Are U.S. airlines really in crisis?

This study reflects on the technical efficiency of U.S. airlines using a Bayesian random stochastic frontier model. Inferences from the Bayesian estimation indicate that the random model fits the data well and outperforms the traditional stochastic frontier model. The technical efficiency results indicate that U.S. airlines are operating at a declining efficiency rate with an average of 69.02% in 2007. Results from returns to scale are also in line with the efficiency results. More specific discussions on the current industry trends and other contributions of this study are presented and discussed.     

An assessment of the potential for self-connectivity at European airports in holiday markets

In a context of intense airport and airline competition, a few European airports have recently started offering self-connection services to price-sensitive holiday passengers travelling with a combination of tickets where the airline/s involved do not handle the transfer themselves. This paper provides an exploratory analysis of the potential and implications of self-connectivity for European airports and airlines using a case study of air travel routes to holiday destinations in the Mediterranean. With the help of a forecasting model based on a zero-inflated Poisson regression, we identify the airports and airlines that have the highest potential to facilitate self-connections in the selected markets. The results also explore some implications of the widespread development of self-connection services in Europe.     

Understanding and projecting the restaurantscape: The influence of neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics on restaurant location

To better understand the location patterns of different types of restaurants across the United States, we investigate the relationship between neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics and restaurant location using a unique data set from 2013 covering 30,772 U.S. zip codes. The estimation results from negative binomial regression models confirm the significant impacts of various sociodemographic factors (e.g., population density, median age, median household income, average household size, educational attainment, gender distribution, housing tenure, neighborhood urbanization) on restaurant location. We also project future restaurant growth potential based on model estimates and projected changes in sociodemographic characteristics by 2020. The results are analyzed, and several metropolitan areas in Texas and Florida are identified as having high potential for growth. Lastly, implications are provided for restaurant real estate practitioners.     

Accounting for customer satisfaction in measuring hotel efficiency: Evidence from the US hotel industry

Customer satisfaction, though an important output, is often ignored in hotel efficiency studies. Our study provides empirical evidence that excluding customer satisfaction may lead to significant difference in the mean and ranking of hotel efficiency scores. We derive our hotel efficiency scores using the distance stochastic frontier method based on a balanced sample of leading hotel chains in the US. We present and compare the efficiency results from two models, one that includes customer satisfaction and one that excludes customer satisfaction. The study discusses the difference in efficiency scores between the models. It also elaborates on the efficiency scores of some individual hotel chains and provides directions for future research.     

The corporate social responsibility–financial performance link in the U.S. restaurant industry: Do economic conditions matter?

This study examines the role played by economic conditions (recessionary periods) on the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP) in the U.S. restaurant industry. The choice of industry setting is based on the fact that the restaurant industry is subject to consumer discretionary expenditures and is thus highly sensitive to the state of the economy. This study further examines the relationship between CSR and CFP by dichotomizing CSR activities based on whether they are related to the firm's core operations or not, thus parsing out the effect of operations-related (OR) and non-operations-related (Non-OR) CSR activities, providing a more nuanced explanation of how some CSR activities may be more beneficial than others, to firm value in hard economic times.     

Impact of quality on estimations of hotel efficiency

This paper provides empirical evidence on the impact of output quality on hotel efficiency. It demonstrates how ignoring quality can lead to erroneous efficiency estimates. The study uses stochastic frontier methodology and the model proposed by Battese and Coelli (1995) to estimate the efficiency of 838 hotels in Spain in the period 2009–2013. The key advantage of this methodology is its ability to estimate efficiency and identify factors that explain differences in efficiency in a single-stage sampling procedure. Estimates of cost efficiency, which only include the costs of higher quality, are compared to those of profit efficiency, which not only consider costs but also the revenues generated by higher quality. Results show that quality has a negative impact on cost efficiency and a positive one on profit efficiency. Thus, hotel management should implement strategies that increase the value of their services as a way to achieve sustainable competitive advantages.     

Evaluating the Total Factor Productivity Growth of National Parks in China with Data Enveloped Analysis

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the total factor productivity (TFP) growth of national parks in China. The method of Malmquist Productivity Index based on data enveloped analysis is used. The result shows that 58.33% of national parks in China improved their TFP, and their mean score reached 3.42 in 2001–2005. When the decompositions are considered, 90.28% of them decreased their efficiency and 98.59% of them increased their technology. Correlation analysis indicates that these national parks' TFP is more constrained by their efficiency change than technology change. The correlation coefficients of them with Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) reach to 0.7834 and 0.9367, respectively. Overall, the authors hold the opinion that most national parks in China increased their TFP during this period, but hindered by their inputs scale for preservation function, the efficiency of them deteriorated but the technology increased, further influencing the TFP. Finally, some methods to improve the performance of national parks for the governments and managers are discussed.     

