Product Design Decisions for Developing New Tourist destinations: The Case of Rhodopi Mountains

The scope of the paper is to present the proper tourist product characteristics and market opportunities by the recipients of the tourist market, aiming at the support of the sustainable tourism design process. These characteristics concern the prospective elevated tourist destinations that may be exploited strategically by the tourist administration of the destinations. For the investigation of the most important product characteristics factor analysis was applied, as well as, spatial perceptual mapping techniques. The paper is based on a situation analysis, using as case the Rhodopi Mountain area in Greece. Results showed that the design of the elevation of the destination is a viable market prospective, if it is based on three major factors: the climate (geophysical and archaeological characteristics), taverns-restaurants (gastronomy) and parking areas (spa, post shops and health centers). Various combinations of relevant characteristics are proposed, which ameliorate particular effective characteristics of the area, which could raise the area’s attractiveness to professional partners and potential groups of customers

The Need For Control In The Service Sector

Factors that play important roles in influencing an individual consumers need to control in service situations were investigated. A test instrument was developed for two services and several core dimensions were found to be important, i.e., ones proficiency at the task, degree to which the task is convenient to accomplish, and importance to consumer. A refined questionnaire was developed which can be used to predict consumers willingness to relinquish control. Several managerial implications are then presented

Consumer Response To Company Communications During A Product Harm Crisis

Industrial crises deserve serious research attention because of their increasing rate of occurrence and their negative consequences on organizations and society.  A particular type of crisis of great concern to marketers and advertisers is product harm crisis which can occur from several causes such as manufacturers negligence, product misuse or sabotage.  All product harm crises involve financial costs for the troubled company.  However, differences exist in the way firms respond to such crises.  This paper analyzes the role or organizational communications in helping a firm successfully handle a product harm crisis.  The study utilizes three important factors, that is, a company’s reputation, responses, and the external effects, which affect management’s success in handling a product harm crisis, in order to examine consumers’ attitudes toward the firm’s communications

Marketing-Driven Factors Influencing Savers In The Hellenic Bank Market

This paper studies the influencing factors on bank savings customers decisions regarding selection of a bank, in the Hellenic bank market. An empirical study was conducted on 811 bank customers in the greater Athens area. Results point to similar conclusions with prior studies conducted in the U.S. and Europe. Discussion of results also refer to different consumer perceptions of Greek public, private and foreign banks operating in Greece, as well as to the identification of reasons for switching a customers main bank