The Need of Backpacking Tourists in Non-Star Hotels: Insights from Gorontalo City, Indonesia

Gorontalo is a transit city for foreign tourists that will continue their trip to Togean islands, or for tourists coming from Togean islands that will continue the trip to Manado, Makassar, or Jakarta. Foreign tourists who opt to transit in Gorontalo prefer non-star hotels as their accommodation option. This study aimed to analyze the guest’ needs from five kinds of dimension, i.e., tangible dimension, empathy dimension, reliability dimension, responsiveness dimension, and assurance Dimension. The present study integrated a qualitative and a simple quantitative method as the research design. The data were directly collected by field observation; questionnaires distributed to the tourists were employed to collect the main data, while the supporting data were extracted by interview and documentation. As based on the findings, the backpackers’ needs for basic tangible goods involve food three times a day, a heat pump water heater, and laundry service. In accommodating the needs, the hotels can cooperate with third parties, particularly regarding food three times a day and laundry service. Moreover, the intangible service-oriented needs comprise empathy, reliability, responsiveness, and assurance. As based on the questionnaire, the respondents showed good responses and suggested improvements in several aspects, particularly on the intangible needs.

Numerical study on the influence of internal heat exchanger in transcritical CO2 heat pumps under optimal pressure conditions

This paper presents a numerical study on the influence of internal heat exchanger (IHX) exchanging surface in the performance of a transcritical CO2 heat pump water heater at different operating conditions. Five different IHX geometries and four different evaporation temperatures have been studied with water temperature ranging from 10 °C to 60 °C at the gas cooler inlet. The results show a strong influence of IHX characteristics on system’s performance.

Numerical Investigation on the Performance of Two-Throat Nozzle Ejectors with Different Mixing Chamber Structural Parameters

In this study, the effects of the mixing chamber diameter (Dm), mixing chamber length (Lm) and pre-mixing chamber converging angle (θpm) were numerically investigated for a two-throat nozzle ejector to be utilized in a CO2 refrigeration cycle. The developed simulated method was validated by actual experimental data of a CO2 ejector in heat pump water heater system from the published literature. The main results revealed that the two-throat nozzle ejectors can obtain better performance with Dm in the range of 8–9 mm, Lm in the range of 64–82 mm and θpm at approximately 60°, respectively. Deviation from its optimal value could lead to a poor operational performance. Therefore, the mixing chamber structural parameters should be designed at the scope around its optimal value to guarantee the two-throat nozzle ejector performance. The following research can be developed around the two-throat nozzle geometries to strengthen the ejector performance.