With the growing ownership of multiple technology devices, and the contribution of mobile travel bookings to the overall travel market, it is critical to investigate the hotel searching and booking process for different device users. This research investigates four categories of device users via a survey with 383 respondents, in the context of search behaviour and information sources used. The results reveal that search engines and family and friends are the most frequently used information sources while the personal computer (PC) is the most used device for both searching and booking. However, there is a significant difference in how these device users engage with information sources, specifically online travel agents (OTAs) and search engines. Furthermore, device users favour one device and are unlikely to switch devices during the search process.
In the context of economic turmoil, firms in the creative industries (CIs) must make fast decisions as to when to break through with innovations. This paper discusses nontechnological, organizational innovation of early-adopters, first movers and early followers in order to overcome persistent economic decline, and the implication of different strategies for innovation success. The strategic principle of the pioneer’s advantage rests on pre-emption – the premise that ‘the early bird gets the worm’ and this often applies to business model innovation (BMI). ‘But the second mouse gets the cheese’ points at early followers who may have a more systematic, strategic approach towards innovation. Greater understanding of the advantages of each strategic approach and their significance for innovation performance is critical for CIs where unpredictability and the accelerating pace of change pervade the decisions concerning innovation. Drawing on five exemplary cases of archaeological firms in Spain, this paper explores different innovation process dynamics. The study develops a contingency model where pioneers who challenge their current business model, may be outperformed by early followers who incorporate complementary management innovation (MI) initiatives into the BMI.
This paper examines the role of hotels in Markowitz’s mixed assets portfolios. First, we compare the efficient frontiers of pure-play asset portfolios, namely S&P indices, and hotels (REITs, REOCs and NCREIF). Further, we break the hotel stocks into asset-heavy versus asset-light categories. We find that mixing pure-play hotel assets into the portfolio pushes the frontier favourably in the north-west direction. Contrary to popular expectation, we find that asset-heavy hotel enterprises are favoured compared to asset-light stocks
This volume is a special collection of papers celebrating 40 years of The Geneva papers on risk and insurance. The collection looks back at the storied history of the Geneva Papers on risk and insurance and features papers from some of the esteemed authors who have contributed to the journal in its lifetime. This collection of papers highlights just a few of the many themes addressed in the papers published by the journal since it was created. Nevertheless, the selection exemplifies the richness and variety of topics the field of insurance covers.
Le sondage sur le Grand Genève est le résultat d’une collaboration entre des représentants de tous les domaines HES-SO Genève. L’objectif principal du sondage est d’apprécier la qualité de vie et la volonté de vivre ensemble dans le Grand Genève, ainsi que son évolution dans le temps.
Understanding consumers' needs and wants has been a major source of success for hotel organizations. Notwithstanding, investigating the valence of online reviews and modeling hotel attributes and performance is still a rather novel approach. Using partial least squares path modeling, Swiss country-level data for online reviews from 68 online platforms, together with data from 442 hotels, we test II hypotheses. Our research model includes three distinctive areas of the hotel: physical aspects, quality of food and drink, and human aspects of service provision. RevPAR and occupancy are employed as performance metrics. We also test for mediation effects. Results indicate that hotel attributes, including the quality of rooms, Internet provision and building show the highest impact on hotel performance, and that positive comments have the highest impact on customer demand. This study contributes to theories of valence on hotel performance and presents salient implications for practitioners to enhance performance.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming increasingly more important for firms in today' s global marketplace. Thus effective communication of a company's CSR initiatives is vital toward enhancing a company's reputation and in tum, its sales revenues. With this consideration, the corporate reputations of firms in the Aerospace and Defense (A & D) industry worldwide, in conjunction with their use of social media were examined. An objective of the research was to validate a link between the use of social media to communicate CSR activities and a firm's reputation ranking. Methodology for the study involved the use of a qualitative content analysis of the online and social media presence of the top 20 A & D companies from the Deloitte Toche Tohmatso Limited (DTTL) 2014 Global A & D sector financial performance study. Data from six indicators of CSR: environment, community relations, diversity, employee relations, human rights, and client comments was obtained and examined. According to the findings, firms utilizing social media as a communication channel should expect improved reputation ratings. All top 20 A & D companies publish at least four CSR indicators on their social media platforms. Results indicate that reputation rating rose when five CSR indicators were reported, however, the addition of a sixth indicator did not increase a firm's rating. The conclusion reached is that while CSR content via social media can lead to higher reputation ratings, companies do need to carefully choose the ideal number of CSR indicators, as well as which indicators, to position themselves. Development of a social media strategy to communicate CSR activities would thus benefit firms.