A stochastic cost efficiency analysis of international tourist hotels in Taiwan

The one-stage stochastic frontier approach (SFA) is used in this study to simultaneously estimate cost efficiency scores and factors of cost inefficiency for 66 international tourist hotels in Taiwan during 1997–2006. An SFA model with three outputs and three inputs is defined. The three outputs are room revenue, food and beverage revenue, and other operation revenue while the three inputs are price of labor, price of other operation, and price of food and beverage. This model also takes into account five environmental variables, including dummy variable of the hotels located in non-metropolitan area, dummy variable of chain hotels, the number of tourist guides, the minimum distance from each hotel to Taoyuan international airport and the minimum distance from each hotel to Kaohsiung international airport. Empirical results show that international tourist hotels in Taiwan are on average operating at 91.15% cost efficiency. All nominal variables are transformed into real variables in 1997 prices by GDP deflators. Chain systems, tourist guides, and international transportation can significantly improve the cost efficiency of international tourist hotels in Taiwan.     

On Measuring Tourism Productivity

This paper presents a productivity measure for the tourism industry. It demonstrates the value of the Luenberger productivity indicator, which is based on the directional distance function, for analyzing productivity between two periods. This indicator can be decomposed into two components: efficiency change and technological change. In order to illustrate this, productivity in the French tourism sector between 2000 and 2003 is analyzed. The study focuses on tourism receipts by looking at the number of bed-nights in hotels and campsites based on tourist nationality.     

Benchmarking the Asia Pacific tourism industry: A Bayesian combination of DEA and stochastic frontier

This study measures and compares the efficiency of leading tour operator and hotel companies across several Asia Pacific countries. We use an innovative methodology that is based on combining the stochastic frontier and data envelopment analysis in a Bayes framework. We show from the results that Australia, Singapore and South Korea are the most efficient in both their tour operator and hotel industries. We further show that international hotels in the region have a slightly higher efficiency than local hotels. We provide a listing of the most efficient tour operators and hotels in each country and discuss the implications of our findings.     

中国旅游全要素生产率差异与收敛实证研究

本文利用非参数DEA—Malmquist指数方法测算了2001～2009年中国省际旅游全要素生产率,并进行生产率指数分解,对中国旅游全要素生产率时序变化和区域差异进行了分析,之后又利用经济增长收敛理论对中国旅游全要素生产率进行了盯和口收敛性检验。实证研究结果表明,中国旅游全要素生产率年均增长12．7％,其中,技术进步创新率为6．7％,技术效率增长5．6％,技术进步是中国旅游全要素生产率增长的主要源泉;中国旅游全要素生产率存在显著的时空差异性;中国旅游全要素生产率并不存在显著矿收敛和条件18收敛,但存在显著绝对卢收敛,说明中国各地区旅游全要素生产率差距正在逐步缩小,最终收敛于相同的稳态均衡水平,然而由于中国旅游业发展尚未达到成熟阶段,所以现阶段中国旅游全要素生产率增长尚未找到自身合适的条件收敛路径。     

Online distribution of airline tickets: Should airlines adopt a single or a multi-channel approach?

In today's digital world, airlines typically distribute tickets both via their own websites and through online travel agency (OTA) platforms such as Expedia and Travelocity. Although associated with higher distribution costs, selling tickets through the platforms offers airlines exposure to a broader consumer base, and potentially higher sales than selling tickets solely through their own websites. While most airlines have adopted a multi-channel approach by selling tickets through OTA platforms and their websites, some (e.g., Southwest Airlines, easyJet and Ryanair) sell only via the latter. Is one approach better than the other, and if so, under what circumstances? This study analyzes factors that affect an airline's distribution strategy by developing a decision support model. We find that airlines are less likely to use OTA platforms if they have a large loyal consumer base or if the OTA platform is highly competitive.     

Can message framings influence air passengers’ perceived credibility of aviation voluntary carbon offsetting messages?

Abstract

Past literature has identified low purchase rates of aviation voluntary carbon offsetting (VCO) schemes. A lack of credibility of such schemes has been identified as a key obstacle, yet little attention has been given on how to enhance perceived credibility. Using communication theory, this study examines effects of message framing on consumers’ perceived credibility of aviation VCO messages. Data were drawn from a representative sample of 1680 Australians. The results revealed that spatial distance framing influences air passengers’ perceived credibility of aviation VCO messages. Messages focusing on the influence of VCO programs on the environment of a local community obtain higher perceived credibility than those located in other countries. The study also found the interaction of spatial and temporal distance framing effects were different based on consumers’ past purchase experience. The findings suggest how airlines should design messages and refine them based on consumers’ past experience of aviation VCOs.     

