Path finding with stowage planning consideration in a mixed pickup–delivery and specified-node network

This paper considers the mixed pickup–delivery shortest path problem with specified nodes and stowage planning (mixed-PDSPSNSP), which combines path finding and three-dimensional stowage planning. The mixed-PDSPSNSP appears in many operational problems in various industries. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no study in the literature for such a problem. The mixed-PDSPSNSP is NP-hard. Our proposed solution algorithm is shown to be effective and efficient when applied to a real-life mixed-PDSPSNSP.     

Determining flight frequencies on an airline network with demand–supply interactions

This paper determines flight frequencies on an airline network with demand–supply interactions between passenger demand and flight frequencies. The model consists of two submodels, a passenger airline flight choice model and an airline flight frequency programming model. The demand–supply interactions relevant to determining flight frequency on an airline’s network are analyzed by integrating these two submodels. The necessary condition for the convergence of the demand–supply interaction is discussed. An example demonstrates the feasibility of applying the proposed models. The results are more accurate than those obtained without considering demand–supply interactions, and the models provide ways to consider demand–supply interactions well in advance to determine flight frequencies on an airline network.     

The Northeast Asian air transport network: is there a possibility of creating Open Skies in the region?

Unlike in the US and the European Union aviation markets, the Northeast Asian markets are still very fragmented. As a result, the passenger and air freight collection/distribution systems in the region are very inefficiently organized. The primary reason for the inefficient and inconvenient air carrier networks in the region is the restrictive bilateral air services agreements between Asian countries. This paper documents the nature and extent of the restrictive bilateral agreements among China, Japan and Korea, evaluates several bilateral or trilateral approaches for liberalizing the regional air transport markets, and makes a proposal which would increase substantially the probability of achieving an Open Skies market in the region. In particular, the current approach to liberalize the bilateral air services agreements among China, Korea and Japan has limitations even in the medium term because of China's and, to a less extent, Japan's reluctance to remove price and capacity restrictions. Therefore, as an institutional solution we propose to create bi-national (for bilateral negotiations) or tri-national (for trilateral negotiations) ‘Trade and Transport Facilitation Committees’, that can pursue a practical avenue to tie air transport negotiations with those of other goods and services trade.     

The application of a neural network approach to predicting bankruptcy risks facing the major US air carriers: 1979–1996

Airline bankruptcy, an unheard of event prior to the deregulation of the US airline industry, has become rather commonplace. Over 123 air carriers have filed receivership since 1982, and several large carriers have sought court protection more than once in the past decade. In spite of record airline profits over the past two years, the financial condition of many carriers still remains fragile. The huge financing requirements of the industry over the next decade, driven by the carriers’ need to replace aging fleets of aircraft, will create further stress for many. The ability to assess the level of this financial stress is important to many groups, including stockholders, bondholders, other creditors, financial analysts, governmental regulatory bodies, and the general public. For this reason, models that can forecast financial distress are useful. Building on prior research by several of the authors, who utilized multiple discriminant models driven by financial ratios, a neural network approach is employed to increase the reliability of the forecasts. In this paper, a neural net is trained with the result that it successfully classifies 26 out of 26 carriers in the holdout (test) set.     

Japan's capital Tôkyô and its airports: problems and prospects from subnational and supranational perspectives

This paper deals with air passenger traffic and airport competition in Japan and East and Southeast Asia. The focus is on the airports serving Tôkyô, and the question whether they will be able to meet the future transport needs of a ‘global city’. The concentration of the paper is on two topics: an analysis of the position of the capital region airports within the Japanese airport hierarchy and an examination of the competition between Tôkyô and the major metropolitan airports in East and Southeast Asia. The paper provides insights into the basic problems and perspectives of Japanese airport policies, the current conflicts concerning the goals and strategies of airport development in Tôkyô and the complex interests of key actors.     

Medical tourists’ emotional and cognitive response to credibility and Servicescape

While medical tourism has been an issue of increasing interest among scholars and practitioners, most studies are dedicated to understanding the factors of attraction that lead medical tourists to select a certain destination and treatment providers. In this vein, more studies are needed to understand medical tourists’ perceptions about medical facilities and staff, and repurchase intention formation. In order to contribute to bridging this gap, the current study aims to explore the effect of Servicescape (intrinsic cues) and credibility (extrinsic cues) on medical tourists’ emotion, perceived quality and image. The proposed model was tested in the medical tourism context in Portugal. The questionnaire was distributed to individuals who had stayed in a hospital devoted to medical tourism. A convenience sample of 332 usable questionnaires was employed to test the model. Findings reveal that ambience and design are the most important factors in formatting Servicescape itself. Servicescape and credibility are effective antecedents of customer image and pleasure-feeling. Credibility is more effective in enhancing pleasure-feeling and Servicescape in creating a favourable image. On the other hand, perceptions of quality do not contribute significantly to pleasure-feeling. Finally, the article also provides managerial implications and suggests avenues for further research.     