Spiritual Tourism is the largest tourist sector in India: more than 70% of the domestic tourist movement is for the religious purposes and 20% of the revenue in tourism industry is generated by religious tourism (Dewan et al, 2008). Religious tourism is one of the oldest forms of travelling and for centuries people have travelled in order to seek peace. Past research in spiritual tourism has highlighted reason such as variety of reasons that ranged from asking for blessings and fulfilling vows to curiosity, sightseeing and holidaying (Tsai et al., 2002). Further according to observation made by (Fladmark, 1998) advent of technology and better transportation birth to secular travel motivation came to light such as a desire for adventure, discovery of something different and cultural enrichment. On November 2014, Goa witnessed a huge inflow of tourist visiting St. Francis Xavier’s Church for Exposition which occurs once in 10 years. Through this research we try to explore the latent motivation of travelers to such sacred place in Goa. Also further this research tries to create an assessment of tourism infrastructure at pilgrimage destinations in order to enhance the environment of the destination and to strengthen its appeal. 360 respondents were given structured questionnaire designed from the literature on spiritual tourism which measures the motivations of the visitors and also measures the expected and actual responses of the visitors about the tourism facilities available. The results did show certain areas which DMO should focus in order to maintain a consistent and positive image about destination.
Purpose – Hotel managers are being challenged by the increasing multitude of distribution and sales channels. Online travel agencies (OTAs) in particular generate a great deal of uncertainty: Which are the best ones? Which ones offer the best conditions? How many channels are optimal for my hotel? How can I evaluate costs versus benefits? These and other questions concerning the optimal online distribution channel strategy have produced different reactions in practice. The aim of this paper is to challenge the need for an over-optimization of channel strategy by proposing that the consumer, at the end, deals with a network of information presented on one networked environment, including the Web. Hence, the network effect of the numerous online platforms is what drives consumer choice and, finally, bookings. Design/methodology/approach – A series of multiple regressions with representative samples of hotels in Switzerland from the years 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 was performed to estimate the importance of the number of platforms against other independent variables. Additionally, further multiple regressions with samples from the years 2011 and 2012 using the most important platforms (first-tier channels) shows again that the number of platforms is more important. Findings – The analyses show that the estimated number of online bookings by the respondents in the hotels is a result of the number of channels, not the type of channel. This is particularly true for non-categorized establishments and one- and two-star hotels. The analyses do not confirm the billboard effect, according to which particular platforms (first-tier channels) increase the probability of bookings. Thus, the survival strategy is to maximize share of shelf and to build on interdependencies and network effects. Research limitations/implications – The study looks only at online bookings. Additional research into the connection between online and offline channels, particularly from the viewpoint of the consumer, will provide further insights. The study looks at the booking volume per channel, not the monetary sales volume or the profit. A study that quantifies not only the volume of bookings but also the total profit or the contribution to profit per channel could quantify the benefits of the multi-channel strategy. Originality/value – The multiple online channel strategy seems to be the more effective approach to maximizing bookings online, regardless of the platforms chosen. Results of the study challenge the current opinion among practitioners that the multitude of distribution channels forces them to choose among single online channels and, therefore, drives the search for criteria to assess these channels or even to disregard them. The consistent results across 2009-2012 show that even in the turbulent phase of the advent of OTAs in the travel industry, hotels can adopt a winning strategy. Finally, the results suggest that the intermediation of online distribution of hotel beds has approached the condition ofperfect competition, causing the OTA business model to be cannibalized.
