The Influence of Travel Motives on Visitor Happiness Attending a Wedding Expo

Events are an important motivator in travel and tourism, therefore contributing to related benefits at the tourism destination. This study presents the findings of a structural equation model used to investigate the factors that motivate visitors attending a Wedding Expo and how these travel motives influence their happiness. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to visitors attending the Wedding Expo in Johannesburg, South Africa. The data from 375 (N) eligible questionnaires was captured and analyzed using SPSS. From the study’s findings, managerial recommendations were made with the aim of maximising the happiness of visitors attending the Wedding Expo. The study found that satisfaction with life and happiness of visitors attending a Wedding Expo is enhanced more by the event’s attributes/attractiveness and enhancement of kinship/relationship than by the event’s novelty. The research contributes to the literature related to events management, happiness, and marketing management in tourism.     

往事并不如烟

2008年，改革开放三十周年。这是国家生命力从萎靡到迸发的三十年。这三十年，“发展才是硬道理”，是中国历史上最精彩的三十年!这三十年，济南市的城市发展也是翻天覆地，我们将随着一些图片寻找历史的足迹，一条路、一座桥、一个家庭、一个社区、一个广场、一个时代变迁……这个时代的济南，凝固在许许多多值得回味的瞬间。     

航班延误群体性事件的产权分析及契约治理

航班延误群体性事件反映出在航班延误时间产权非完全界定时,旅客和航空公司对处于公共领域利益"寻租"的事实。要从根源上对航班延误群体性事件进行控制,一方面要消除公共领域,另一方面控制旅客和航空公司寻租价值和寻租成本。从长期看,给予旅客更多的航班延误时间产权可能更利于资源配置效率的提高。     

Information aggregation in auctions with an unknown number of bidders

Information aggregation, a key concern for uniform-price, common-value auctions with many bidders, has been characterized in models where bidders know exactly how many rivals they face. A model allowing for uncertainty over the number of bidders is essential for capturing a critical condition for information to aggregate: as the numbers of winning and losing bidders grow large, information aggregates if and only if uncertainty about the fraction of winning bidders vanishes. It may be possible for the seller to impart this information by precommitting to a specified fraction of winning bidders, via a proportional selling policy. Intuitively, this could make the proportion of winners known, and thus provide all the information that bidders need to make winner's curse corrections.     

Multiplicative uncertainty in a model without inflationary bias

This paper shows that an increase in the degree of multiplicative uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of monetary policy will reduce social loss when policymaker’s preferences are highly uncertain. This result is still valid even when there is no distortion in the market.     

Monetary policy uncertainty and interest rate targeting

This paper studies the issue of monetary delegation in the case where central banker’s preferences are uncertain. A distinctive feature of the analysis is that it introduces nominal interest rate targets to the monetary delegation scheme in addition to linear contracts, quadratic punishments, and inflation targets. This paper shows that the implementation of interest rate targeting will improve social welfare since it leads the central bank to make smaller interventions, which limits the scope for the central bank’s uncertain preferences to impact the economy.     

巨灾债券与巨灾保险风险分散

巨灾债券,作为一种债权合同,相对于巨灾再保险而言,虽然是一个两极端产品,但在分散风险方面具有其不可比拟的优势。在大额损失时,巨灾债券是巨灾再保险的一种很好的替代产品。另外,巨灾风险债券的发行对巨灾再保险免赔额具有积极影响。     

Min–Max exact and heuristic policies for a two-echelon supply chain with inventory and transportation procurement decisions

We study the problem in which one supplier delivers a product to a set of retailers over time by using an outsourced fleet of vehicles. Since the probability distribution of the demand is not known, we provide a Min–Max approach to find robust policies. We show that the optimal Min-Expected Value policy can be very poor in the worst case. We provide a Min–Max Dynamic Programming formulation that allows us to exactly solve the problem in small instances. Finally, we implement a Min–Max Matheuristic to solve benchmark instances and show that it is very effective.     

Carrying capacity procurement of rail and shipping services for automobile delivery with uncertain demand

The determination of the optimal carrying capacity procurement of rail and shipping services in the automobile intermodal network with unique characteristics is essential to save automobile delivery cost. In this research we develop a two-stage stochastic programming model for the tactical-level decision problem arising in the special automobile intermodal network. Furthermore, we improve the sample average approximation algorithmic procedure to solve the model. We apply the model and solution method to a case study associated with the Shanghai Automobile Industry Corporation. We believe that this study deals with an emerging new research topic with practical significance for the automobile industry.     

Deciphering ‘Islamic hospitality’: Developments,challenges and opportunities

This paper examines the principles and practices of Islamic hospitality, outlining the diverse ways in which Islam intersects with ‘hospitality’ and the ‘hospitality industry’. The intangible elements of Islamic hospitality are initially discussed, particularly the importance of the host–guest relationship and differing cultural interpretations. The discussion then evaluates the tangible aspects of Islamic hospitality through identifying trends, developments and challenges within the hotel sector, the food production and service sector, and the festivals and events sector. The work adopts a global perspective, examining Islamic hospitality with reference to both OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) countries and non-OIC countries. The paper also considers new sector opportunities and acknowledges the social difficulties associated with the development of Islamic hospitality within the Western world, notably Islamophobia. Finally, the paper indicates ways forward for future research.