Public transport and car-sharing—benefits and effects of combined services

The article presents the results of a German research project, where recommendations for the synthesis of public transport and car-sharing/car clubs are given. In order to determine effects and factors of success of combined services, the adoption process, the mobility behaviour and customer satisfaction were investigated within the context of model projects in two German cities. The results prove that car-sharing is suitable as a supplement to public transport.     

Do gender and nationality affect attitudes towards tourism and the environment?

This study examines whether gender and home economy influence attitudes towards tourism and the environment. Students enrolled in senior undergraduate and first‐year postgraduate tourism and hospitality subjects from eight economies are studied. Previous research on environmental attitudes has focused on either gender or home nationality, but has rarely examined the interrelationship between the two, and none has focused explicitly on attitudes to tourism and the environment. The study concluded that nationality mitigates attitudes among women much more than it does among men. The authors also conclude that general environmental attitudes are well formed, but tourism‐related environmental attitudes are often contradictory. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Traffic congestion and trucking managers’ use of automated routing and scheduling

Using data from a 2001 survey of managers of 700 trucking companies operating in California, we tested competing hypotheses about the relationship between managers’ perceptions of the impact of traffic congestion on their operations and their companies’ adoption of routing and scheduling (R/S) software. Demand for R/S software was found to be influenced directly by the need to re-route drivers, and indirectly by the need, generated by customers’ schedules, to operate during congested periods. We were also able to identify which types of trucking companies are most affected by congestion and which types are more likely to adopt such software.     

Strategic alliances between airlines and airports—theoretical assessment and practical evidence

Strategic alliances are now widespread. This paper shifts the focus from alliances among airlines toward strategic alliances involving passenger airlines and airports. Following a conceptual path analyzing motives, potential benefits and problems, potential fields of cooperation are identified along with three basic classes of airline–airport alliances. Capacity-based, marketing-based, and security based cooperation models are assessed with regard to benefits for the participating airline and airport partners. This expands the existing literature that has largely neglected the airline–airport relationship and its potential for developing their respective competitive strategies. The case of the alliance between Lufthansa and Munich airport serves as an illustration.     

Tourism,development and ‘destination Dubai’: cultural dilemmas and future challenges

The aim of this conceptual paper is to provide a critical assessment of Dubai's approach to tourism development, focusing on its cultural implications. The work initially observes ways in which the destination is building an image based on iconographic grandeur, monumental innovation and super-modernism. In doing so, the enquiry indicates that one fundamental sociological concern for destination Dubai is its perceived lack of cultural consistency, particularly in terms of the absorption of the old into the new. This position is evident through a paucity of heritage resources and institutions associated with the tourism market, as well as limited public knowledge concerning the ethnic and traditional elements of the indigenous society. Emphasising a more culturally focused tourism agenda could help to socially sustain and ground local communities (and identities) threatened by rapid urbanisation and Westernisation. However, one noted dilemma relates to the complexity of defining and deconstructing indigenous forms of ethnicity and identity. Nevertheless, the discussion claims that it is imperative not to lose sight of the possible opportunities for the productive advancement of localised forms of tourism and cultural capital. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of examining the diversity of local perceptions of tourism, culture and development within an empirically informed framework.     

How do leisure activities impact leisure domain and life domain satisfaction and subjective well-being?

This study examines the impact of leisure activities on leisure domain and life domain satisfactions and subjective well-being (SWB) and explores the differences between genders in these associations, using data from 316 middle-aged adults. The results suggest that sports and travel & outdoor activities have the greatest impact on physiological, psychological, and relaxing satisfactions. Social activities are key ingredients in social, psychological, and physiological satisfactions as seen by men, whereas cultural activities and hobbies are important in women's psychological satisfaction. While relaxing and social satisfactions are important in men's SWB, psychological satisfaction is the most important factor in women's SWB.     

