Inbound Tourists in Italy: An Analysis of Individual Satisfaction in the Main Italian Destinations

The present work aims at bringing about an empirical analysis of the inbound tourism market in Italy, from the perspective of the individual tourist. We analyze more than a million satisfaction judgments, retrieved from the extensive survey by the Central Bank of Italy, spanning the period 1997-2013, focusing on the visitors’ socio-demographic and trip-related characteristics Moreover, following the Multi-Attribute Level approach and the Importance-Performance interpretative framework, satisfaction is proposed as a measure to evaluate tourism areas’ attractiveness and the performances of destinations’ assets

Environmental impacts and certification: evidence from the Milan World Expo 2015

Purpose This study aims to examine residents’ perceptions of environmental impacts and certification for the Milan World Expo 2015 as well as their overall attitude toward the mega-event. Design/methodology/approach A survey of Milan residents based on a convenience sample led to 221 useable questionnaires. Findings Residents perceived that the Expo will have minimal negative and positive environmental impacts. A minority of residents were aware of the environmental certification of the event. The less agreeable residents were with the perceived negative environmental impacts of the event, the more agreeable they were that a certification of event sustainability should limit the damage to the natural environment. Residents’ perceptions of the certification were positively related to their overall attitude toward the event. Research limitations/implications The findings cannot be generalized to other mega-events but have several managerial implications in relation to the need for information provision to residents and better communication of the certification by event organizers and planners. Originality/value Despite rising concerns about environmental issues related to hosting mega-events, there is no research on perceptions of a certification of event sustainability by residents

The Value of Sustainable Tourism Destinations in the Eyes of Visitors

The first objective of this study is to analyze visitors’ perceived value of four Italian small areas, that have been granted the European Regional Development Fund’s financing for developing sustainable tourism. The second objective of this work is to investigate the influences of socio-demographic and trip-related characteristics on the tourists’ assessments of the main aspects of such destinations, for detecting variables useful for market segmentation and for designing better-targeted marketing actions. These areas host protected natural reserves, historical heritage, rural or mountain traditions, and ways of life, the conservation of which is combined with local economic growth through the development of green, cultural, and slow tourism. Thus, insights on how visitors’ perceived value is configured there might provide hints useful for upgrading the local tourism supply consistently with the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 for sustainable development and the European Green Deal Strategy. Results confirm that the perceived value is a fundamental construct, as it strongly and positively influences satisfaction, intention to recommend, and destination image. The value of sustainable destinations, as perceived by visitors, is mainly based on the affective benefits that sustainable experiences provide, starting from positive social interactions making tourists feel welcomed. The tourist segment valorizing sustainable destinations is mostly composed of old people and low-income travelers, who seek basic services and facilities, as their satisfaction depends mainly on relaxing immersed in pristine nature

Unveiling Venice’s hotels competition networks from dynamic pricing digital market

We study the dynamic price competition of hotels in Venice using publicly available data scraped from an online travel agency. This study poses two main challenges. First, the time series of prices recorded for each hotel encompasses a twofold time frame. For every single asking price for an overnight stay on a specific day, there is a corresponding time series of asking prices along the booking window on the online platforms. Second, the competition relations between different hoteliers is clearly unknown and needs to be discovered using a suitable methodology. We address these problems by proposing a novel Network Autoregressive model which is able to handle the peculiar threefold data structure of the data set with time-varying coefficients over the booking window. This approach allows us to uncover the competition network of the market players by employing a quick data-driven algorithm. Independent, mixed, and leader–follower relationships are detected, revealing the competitive dynamics of the destination, useful to managers and stakeholders

Score-Driven Modeling with Jumps: An Application to S&P500 Returns and Options

We introduce a novel score-driven model with two sources of shock, allowing for both time-varying volatility and jumps. A theoretical investigation is performed which yields sufficient conditions to ensure stationarity and ergodicity. We extend the model to consider a time-varying jump intensity. Both an in-sample and an out-of-sample analysis based on the S&P500 time series show that the proposed methodology provides excellent agreement with observed returns, outperforming more standard Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) specifications with jumps. Finally, we apply our models to option pricing via risk neutralization. Results show this novel approach produces reliable implied volatility surfaces. Supplementary Materials including proofs, the derivation of the conditional Fisher information, and two figures showing additional empirical results are available onlin

Osservatorio del mercato del lavoro della provincia di Bologna: Rapporto primo semestre 2007

