Switching Cost and Customers Loyalty in the Mobile Phone Market:the Nigerian Experience

Switching cost is one of the most discussed contemporary issues in marketing in attempt to explain consumer behaviour. The present research studied switching cost and its relationships with customer retention, loyalty and satisfaction in the Nigerian telecommunication market. Based on questionnaire administered to customers in the mobile telecommunication industry; the study finds that customer satisfaction positively affects customer retention and that switching cost affects significantly the level of customer retention. However, the effect of switching barriers on retention is only significant when customers consider to exit

Information Technology Applications in Hospitality and Tourism: A Review of Publications from 2005 to 2007

The tourism and hospitality industries have widely adopted information technology (IT) to reduce costs, enhance operational efficiency, and most importantly to improve service quality and customer experience. This article offers a comprehensive review of articles that were published in 57 tourism and hospitality research journals from 2005 to 2007. Grouping the findings into the categories of consumers, technologies, and suppliers, the article sheds light on the evolution of IT applications in the tourism and hospitality industries. The article demonstrates that IT is increasingly becoming critical for the competitive operations of the tourism and hospitality organizations as well as for managing the distribution and marketing of organizations on a global scale

Business Integration as a Service

This paper presents Business Integration as a Service (BIaS) which enables connections between services operating in the Cloud. BIaS integrates different services and business activities to achieve a streamline process. We illustrate this integration using two services; Return on Investment (ROI) Measurement as a Service (RMaaS) and Risk Analysis as a Service (RAaaS) in two case studies at the University of Southampton and Vodafone/Apple. The University of Southampton case study demonstrates the cost-savings and the risk analysis achieved, so two services can work as a single service. The Vodafone/Apple case study illustrates statistical analysis and 3D Visualisation of expected revenue and associated risk. These two cases confirm the benefits of BIaS adoption, including cost reduction and improvements in efficiency and risk analysis. Implementation of BIaS in other organisations is also discussed. Important data arising from the integration of RMaaS and RAaaS are useful for management of University of Southampton and potential and current investors for Vodafone/Apple

Personal security in travel by public transport : the role of traveller information and associated technologies

Acknowledgement This research reported in this paper has been funded by a grant award from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council: EP/I037032/1.Peer reviewedPublisher PD