Prey Predator Algorithm for Travelling Salesman Problem

Visiting most, if not all, tourist destination of a country while visiting a country is an ideal plan of a tourist. In most cases if the tour is not carefully planned, it will be costly and time taking to travel between tourist destinations of a country. If we consider Ethiopia, a country which has been named as best tourism destination for 2015 by the European Council on Tourism and Trade (ECTT); there are many tourist destinations all over the country. The problem of determining the optimum route to visit all the tourist sites with minimum traveling time can be formulated as a travel salesman problem. In this study 17 of the famous tourist destination of Ethiopia will be selected and a travel salesman model will be formulated. Due to the NP hardness of the travel salesman problem, metaheuristic based algorithms are found to be more effective. Hence, a recently introduced swarm based metaheuristic algorithm, called prey predator algorithm will be used to deal with the formulated problem. The simulation result suggests that the best route to visit the selected destination is Addis Ababa ? Sof Omar Caves ? Bale Mountain National Park ? Abijiata-Shalla Lakes ? Netchisar National Park ? Mago National Park ? Omo National Park ? Gambella National Park ? Bahir Dar ? Lalibela ? Gonder ? Semien Mountain National Park ? Axum ? Ertale ? Yangudi Rassa National Park ? Awash National Park ? Harar ? Addis Ababa. It should be noted in some of the sites there is no direct route and hence a route through other cities is used and hence it should be recomputed in the future when a direct route between these tourist destinations is constructed.

Young Tourists' Perceptions of Hotel Disintermediation

Generation Y has been considered to be a sizeable new market. This study, based on a sample of 1131 Italian travellers from Gen Y, investigates their views for and against disintermediation, and analyses how their choices are influenced by user generated content (UGC), rather than by information provided by high street travel agencies. The factor analysis uncovers three dimensions: “Benefits of Travel Agency”, “Benefits of Online Reservation”, and “Online Trust & Search Behaviour”. Further, a series of statistical tests indicate that demographics such as age and education have a significant influence on the respondents' perceptions. Our findings suggest that hotel managers and travel agencies should monitor Gen Y perceptions of the benefits and constraints of using the Internet, UGC and travel agencies for hotel booking. Further, accommodation providers should use online channels to create affective commitment in their young customers. Limitations of the study are discussed and suggestions for further research are given.

On Interdisciplinary Intersection of Unconventional Algorithms and Big Data Processing in Real World Problems

Optimization algorithms are a powerful tool for solving many problems of engineering applications from different fields of real life. They are usually used where the solution of a given problem analytically is unsuitable or unrealistic. If implemented in a suitable manner, there is no need for frequent user intervention into the actions of the equipment in which they are used. The majority of the problems of real life applications can be defined as optimization problems, for example, finding the optimum trajectory of a robot, optimal data flows in various processes like city traffic optimization or modelling and optimization of the seasonal variances of supply, traffic and facilities occupation in tourism among the others. The structure of this chapter is such that on the beginning are introduced bio-inspired algorithms, then parallelization of algorithms and parallel hardware and at the end, open research on Ho Chi Minh City traffic optimization real world example is introduced. In Conclusion are discussed possibilities of mutual combinations of introduced methods.

Minimizing the Cost of Capital in Hotel Investments

In this book chapter, we introduce the readers to typical sources of hotel financing using a hypothetical case-study. First, we provide a commentary on various types of funding sources. We provide rationale for why a particular surplus unit specifies certain constraints to an (investment) manager. A discussion is offered on various factors that may lead to a certain mix of financing. We walk the readers through various steps of the optimization process. Finally, we provide a case study on optimizing the funding sources using the SOLVER function in MS Excel.

