serve varies between its distribution channels.

This is a dissertation for a Bachelor Degree Project at the University of Skövde. The project is carried out in cooperation with the company Kinnarps AB.The objective of this project was to develop a new chair for café and lunch rooms, which should satisfy the markets expectations and demands and match Kinnarps AB?s assortment today. The project has contained everything from identification of user and customer needs and requirements to evaluation and building of a prototype.The result is a chair with a frame of tubular steel and there is nothing like it in Kinnarps AB?s assortment today.

In this study ? Just a girlfriend who lives far away? ? I interview fifteen girls about their experiences with computer mediated relationships. From a queer theoretical perspective I examine how these girls do and talk about their relationships, in relation to norms about relationships and sexuality as well as notions about online and offline.My aim is to discuss in which ways the performing of these relationships both reproduce and challenge norms about relationships and sexuality. The girls I interview attempt in different ways to show that doing relationships online is just as ?normal? as doing them offline.

Social competence is an effective weapon at all costs on today?s market. In many job ads we can see the words to be socially competent. In our report we have studied the subject?s social competence, relations, relationship marketing and personal networks and looked to the connection these subjects have to one another.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine the different ways thatFamiljehemscentrum use to increase the number of families that show interest in takingcare of foster children. This thesis will examine which families are targeted by Familjehemscentrums present communication, which families they should target in thefuture and also the best way to do that. In order to answer these questions a number of interviews were conducted. The first interview was a group interview with three social workers that all work at Familjehemscentrum. Three more individual interviews were conducted with representatives from foster families to investigate how they were recruitedand what they think about being a foster family.

Internet commerce is nowadays a well known phenomenon. There is awareness that a lot of newly created companies operate their business through the Internet. You can see a tendency where many young people try to establish an Internet business with the hope of success and expansion on today?s fierce market rivalry. To achieve success, companies have to consider factors like business concept, logistic knowledge, future vision, resources and contacts when initializing their business.Having this in mind, we can clarify the purpose with this paper: ?To analyze in what way On-line shopping companies that sell consumer electronics, cell phones and music/entertainment products, have expanded? The paper is based on telephone interviews with three On-line shopping companies.

This study examines the effects of credit risk and information disclosure in the new bank regulating system Basel II on bank and bank customer. The effects are then discussed in a perspective of the economic man and information asymmetric theories. Furthermore is the Basel II effects on the capital adequacy of Andelsbanken för Åland examined.The approach of the study is qualitative and several interviews with individuals on different levels of the examined bank, Andelsbanken för Åland, have been carried out during the collecting of empirical facts about the effects of the regulating change from the Basel I system to Basel II.The research findings are as follows:Andelsbanken för Åland have increased its capital adequacy ratio from 12,7 percent to 14,4 percent, mostly due to lower risk weights on housing mortgages compared to Basel I. Andelsbanken för Åland have started to use a completely new credit risk and customer assessment system which classifies every customer and gives them a credit rating. The system cause a much heavier information gathering of the customers profile as well as a much better assessment of risk than the previous system, which the bank finds positive.