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The purpose of this paper is to explore how Americans choose a country and medical facility to travel abroad for medical treatment based on the following factors country environment, tourism destination, medical tourism costs and medical facilities and services.

Online survey with the help of Amazon Mechanical Turk website was used for data collection, and 541 valid cases were used of American residents who had travelled abroad for medical tourism. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were undertaken to validate the scales.

Findings indicated four major factors that can influence American medical tourists’ choices of medical tourism destinations. These factors are overseas’ country factors, attractiveness of tourism destination, medical tourism costs and facilities and services. Both the convergent and discriminant validities for the constructs were established. The results of the measurement-model-fit based on various measures were within the suggested cut-off values.

Out of the 541 responses of post-travel experienced medical tourists, it is hard to tell how similar/dissimilar the participants are in terms of ranking the four factors. To be competitive to attract global medical tourists, research suggests that the five popular countries of treatment, India, China, Thailand, Mexico and Turkey, identified in this study should provide high quality of medical and tourism facilities to patients.

This study contributes to the understanding of the underlying factors, which influence American medical tourists’ choice of destinations, with validated scales. For this exploratory research, 25 new items together with 34 items from other studies were adapted.

The aim of the study is to gain insight into the link between art and tourism from a value co-creation perspective. This link is discussed with the help of the arts marketing, art tourism and value co-creation literature. The role of art in tourism and the role of cultural places in arts marketing are also evaluated.

Focussing on two cultural heritage sites in Turkey, Zeugma and Göbeklitepe, a qualitative study was undertaken in order to determine the value creation and co-creation processes occurring from the art–tourism contexts based on comparative case study analysis. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with three groups of actors. Motivation, expectation and stakeholder experiences were the main themes explored.

The findings of the study relate to the role of the co-creation process. Marketing art in alternative places creates value in closing the gap between art and society through the use of related fields such as culture and heritage. In terms of cultural value, the paper identifies the reconnection with cultural heritage through contemporary art. This is a way of looking at culture and its concepts in different time and place dimensions which make visitors more engaged with culture and its contemporary reflection through art.

Although the research focusses on two Turkish art and tourism cases, future research can be extended to other countries, including the assessment of the longer-term role of similar activities.

As art is a subset of culture, the people who are interested in culture and history also have the potential to be interested in art. While art impacts on cultural tourism, cultural heritage and tourism work as arts marketing tools in a co-supporting way. The coming together of art and culture has societal benefits. There are lessons for practice such as the opening of a space for contemporary art in cultural heritage museums in order to promote art to society. The museum audience is an important potential for the future of art from a market generation perspective.

The study contribute to arts tourism, arts marketing and value co-creation in theory and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding for the social inclusion of disabled performers in a developing country to create awareness and improve policies/practices.

The study employed qualitative methodology, and data were collected through semi-structured interviews, site visits/observations and review of secondary data.

The data from different respondent groups showed the social inclusion should be reviewed at three levels: the state, society and individual. The review of existing policies revealed the neglect of the state regarding disabled people in general and even more so in performing arts due to the lack of enforcement of national and international agreements. Findings indicate that social inclusion of disabled performers is a minor issue, especially in a developing country where access to basic human rights and needs may be difficult. Amidst such difficulties, performing arts is not seen as a priority compared to other needs of disabled people and performers.

Limitations include the limited number of disabled performers who could be identified and were willing to participate in the study. Those working in venues/public offices were also reluctant to participate. The greatest limitation was the broad lack of interest in disabled performers.

In Türkiye, studies on disabled people tend to focus on basic needs like health, education and employment. None, to best of researchers' knowledge, explore the social inclusion of disabled performers. This is an original study because it collects and discusses primary data on this topic, revealing the state-level negligence/oversight, the apathy of society and the degree to which an individual with disabilities must struggle to participate in performing arts. Consequently, this study shows the difficulty of developing social inclusion, equality and diversity in an emerging economy for disabled performers to raise awareness and present grounds for further legal enforcement. Moreover, implications allow for a global understanding of social inclusion that moves beyond a biased or privileged understanding/critique of disability centered on the developed world.

Understanding disabled people as gray-collar workers who are under-paid, under-valued and under-employed is recognized as in urgent need of attention but remains unaddressed. Based on 30 semi-structured interviews with disabled people, observations and document analysis, the authors argue that the disabled gray-collar workers in the performing arts provide a context and socio-cultural perspective on how gray-collar workers can attain dignity through social inclusion. Building on a novel framework of four dimensions of social inclusion theory – access, participation, representation and empowerment – the authors identify social interactions portrayed in the performing arts in order to deconstruct the processes that normalize and reinforce exclusion and inequality. The authors demonstrate how social inclusion can be “enabled” which has implications for theory, policy and practice.

This study seeks to identify the general characteristics of the profile of staff at five‐star hotels, and methods of recruitment, and makes suggestions for improvement in this sector. It is hoped that it will lead hotels to a greater competitive advantage.

Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect and analyze the data. Comparisons were made with existing data in order to determine trends and characteristics of hotel staff.

The results show that there is room for staff improvement and improvement in recruitment methods, even within five‐star hotels. All hotels, regardless of their rating, should understand their human resources make‐up and what needs to be implemented to retain staff.

With these improvements one might better compete for the first time guests and repeat clientele. Other studies should be undertaken on an international basis in order to widen the database.

There are few studies that address these particular issues, yet there is still additional room to expand the study and comparisons that need to be performed. It would be advantageous include hotels of a lesser rating in future studies.

Scholars mostly emphasise the social inclusion of people with disabilities; however, in most of these studies, disability is often touched on as ‘something that should be overcome instead of accommodated’ and frequently considered as a ‘passive recipient’ of policies (Knight, 2015, p. 4). There have been very few disability studies in Turkey, and these generally focus on issues such as employment, education, accessibility to health care and, recently, accessible tourism. Consequently, the main focus of this study is the impact of the social inclusion of people with disabilities in performing arts events audiences on cultural value and cultural policy in Turkey. A qualitative study was conducted in order to explore social inclusion of audiences with disabilities regarding inequalities in attending performing arts events from multiple perspectives and their impact on cultural value. The study included sources from: (1) semi-structured interviews (n = 32); (2) site visits and observations across four sites (venues, offices, performance spaces) and (3) reviews of secondary data such as websites, policies, legislation, promotional materials, annual reports and internal documents. The most important impact of this study is that it is the first study conducted on participation of people with disabilities in performing arts events in Turkey. Moreover, the most pressing issues mentioned by almost all participants were the need for people with disabilities to demand inclusion, which is actually a birthright, by participating and making their needs visible.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine international students’ satisfaction on the quality of a private university in Turkey and the factors which influence their satisfaction. The study also investigated international students’ suggestions to improve their studies and life in Turkey. For these purposes, focus group interviews were conducted with 27 international students. Deductive coding was used to analyse collected data. The findings show that international students’ satisfaction is shaped by a number of different factors including, perceived quality of teaching, living and support service experiences and scholarships. Results also showed that participants considered extracurricular activities as an important part of their experiences when it comes to improving their campus life and learning experience.