SURE Estimation of Tourism Demand System Model:

The purpose of this study is to build a tourism demand system model which incorporates inbound, outbound and domestic tourism of the U.S. The study utilizes the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SURE) technique to investigate the international tourist flow between the U.S. and Canada, Japan, Mexico, United Kingdom, and inland European countries. Relevant marketing and policy implications for income and price elasticities are discussed.     

Revenue functions for hotels within clusters

In this note, we propose a flexible revenue function that considers the characteristics of hotels that operate within competitive clusters. We show that without a need to estimate a demand function one can estimate elasticities of demand, conjectural variations, revenue efficiency, technical change, efficiency change, productivity growth, as well the Lerner index. We use a Bayesian approach to fit the model on a sample of US hotels.     

Identification of risk factors in the hospitality industry: Evidence from risk factor disclosure

This study identifies the main risk concepts and themes reported by U.S. lodging companies in their annual fillings for both 2008, when risk reporting was considered generic and under a financial crisis, and 2016, after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) push for more specific risk reporting and under an economy recovery environment. The content analysis provided by Leximancer allowed to identify the main themes for 2008: conditions, debt, subject, gaming, insurance, agreements and shares; and for 2016: results, subject, debt, certain, shares, information and tax in descending order of relative importance. The results indicate a shift: while in 2008, the emphasis relied on the risks resulting from economic conditions, in 2016, the companies' focus was on results, and on information security risks. Findings also indicate that companies are increasing specific in risk reporting, as the theme subject referring to hospitality-related risks became the second largest theme in 2016.     

基于亲景度的美国旅华市场拓展研究--以我国六大旅游热点城市为例

本文引入亲景度的概念，利用亲景度指标，以美国游客作为研究对象，根据不同年度美国游客旅华的人数．分析了美国游客对北京、上海、广州、西安、昆明、桂林六大热点城市的亲景度，揭示了美国游客在进行旅游目的地选择方面的偏好程度，提出了深层次开发美国客源市场的对策，从而确定针对美国客源市场的拓展方向。     

Prediction accuracy for reservation-based forecasting methods applied in Revenue Management

With a few notable exceptions, airlines and hospitality forecasting research has been focused so far on point predictions of customers’ bookings. However, Revenue Management decisions are subject to a much greater risk when based exclusively on point predictions. To overcome this drawback, we propose a stochastic framework that allows the construction of prediction intervals for reservation-based (pickup) forecasting methods, which are widely used in the industry. Moreover, we introduce an extension of the multiplicative pickup technique based on Generalized Linear Models. We test the proposed framework with real reservation data from a medium-sized hotel on Lake Maggiore (Italy) and we obtain more efficient prediction intervals relative to classical time series methods. Our approach can be useful to hotel revenue managers that wish to make more informed decisions, planning alternative pricing and room allocation strategies for a range of possible demand scenarios.     

Modeling recreation demand and fees at national parks

The paper develops a model to estimate the effect of entry fees on U.S. national parks visits. Monte Carlo analysis demonstrates that a Poisson-estimated exponential model is preferable to a log-linear model of tourist arrivals. We apply the model to panel data of U.S. national parks tourism to estimate the effect of fees on annual visitation. The results provide evidence that visits to U.S. national parks are inelastic with respect to fees. We use the model to predict the effects of two proposed fee revisions.     

Shopping behavior of Chinese tourists visiting the United States: Letting the shoppers do the talking

Chinese tourists visiting the U.S. were interviewed to explore their shopping behaviours and to understand their shopping experiences. This study revealed that the Chinese tourists were interested in a very large variety of U.S. merchandise, ranging from antique watches and jewellery to health products and running shoes. They perceived the quality of American products to be consistent with prices lower than similar products at home. Male tourists in the study tended to be more satisfied with their shopping experiences than females, but all informants expressed a desire for more Chinese-speaking sales assistants as well as Chinese shopping guides and signage. Informants asked that Chinese credit cards be accepted in the U.S. stores, and would encourage banks of both countries to find ways to cooperate with payment methods to make tourists’ shopping experience more enjoyable and free from inconveniences. Informants had a positive image of shopping in the U.S., especially when compared to some European and Asian destinations. Implications of both the methods and the findings for destination marketing strategies are also discussed in the paper.