In this article, we present STarmac, a program developed by the Swiss Applied Science University of Canton Vaud (HEIG-VD), part of the University of Applied Science and Arts in Western Switzerland (HES-SO) to support young founders in the development innovative business ideas by providing them with the tools for management of market and technology risk. We present the STarmac program, its components and we outline a framework with some relevant metrics for its assessment and comparison with existing similar initiatives so that we can engage into a continuous improvement methodology and provide better support to our spin-offs teams.
In a service quality perspective, the animal behavior of humans (e.g. human ethology) in queues has, to our knowledge, never been observed. This paper provides an empirical exploratory enquiry with the scope to understand skiers’ behaviors in cable cars queues in order to improve their overall satisfaction. We carried 82 immersions and 43 semi-directed interviews in the Swiss Alps (Valais), during the scholar vacations of February 2016. Along with the literature review, this research provides hypotheses to better understand the interface between a human queue and a mechanical transportation system. To adjust to the rigid system of the cable cars, our results show that a queue’s regulation is mostly based on ethological behavior.
Pilgrimage Tourism, one of the oldest forms of travelling, is the largest tourism sector in India; annually more than 70% of domestic tourist movement is for religious purposes which comes to 250 million pilgrims (Jachowski, 2000, Singh, 2016) and accounts for 20% of the revenue generated in the tourism industry (Dewan et al., 2008), hence, making it significant religiously, economically, politically, as well as sociologically. The present study was based on a survey conducted among the visitors who came for the 17th Exposition of St Francis Xavier’s holy relics, a Christian religious event, from 22nd November 2014 to 4th January 2015. Firstly, we discuss whether there is any association between the two groups of travellers (religious only Vs religious plus other travel motivations) and their demographic characteristics. Secondly, an attempt is made to explore the possibility of identifying latent motivational factors. Next, testing is done to find out whether there is any significant difference in motivational factors (Tsai et al., 2002) across various demographic characteristics of the combined visitors. Finally, the paper identifies the gap with respect to various facilities available for tourism, based on what the visitors perceived before visiting and what they experienced afterwards. It was found that demographically there is no difference between those who are coming specifically for religious purpose Vs those coming for religious and other purposes. Results also allowed the categorising of latent motivational factors and finding that demographically there is no difference except for age (working class) with respect to escape from busy life. With respect to the various tourism facilities, it was found that the quantified results exactly match with the qualitative findings of Wilson (1997); almost all of the facilities experienced by the visitors are falling under the A-Quadrant, where serious improvements need to be made. It can be concluded that there are many grey areas where timely actions from various tourism stakeholders is urgently required to maintain a consistent and positive image before the ‘experience’ becomes less attractive.
Today’s society is evolving at a fast pace. New communications tools are appearing every day and new technology is appearing constantly. To keep up with the newest trends, meet customers’ needs and stay competitive on the market, organizations have to adapt, change the way they operate. This is a complex matter which has to be addressed at societal, organizational and personal levels. Imperatives identified lead to a conclusion that socially-constructed change is the most suitable strategy to implement change within a tourism community-type destination. Challenges are identified as being difficulties related to the human factor, communication and learning. The use of a change readiness index is discussed, as a tool to identify in which destinations radical change can be implemented more successfully.
Social enterprise refers to a typology of enterprises whose main objectives are social or environmental. Social enterprises seek to create social value, in relation to activities and managerial practices put in place. This type of firm is increasingly observed in several countries such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France and Italy. The phenomenon involves both non-for-profit and for-profit businesses, whose main objective is social good rather than maximizing profit. This paper explores the phenomenon in a Western European context and how these social enterprises might provide innovative solutions to pressing societal problems.
This paper explores the professional development needs of revenue management leaders. Considering the evolution of the function and the responsibilities of a revenue manager and the apparent lack of highly developed senior managers in the field of revenue management. The exploratory research determines the skills that revenue management leaders should ideally possess, identifies the areas where further professional development is needed, and examineshow related professional development should be conducted. The growingneed for the development of related soft skills, in particular communication skills,is clearly identified as well as the value of serious game as a soft skill development tool.
‘Visitor flows’ (VF) is defined as the generalized spatial movement patterns of travellers and have always been relevant in tourism studies. Nowadays, VFs are important for understanding travel networks which go beyond the specific spatial dimension to include informational or virtual dimensions such as travellers experiences. Travel network modelling is not only a valuable marketing tool helping to increase value in the supply chain but also it challenges the traditional organization of destination management organizations (DMO’s). DMO’s have to reshape their governance model from a static-central model to a dynamic network; destination managers have to change from flows of powers to power of flows (Castells, 1989). VF in this broader picture moves from merely descriptive to strategic VF (SVF). The aim of this research is to show empirical evidence of SVF in the Fribourg region in Switzerland by exploiting mobile phone data.