The Report presents the main facts about labour market in the Bologna County during the first half of 2007. As it is presented five months after the release of the 2006 the analysis about the economic and socio-demographic structure of the County are not presented. The labour market of the County seems to go fairly well. At the regional (Emilia-Romagna) level, in front of a business cycle moderately good, the number of employees is still growing (+1% in a year), but some signals of discouragement among women labour force begins to be present (female labour force decreases of 0,6% in a year. The new fact in the Report is the it gives a complete track of every labour contract started during the fist six months of 2007, comphrensive of the non standard labour contracts. Under this point of view we find a critical situation linked to the diffusion of the fixed term contracts, that are the 62% of all the contracts started. If we look at workers age we find that for every age class this percentage still is above the 55%. So we can say that workplace instability embraces every worker that is seeking a job, and that it is not limited to young people, but yet is pervasive and embraces workes of every ages. Further, using survival analysis we were able to measure the durations of jobs according the type of contract (using data from 2004 to 2004). The expect duration of a job is 180 days, but if we rescrtict to fixed term contracts the duration falls to 70 days. Moreover, the probability of staying in the condition of fixed term worker, after 3 years, is still 90%.Labour market, Unemployment, Fixed term contracts, Analysis of survival data

Rapporto sul mercato del lavoro della provincia Bologna : anno 2009

The Report examines the labor market dynamics of the Province of Bologna during 2009, highlighting weaknesses and deepening the structural features of the labor system. The study is developed by integrating information drawn by the many available statistical sources which describe different aspects of provincial economy with the elaboration of the proprietary data extracted by the databases SILER (Labour informative system of Emilia-Romagna) and CIP (Centres for the Employment) Il Rapporto esamina l’andamento del mercato del lavoro della provincia di Bologna nel corso dell’anno 2009, segnalando le debolezze registrate e approfondendo le caratteristiche sistemiche. La analisi è svolta integrando le numerose fonti statistiche disponibili che descrivono i differenti aspetti dell’economia provinciale con l’elaborazione dei dati di fonte provinciale tratti dal database del Sistema Informativo del Lavoro dell’Emilia-Romagna (SILER) e dei Servizi dei Centri per l’Impiego (CIP).mercato del lavoro; crisi economica; provincia di Bologna; lavoro temporaneo labour market; economic crisis; province of Bologna; temporary job

Introducing the dynamic destination satisfaction method: an analytical tool to track tourism destination satisfaction trends with repeated cross-sectional data

This study introduces a new method, named Dynamic Destination Satisfaction Method (DDSME), to model tourists’ satisfaction with a destination (and its attributes), breaking it down into an individual-level component (linked to the specific individual tourists’ perceptions) and a system-level (time-related) component (common to all the tourists). Moreover, this work develops a matrix “entropy/trend accuracy” that destination managers can use to understand to what extent managing a specific attribute has increased tourists’ satisfaction with the destination over multi-year timespans. We test the innovative method on a large dataset, covering the period 1997-2015 and including almost 0.8 million observations. By doing so, we analyze tourists’ satisfaction with tourism-related sectors and attributes of Italy as an inbound tourism destination and we use the matrix to map out destination attributes over time. The findings indicate that Courtesy, Art and Food are strategic attributes to enhance satisfaction in the long-term

Rapporto sul mercato del lavoro della provincia Bologna : anno 2009

Il Rapporto esamina l’andamento del mercato del lavoro della provincia di Bologna nel corso dell’anno 2009, segnalando le debolezze registrate e approfondendo le caratteristiche sistemiche. La analisi è svolta integrando le numerose fonti statistiche disponibili che descrivono i differenti aspetti dell’economia provinciale con l’elaborazione dei dati di fonte provinciale tratti dal database del Sistema Informativo del Lavoro dell’Emilia-Romagna (SILER) e dei Servizi dei Centri per l’Impiego (CIP). The Report examines the labor market dynamics of the Province of Bologna during 2009, highlighting weaknesses and deepening the structural features of the labor system. The study is developed by integrating information drawn by the many available statistical sources which describe different aspects of provincial economy with the elaboration of the proprietary data extracted by the databases SILER (Labour informative system of Emilia-Romagna) and CIP (Centres for the Employment)

Osservatorio del mercato del lavoro della provincia di Bologna: Rapporto primo semestre 2007

The Report presents the main facts about labour market in the Bologna County during the first half of 2007. As it is presented five months after the release of the 2006 the analysis about the economic and socio-demographic structure of the County are not presented. The labour market of the County seems to go fairly well. At the regional (Emilia-Romagna) level, in front of a business cycle moderately good, the number of employees is still growing (+1% in a year), but some signals of discouragement among women labour force begins to be present (female labour force decreases of 0,6% in a year. The new fact in the Report is the it gives a complete track of every labour contract started during the fist six months of 2007, comphrensive of the non standard labour contracts. Under this point of view we find a critical situation linked to the diffusion of the fixed term contracts, that are the 62% of all the contracts started. If we look at workers age we find that for every age class this percentage still is above the 55%. So we can say that workplace instability embraces every worker that is seeking a job, and that it is not limited to young people, but yet is pervasive and embraces workes of every ages. Further, using survival analysis we were able to measure the durations of jobs according the type of contract (using data from 2004 to 2004). The expect duration of a job is 180 days, but if we rescrtict to fixed term contracts the duration falls to 70 days. Moreover, the probability of staying in the condition of fixed term worker, after 3 years, is still 90%