Drivers and barriers of peer-to-peer accommodation stay – an exploratory study with American and Finnish travellers

The explosive growth of peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation service presents a potential transformation in the competitive landscape of accommodation sector. This research explores the market characteristics and the factors that drive and hinder the use of P2P accommodation to better explain the phenomenon of collaborative consumption in the tourism and hospitality marketplace. Using responses from travellers residing in the United States and Finland, exploratory factor analyses revealed two factors that drive the use of P2P accommodation: social appeal (desire for community and sustainability) and economic appeal (cost savings). The barriers include issues of trust, efficacy and familiarity with the system, and cost. The empirical evidence from this study suggests several managerial implications for tourism and hospitality businesses and directions for future research.     

Tourism and identity‐related motivations: why am I here (and not there)?

This paper examines past and present literature relating to identity development and identity‐related tourism motivation. It presents a theoretical model of identity‐related tourism motivation that is based on multidimensional rather than unidimensional theories of identity as well as acknowledging both individual and social influences on identity development. It is argued that identity‐related motivations are fundamental to all tourist experiences and vital to understanding not only why individuals engage in tourism but what benefits they derive from the experience, suggesting that tourism is often used by individuals as a means to explore, maintain and even disengage from particular aspects of identity. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Small business— small minded? Training attitudes and needs of the tourism and hospitality industry

The Australian tourism and hospitality industry consists of at least 80% small business operators scattered over a wide range of urban and rural environments, consequently it has not been easy for training providers to assess accurately the needs of the industry as a whole and provide specialised programmes. During 1996, Tourism Training Victoria conducted a survey of training needs of tourism and hospitality operators. Results indicate that there is a shortage of skilled staff and owner‐managers with little management training or qualifications, who nonetheless recognise their shortcomings and needs for further education and training, particularly in the marketing and business areas. Barriers to further training include the cost of training and inflexibility of hours and place of delivery. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

Millennials’ travel motivations and desired activities within destinations: A comparative study of the US and the UK

Millennials are one of the largest groups to be targeted by tourism companies. This paper compares the travel motivations of Millennials from both the United States and the United Kingdom by ratings, rankings and perceptual structures of both push and pull factors. This exploratory study used a questionnaire to examine the inner motivations (e.g. push factors) and preferred destination activities (e.g. pull factors) of American and British Millennials (n?=?322). Data analysis included the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, an alternating least-squares algorithm (ALSCAL) model and ordinal regression. The results reveal that American and British Millennials are quite homogeneous in their push travel motivations and destination activity preferences. The most important motivational factors for both are ‘to relax’ and ‘to escape from the ordinary’. Both nationalities also agree that the most attractive destination activities are ‘to try local food’ and ‘to go sightseeing’. The findings indicate that the US and UK samples are similar and that there is room for segmentation according to demographics.     

Tourism and grey seals in south Devon: management strategies,voluntary controls and tourists’ perceptions of disturbance

Although grey seals are relatively common in Britain, their numbers elsewhere are believed to be decreasing, and some populations in Europe are listed as endangered by the IUCN. This case study focuses on the impacts of seal tourism on a colony of seals on the South Devon coast in the United Kingdom, the effectiveness of current management policies and tourists’ perceptions of the voluntary controls adhered to by tour operators. To monitor impacts, covert observations of the site were undertaken on 60 designated survey days in the summer of 2006, while a survey of tourists taking part in wildlife cruises to the site was conducted during the same period. The observations found that the voluntary codes had reduced disturbance from operators; however, there were still disturbances, mainly from private vessels. The results of the survey showed that tourists were aware of their potential impacts upon the wildlife, and were generally supportive of the voluntary codes in place. Therefore if an honest explanation and interpretation of the potential impacts of seal tourism are provided, it may encourage a protectionist predisposition in wildlife tourists and render the compliance of voluntary codes a highly satisfactory tourist experience rather than a negative one.     

Informal tourism entrepreneurs’ capital usage and conversion

ABSTRACT

This article examines informal entrepreneurs’ capital usage and conversion in the Thai tourism sector. On the Bourdieusian assumption that people perpetually transform tangible and intangible forms of capital, this study seeks to answer how informal tourism entrepreneurs transform intangible capital into tangible capital, and vice versa, at different stages of their development process. A visual dataset of 78 filmed interviews and of 426 photographs of informal entrepreneurs in three tourist-island destinations in Thailand was compiled and analysed using thematic qualitative analysis. The results show the importance of diversification of capital mix at informal entrepreneurs’ different development stages. Whereas cultural and symbolic capital are more salient for freelancers and small-size entrepreneurs, economic and social capital are more important for mid-size and large informal entrepreneurs. Furthermore, this study introduces dream capital as a new form of capital. Developing countries are recommended to introduce a policy on profiling informal tourism entrepreneurs so that the appropriate level of regulation can be applied in order to maintain or increase their benefits to society.