Role of social media in online travel information search

Social media are playing an increasingly important role as information sources for travelers. The goal of this study is to investigate the extent to which social media appear in search engine results in the context of travel-related searches. The study employed a research design that simulates a traveler's use of a search engine for travel planning by using a set of pre-defined keywords in combination with nine U.S. tourist destination names. The analysis of the search results showed that social media constitute a substantial part of the search results, indicating that search engines likely direct travelers to social media sites. This study confirms the growing importance of social media in the online tourism domain. It also provides evidence for challenges faced by traditional providers of travel-related information. Implications for tourism marketers in terms of online marketing strategies are discussed.     

THE INFLUENCE OF VOLUNTEERS, DONATIONS AND PUBLIC SUBSIDIES ON THE WAGE LEVEL OF NONPROFIT WORKERS: EVIDENCE FROM AUSTRIAN MATCHED DATA

ABSTRACT ** :  In this article we add to the literature analyzing wages in the nonprofit sector by estimating a wage function based on employer-employee matched data for Austria. We concentrate on the influence of voluntary contributions on the wage level of paid workers. By using a quantile regression approach we find that the existence of volunteers reduces the wages of paid employees in nonprofit organizations. The number of volunteers does not have an influence on the wage level. Donations have a small but positive effect for higher income groups only. Public subsidies increase wages of all paid workers in a nonprofit organization.     

Testing for altruism and social pressure in charitable giving

Every year, 90% of Americans give money to charities. Is such generosity necessarily welfare enhancing for the giver? We present a theoretical framework that distinguishes two types of motivation: individuals like to give, for example, due to altruism or warm glow, and individuals would rather not give but dislike saying no, for example, due to social pressure. We design a door-to-door fund-raiser in which some households are informed about the exact time of solicitation with a flyer on their doorknobs. Thus, they can seek or avoid the fund-raiser. We find that the flyer reduces the share of households opening the door by 9% to 25% and, if the flyer allows checking a Do Not Disturb box, reduces giving by 28% to 42%. The latter decrease is concentrated among donations smaller than $10. These findings suggest that social pressure is an important determinant of door-to-door giving. Combining data from this and a complementary field experiment, we structurally estimate the model. The estimated social pressure cost of saying no to a solicitor is $3.80 for an in-state charity and $1.40 for an out-of-state charity. Our welfare calculations suggest that our door-to-door fund-raising campaigns on average lower the utility of the potential donors.     

The company, product and market dimensions of new product decision scenarios

Studies show that managers synthesize information and make strategic decisions in a situation-specific mode. Making effective new product decisions is a critical problem and managers are urged to improve their performance by adjusting their decision approach to fit the type of situation. Identifying situation-specific new product scenarios is, therefore, an important prerequisite. This article identifies five basic new product decision scenarios using a cluster analysis of factor scored company, product and market data. These provide insights about the situations managers typically face when evaluating new products.     

Klimaschutz im Verkehrssektor — aktuelle Beispiele aus der Verkehrsforschung

Decarbonising the transport sector will be one of the biggest challenges in the future. Current innovations in the transport sector will be used to identify greenhouse gas emission reduction methods and the associated costs. Economists from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have compiled current research results from various DLR institutes which have revealed that a wide range of technological and organisational innovations for reducing climate-related emissions are available with varying market maturity. Increasing technological efficiency alone, however, is not enough to achieve the ambitious climate targets. Good policies are also essential to take things to the next level.     

Kohleausstieg 2030 unter neuen Vorzeichen

Wirtschaftsdienst - Der russische Angriff auf die Ukraine und die Abhängigkeit der deutschen Energiewirtschaft von russischem Gas führen aktuell zu einer sehr angespannten...