Search results for " hospitality"
showing 10 items of 472 documents
Food consumer models: The case of the responsible consumer
2017
The profile of the responsible consumer, that is, an individual whose purchases strive to satisfy altruistic aims above and beyond oneâs merely personal consumer necessities, is closely correlated to the oneâs socio-economic conditions. All subjective aspects considered, the correlation between responsible consumption in the agri-food sector and the level of education of the individual was studied herein by way of a statistical survey, conducted on a sample of 108 individuals. Likewise, the correlation between the level of responsible consumption and the average monthly expenditures was also elucidated. The study was carried out using the statistical software environment R and the resul…
Some consistency issues in multi-criteria decision making
2017
The complexity of decision-making problems included under the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) paradigm has favored the proliferation of many schools of thought and varied methodologies. It has not yet been possible to prove the supremacy of any of these approaches. Moreover, in some cases it is difficult to combine the theoretical validity of the approximations with their practical appropriateness. It seems that rigor and applicability are two opposing concepts, something that should not be so. It is our responsibility to bridge the gap. To reduce the gap between theory and practice and use effective methodological approaches, it is necessary to combine the rigor and objectivity of tr…
A Multi objective inventory model for short food supply chains
2017
Over the past 50 years, vertically integrated multinationals dominated global food markets by providing huge product diversity at low prices. Such systems are characterized by long supply chains capable of achieving high cost efficiencies resulting from the use of cheap raw materials, high chemical inputs, industrial shelf-life extension processes, economies of scale and mechanization. This dominant position on the market, however, has been achieved at a heavy cost on the global environment, generated by massive food wastage, and by a steady supply of fossil fuels. For such reasons, global supply chains are considered unsustainable and new food systems are being promoted in order to replace…
Conventions of Quality in Consumer Preference toward Local Honey in Southern Italy
2016
During the last few decades consumer demand for local foods has increased around the world, particularly in the USA and Europe. Such consumer trend also contributes to redefine a new alternative geography of food; in which local foods are perceived to be of better quality and safer. Moreover, consumers frame local food quality not only in terms of general attributes, such as taste and price, but also in terms of more subjective attributes closely linked to social and environmental aspects of products. These attributes are recognised by consumers as a range of socially constructed food quality criteria, which play an important role in the creation of information about quality and consumer de…
Modeling sequential production: the migratory beekeeper case
2018
This paper formalizes a bio-economic model of migratory beekeeping activities, during the annual production cycle, so as to discern the optimal sequence of foraging sites for migratory beekeepers; it then proceeds to empirically verify the model via a case study. The model assumes that the apiary farm produces three marketable outputs under conditions of certainty with disjunctive resources at the sites. In particular, honey, commercial pollination services and nucleus colonies are produced sequentially at foraging sites throughout the year. The model determines a migratory beekeeperâs revenues, variable costs, gross income from each sequence of foraging sites under the constraint that th…
An exploratory analysis of website quality in the agrifood sector: The case of extra virgin olive oil
2018
Besides verifying the current consistency on the Internet of websites set up by Sicilian (Southern Italy) EVO oil firms, this paper aims to verify their e-service quality by evaluating which main quality features, as derived from the literature, they have. To process the data, descriptive statistics were used, which allowed detection of the presence/absence of the variables examined. The study found 280 websites with some qualitative gaps. Findings highlight that EVO oil firms do not exploit the potentialities of the web adequately. They often use the Internet as a communication and promotion tool, but only to a lesser degree for e-commerce. The results may be useful to both agrifood manage…
Measuring destination image an approach by an attribute‐based analysis
2001
Product image formation process is a valuable insight for correct understanding of consumer behaviour. When product is a tourism destination, image formation is even more important due to the inability of pretest the tourist product. This framework gives place to the present research on tourism destination image. The paper starts with a litterature review on the meaning and measurement of destination image divided into two main approaches: the conceptual and the methodological. Secondly, the results of an empirical investigation are reported: it deals with the assessment of attribute‐based destination image of sun and beach resorts on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. The aim and contributio…
Insights on integrated marketing communications: implementation and impact in hotel companies
2015
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide insights on integrated marketing communications (IMC) by empirically examining the concept in a new context, that is hotel companies, and comparing its implementation and impact in Italian and Croatian hotels. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses survey methodology to assess IMC, approaching managers and guests in high-quality hotels. Findings – From the manager’s point of view, both Italian and Croatian hotels show a high level of IMC implementation and significant differences regarding some items. From the guest’s point of view, significant differences are obtained between the two hotel groups. In addition, IMC is found to influen…
Bibliometric analysis and literature review of ecotourism: Toward sustainable development
2021
In recent decades, rising consumer interest in visiting relatively less commercialized natural destinations has facilitated the growth of ecotourism. Yet the research on ecotourism is fragmented, presenting gaps in the current understanding of this topic. This study performs a bibliometric analysis to assimilate the present knowledge from a total of 878 articles published in six reputable outlets between 1990 and 2019. The study analyzed citation chains and coauthorship networks to acknowledge contributions from select authors, organizations, and countries. Next, a cocitation analysis of the prior literature identified four major thematic areas: ecological preservation, residents' interests…
CLUSTERING OF TOURISM PATTERNS WITH SELF-ORGANIZING MAPS: THE CASE OF SICILY
2023
In this paper the Self-Organizing Map algorithm is used for studying whether and which tourism flows in Sicily are synchronized, i.e. which flows show similar patterns in time and space, if any. Synchrony hunting was performed for domestic and international tourists both on a yearly and monthly basis. Local tourism, meaning the holidays spent in Sicily by residents in the island, is also considered but on a yearly basis only. The analysis makes use of time series representing the number of overnight stays in Sicily over the period 2013-2019. Results provide evidence for a domestic market overall more synchronized than the international one, both in time and space. Spatiotemporal patterns f…