Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label Accessibility

Free access to vending machines for the homeless

A 24/7 accessible vending machine was launched at Nottingham, United Kingdom for homeless people to access free food, snacks, clothing and other sanitary items. Local homeless shelters issue special cards with access to the machines. Action Hunger – the charity group behind the initiative – also aims to install such machines in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles. This will do away with limited accessibility and operating hours of shelters. Can vending machines provide bare necessities to the homeless? https://www.spireresearch.com/newsroom/spirethoughts/free-access-to-vending-machines-for-the-homeless/

Destination Asia-Pacific - The 21st century's tourism hub

Right now, five out of the world’s top 10 travel destinations are cities in the Asia Pacific. But it is widely acknowledged that the region punches well below its weight in tourism, which is why there is plenty of room for growth. How will Asia’s tourism industry evolve? Travel sector looks upbeat for Asia-Pacific region? According to a study conducted in 2013, the year was good for international tourism and strongest for destinations in the Asia Pacific region – Asia saw six per cent growth. Moreover, the number of international tourists increased by 14 million to reach 248 million. South-East Asia (as a sub-region of the Asia-Pacific) registered a 10 per cent increase. China emerged with a record number of international tourist arrivals in 2013, at 55.69 million. Asia’s tourism industry employs 65 million people and supports one in 12 jobs – exceeding industries such as financial services. Needless to say, this growth also led to the generation of 1 million new jobs a

Steady progress for AEC in first year

The establishment of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015 was a major milestone in the region’s economic integration. With a GDP of USD2.6 trillion and 600 million people, the AEC is Asia’s third largest economy and the seventh largest in the world. What is the AEC score card thus far? Leon Perera, Chief Executive Officer of Spire Research and Consulting, shared his insights in China Daily – Asia Weekly. AEC’s Blueprint 2025 envisions in achieving a highly integrated and competitive regional economy with enhanced connectivity to improve market access for ASEAN companies to sell goods and services. However, the past year has seen missed opportunities to accelerate progress for cross-border investment between ASEAN countries, speeding up the harmonization progress of non-tariff barriers as well as integrating a competition policy across ASEAN. Nevertheless, the AEC is making some progress. In time, it is well-placed to improve market access and provide the ASEAN groupin

Spire teams up with Singapore’s Land Transport Authority for Taxi Customer Satisfaction Survey

With an increased rating of overall quality of taxi services in Singapore up to 60.3% in 2015 from 52.4% in 2014, these findings appeared in the Land Transport Authority’s (LTA) third annual Taxi Customer Satisfaction Survey (TCSS) conducted by Spire Research and Consulting. The survey measures regular taxi commuters’ satisfaction with taxi services. It also aims to understand commuters’ expectations and identify areas for improvement. What are the areas for improvement? The findings of the survey were also published on LTA’s website. Spire’s survey spans across 1,200 regular taxi commuters (aged 15 years and above) interviewed between August to September 2015. Taxi commuters were questioned on eight key service attributes to include driver’s knowledge of routes, safety of taxi services, taxi stand accessibility, customer service, ease of taxi booking, ride comfort, waiting time and information on taxi services. According to the survey, safety continues to be a concern am