Mastering Customer Service, Customer Experience, and Customer Orientation in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry

This chapter presents the utilization of optimization techniques in the hospitality and tourism industry; the perspectives on customer service and customer service teams; customer service and service leadership; customer service behavior in the travel industry; the overview of customer experience; customer experience, customer satisfaction, and service quality in the airline industry; customer experience and budget hotel in the hospitality industry; the issues with customer orientation; and the relationship between customer orientation and service innovation in the hotel industry. Optimization techniques are the essential approaches to many real-world problems, and can be applied to promote the performance of hospitality and tourism industry regarding customer service, customer experience, and customer orientation. The chapter argues that enhancing customer service, customer experience, and customer orientation through optimization techniques has the potential to increase organizational performance and reach strategic goals in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Modeling Tourists' Opinions Using RIDIT Analysis

In this chapter we have attempted to use “Relative to an Identified Distribution” (RIDIT) algorithms based modelling for analysing real-time empirical data relating to tourists' attitude and preference for a better understanding of the tourists' motivation and behaviour. RIDIT approach for evaluating the factors that influence tourist behaviour is not a very common approach in tourism sector. This chapter on modelling tourists' opinions and perceptions with RIDIT analysis would try to guide the empirical research in the domains of hospitality, tourism and travel research and analytics process in generating Optimized research outcomes.

Cooperative Optimization of Tourism Networks

A tourism network is determined by close collaboration among various stakeholders working interactively on common problems or issues through formal and informal approaches. As many cases highlight, informal relationships contribute to the formation of formal partnerships. In this study a game theoretical model is applied to explain the decisional process of entrepreneurs about forming partnerships in formal tourism networks. The model shows that, in terms of Nash equilibrium, the cooperative optimization of a tourism network should be achieved when entrepreneurs have the same business goals and a common tourism vision The chapter presents an empirical solution that arises from the case of Business Networks in Italy, which represents an innovation in Italian Law.

Capacity Management in Hotel Industry for Turkey

The hotel industry is capital-intensive with high operating leverage in providing accommodations. Examining final costs play very important role in determining of overcapacity and undercapacity. Turkey's experiencing growth in tourism and has remarkable increases in accommodation. This situation possesses great importance for the capital groups investing in this area. How these groups and local tradesman implement a strategy on capacity management is the main question. Single period inventory model is used at the analysis phase and several interests are examined on this topic. Future Room demand is estimated by ARIMA and in estimating cost of undersupply earnings before taxes is used per room night sold. Combining the derived cost ratio with the future room demand and probability distribution estimated from the ARIMA method, the optimal hotel room capacity can be determined. The purpose of the study is to examine hotel room supply and demand for optimal capacity in Turkey.

Risk, Terrorism, and Tourism Consumption

The present chapter discusses to what extent the rise of new risks and dangers, modernity has brought, has causing the end of tourism. The answer to the above formulated questions is not easy, and of course, it exhibits a fertile ground to be explored in other approaches. The ceaseless news about violence, cruelty, wars and deaths have serious negative impacts on audience worldwide. Though policy makers have devoted their time and efforts in looking for new alternative segments where death replaces the allegory of beautiness, giving as a result new products as dark-tourism, slum-tourism, disaster-tourism or doom-tourism, other problems arise. The curiosity for tourists in visiting spaces of mass death or extreme suffering contradicts not only its nature as a mechanism of revitalization and relaxes but may very well lead to narcissism which in fact is the end of tourism.

Benefits and Value of Investments in Information Systems

Organisations constantly have to address the problem of identifying tangible and intangible benefits that can be achieved in result of investments made in Information Systems/Information Technology (IS/IT). This paper has the objective of approaching the problem in the perspective and context of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in the Hospitality Industry. It focuses on implementation project strategies, namely in the particular and relevant aspects of their return on investment as well as benefits expected and delivered. When an organisation is confronted with the question of knowing if a certain investment in IS/IT may obtain a considered positive financial revenue, and if that investment means valuable benefits for the business, the answer is often far from being conclusive. Projects are often implemented on-time, on-budget and are technically appropriate, nevertheless the expected benefits are not achieved. This paper seeks to answer these questions in the context of ERP systems, in particular in the sector of hospitality industry, through a case study developed in Portugal. The investigation was developed on a group of hotel units, held by a Portuguese company, for which ERP meant an opportunity to harmonize and improve business processes.