Matej Bel University

About: Matej Bel University is a education organization based out in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Tourism & Fuzzy set. The organization has 721 authors who have published 1497 publications receiving 11573 citations. The organization is also known as: Matej Bel & Univerzita Mateja Bela.

Visitors’ Motivation for Attending Traditional Cultural Events as the Basis for Market Segmentation: Evidence from Slovakia

Abstract: In an increasingly competitive festival market, identifying visitors' motivation has been recognized as a key prerequisite for satisfaction, which is expected to lead to positive referrals and future visitations of an event. The objective of this study is to identify the main factors which motivate visitors to attend traditional cultural events in Slovakia and to examine their viability as the basis for festival market segmentation. Building upon previous research on festival attendees' motivation, a set of potential drivers of visitors' behavior has been identified and by the application of exploratory factor analysis further refined into the following six domains of visitors' motivation: new and different experience, friends and family togetherness, reconnection with culture and tradition, socialization, recover equilibrium and change from everyday life. The application of k-means clustering on the basis of motivational domains indicated four clusters of festival visitors and provided evidence in support of suitability of visitors' motivation as the basis for festival market segmentation. Findings of the study have been discussed, limitations are noted and directions for future research are highlighted.

Agricultural Abandonment in Chosen Terrain Attributes Context – Case Study from the Poľana Unesco Biosphere Reserve (Central Slovakia)

Abstract: Abstract Agricultural land in many post-socialist countries passed through a similar scenario of eminent changes in the past decades. One of the important milestones was the process of collectivisation (in 1950−1970), transformation to market-oriented economy (after 1989) and the following integration into the European Union. These changes were often attended by the process of agricultural abandonment. This paper presents an approach to the evaluation of agricultural abandonment by analysis of land use change in chosen terrain attributes (slope levels and altitude levels) context. It studies the area of a northern part of the Poľana UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Biosphere reserve that represents mountain agricultural landscape. All of the analyses were realised in GIS (geographic information systems), based on the orthophotos that represented the land use structure in 1949, 1986 and 2006. Dramatic decrease in real usage of agricultural areas attended by the process of secondary succession was observed especially in steep slopes and higher altitude levels. To quantify the changes, landscape metrics such as class area (CA), number of patches (NP) and mean patch size (MPS) were used. Changes in landscape classes had an influence on landscape diversity. It was expressed by decrease in Shannon‘s diversity index (SDI) and Shannon‘s evenness index (SEI).

Malmquist index analysis of the recent development of the Slovak banking sector from two different angles

Abstract: Filling the gap that exists in the extant research oriented on productivity and efficiency change of Slovak commercial banks, the paper aims to examine the productivity change and its nature that was effective in the Slovak banking sector in three subsequent sub-periods of its development from 2000 to 2012. In this effort, issues of banking production are interpreted from the standpoint of two competing approaches to banking behaviour, the production approach and the intermediation approach, which permits treating the core essence of banking production from two different angles and comparing results. To this end, the Malmquist index methodology developed originally for group performance comparison is extended and modified to quantify productivity change and decompose it into its sources for the situation when there are multi-year structurally different periods of economic development, between which production technology remains intact and free of structural shift. This methodology is utilized in conjunction with the non-oriented slacks-based model of Tone and with the decomposition of productivity change as proposed by Ray and Desli. Besides the fact that the Slovak banking sector recorded a productivity increase between the first sub-period (2000–2003) and the third sub-period (2009–2012) of its development, it is symptomatic that innovation capacity and espousal of new technologies was tied with large commercial banks and smaller banks were only able to follow up these tendencies. As to the difference between the two approaches, they differ especially in how they view improvement or deterioration of relative technical efficiency of individual banks over the investigated period from 2000 to 2012. This complies with the difference that naturally exists between financial intermediation and provision of banking services.

Slovakia’s perspective on NATO

Abstract: 1 Security, as expressed by the security policy of a state, is one of the most fundamental aspects of a foreign and defense policies of a state. Together, they create a foreign orientation of the state which may alter with time, space and under the influence of political decision-making. This paper presents the sources of the strategic orientation of Slovakia that emerged in reaction to historical events that the faced country Slovakia gradually integrated into the European and Euro-Atlantic structures with the emphasis on coalition changes in the governance of the state. This paper, through analysis and comparison, shows the dominant changes in the Slovakian security environment. In any case, it has been the destiny of small countries to maintain their security through cooperation and integration.