Environmental Sustainability and the Hospitality Customer Experience: A Study in Tourist Accommodation

Academic research on sustainability in the hospitality industry is scarce and fragmented, and requires a general structure to lend coherence to its approach. There is a need for empirical research to fathom the question of environmental sustainability and customer experience in the hospitality industry and to study the interaction between the two concepts. This paper aims to close these gaps by establishing the nature of the relationship between customers’ perceptions of the environmental practices in tourism accommodation and their customer experiences and levels of satisfaction. The working hypotheses, based on a review of the literature on environmental sustainability and customer experience in the hospitality industry, are tested in an empirical study of 412 Spanish customers who stayed in various types of tourist accommodation. The main conclusion is that the relationship between environmental sustainability and customer experience in the hospitality industry can be demonstrated. This paper also validates a measurement scale based on the most accepted dimensionality of the construct: cognitive (think), affective (feel), behavioral (act), sensory (sense) and social (relate)

El proceso de adaptación de las empresas de transporte internacional por carretera al transporte marítimo de corta distancia

Las empresas de transporte internacional por carretera se configuran como uno de los actores clave en el desarrollo del transporte marítimo de corta distancia. Si su deseo es operar de manera estable, utilizando la opción más eficiente –el transpor- te no acompañado– deben modificar su perfil con el propósito de obtener la máxima rentabilidad. El objetivo de este trabajo reside en analizar este proceso de cambio a partir del estudio de cinco empresas de transporte internacional por carretera que han desarrollado dicha adaptación para convertirse en operadores logísticos multi- modales. Los resultados de la investigación muestran cuatro áreas de cambio clave: reestructuración de la flota, reestructuración de la plantilla de conductores, cambios en el modelo de negocio y establecimiento de una estructura en el país de destinoInternational road haulage companies are seen to be one of the key players in the development of short-distance maritime transport. If they wish to operate in a stable manner, by using the most efficient option – unaccompanied transport – they must modify their profile with the aim of obtaining the greatest cost-effectiveness. The aim of this work is to analyse this process of change by studying five international road haulage companies that have undertaken such an adaptation in order to become multimodal logistics operators. The findings of the research show four key areas of change: restructuring of the fleet, restructuring of the workforce of drivers, changes in the business model, and setting up a structure in the destination countr

multimode: An R Package for Mode Assessment

In several applied fields, multimodality assessment is a crucial task as a previous exploratory tool or for determining the suitability of certain distributions. The goal of this paper is to present the utilities of the R package multimode, which collects different exploratory and testing non-parametric approaches for determining the number of modes and their estimated location. Specifically, some graphical tools (SiZer map, mode tree or mode forest) are provided, allowing for the identification of mode patterns, based on the kernel density estimation. Several formal testing procedures for determining the number of modes are described in this paper and implemented in the multimode package, including methods based on the ideas of the critical bandwidth, the excess mass or using a combination of both. This package also includes a function for estimating the modes locations and different classical data examples that have been considered in mode testing literature

VLBA determination of the distance to nearby star-forming regions I. The distance to T Tauri with 0.4% accuracy

In this article, we present the results of a series of twelve 3.6-cm radio continuum observations of T Tau Sb, one of the companions of the famous young stellar object T Tauri. The data were collected roughly every two months between September 2003 and July 2005 with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). Thanks to the remarkably accurate astrometry delivered by the VLBA, the absolute position of T Tau Sb could be measured with a precision typically better than about 100 micro-arcseconds at each of the twelve observed epochs. The trajectory of T Tau Sb on the plane of the sky could, therefore, be traced very precisely, and modeled as the superposition of the trigonometric parallax of the source and an accelerated proper motion. The best fit yields a distance to T Tau Sb of 147.6 +/- 0.6 pc. The observed positions of T Tau Sb are in good agreement with recent infrared measurements, but seem to favor a somewhat longer orbital period than that recently reported by Duchene et al. (2006) for the T Tau Sa/T Tau Sb system.Comment: 24 pages, 3 pages, AASTEX format, accepted for publication in Ap

VLBA determination of the distance to nearby star-forming regions II. Hubble 4 and HDE 283572 in Taurus

The non-thermal 3.6 cm radio continuum emission from the naked T Tauri stars Hubble 4 and HDE 283572 in Taurus has been observed with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) at 6 epochs between September 2004 and December 2005 with a typical separation between successive observations of 3 months. Thanks to the remarkably accurate astrometry delivered by the VLBA, the trajectory described by both stars on the plane of the sky could be traced very precisely, and modeled as the superposition of their trigonometric parallax and uniform proper motion. The best fits yield distances to Hubble 4 and HDE 283572 of 132.8 +/- 0.5 and 128.5 +/- 0.6 pc, respectively. Combining these results with the other two existing VLBI distance determinations in Taurus, we estimate the mean distance to the Taurus association to be 137 pc with a dispersion (most probably reflecting the depth of the complex) of about 20 pc.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figues, accepted in ApJ (Dec 20, 2007 issue

La obra dramatica de Lope de Vega: Temas y motivos neoestoicos

Neostoicism had a strong influence in Europe during the seventeenth century. This influence was reflected in philosophy, politics, art and literature. In this dissertation we first discuss the importance of stoicism and neostoicism in Europe and in Spain. Then we analyze the neostoic elements found in two plays of Lope de Vega: Barlaan and Josafat (1611) and El caballero de Olmedo (1620)