Sustainable technologies in Greek tourist accommodation : a quantitative review

This paper is the second part of a review on sustainable technologies pertinent in Greek tourist accommodation. The first part was a qualitative review while the current paper is a quantitative review. Namely, this paper provides figures and data that describe the quantitative picture of sustainable hotels in Greece. The topic is unique because the analysis presented herein has been largely fragmented in various reports, webpages and the records of relevant organizations. The reason we focus on Greek reality is the importance of tourism for the Greek economy. This review will help first hoteliers to benchmark their businesses to the ideal sustainable reference point and second policy makers to obtain a quantitative overview of hotel sustainability in Greece and provide insight as to the measures that should be established for the promotion and improvement of sustainability in Greek hotels and the subsequent design of useful measures and policies.peer-reviewe

Internationalization in tertiary education: Intra-European students mobility

The enhanced internationalization and mobility of European students reflects an undoubtedly important aspect of human capital investment. This paper examines the internationalization of European students in tertiary education and the factors that determine the probability of a student moving to a European country other than their own. The main goals of the Bologna Process and a framework of definitions of student mobility are presented, as well as factors that may motivate and hamper this process. A linear regression model of the market shares of intra- European students and a linear regression model of the ratios of foreign incoming/outgoing students of European countries are estimated. Finally, a Classification and Regression Tree (CART) algorithm is applied in order to explain the reasoning behind the decisions of students for long-term study abroad. The paper suggests that policy measures towards increasing student mobility flows will extend economic integration of the countries involved via human capital development and are most likely to increase present and future economic flows in a tangible way. © 2013-Center for Economic Integration, Sejong Institution, Sejong University, All Rights Reserved

Determinants of tourism demand in Greece: a panel data approach

This paper aims at investigating the determinants of tourism demand in Greece over eight years (2004-2011). Tourism is the main industry of Greece as its share in the Greek economy varies from 15% to 20% of GDP whether measured directly or indirectly respectively. We opted for a macroeconometric approach and, in particular, building on the existing literature we used panel data estimation techniques with disaggregated data on the country (or area) of origin combined with macroeconomic aggregates, indicators and (relative) price indices. The specific econometric techniques used take into account both the statistical properties of variables and the differences between the various cross sections. The main conclusion of the paper is that the macroeconometric panel data approach to explaining tourist receipts provides a rather satisfactory model fit, with explanatory variables explaining a significant part of the variability of the dependent variable. Our findings also suggest that certain policy directions identified by Greek governments (both in the present and past), such as enhancing competitiveness and the outward orientation of the economy, may indeed affect positively the prospects of the Greek tourism sector

Mobility of higher education students in Europe: the south “north differences

In this paper, we examine the mobility of students and academic staff in European higher education. We focus on the differences of student and staff mobility between two groups of countries: the northern and central European (NCE) and the Mediterranean (Med) countries. Our findings show that; a) student mobility is concentrated in the northern part of Europe with southern Europe falling heavily behind; b) NCE countries are net exporters in academic qualifications while Med countries being the net importers of these qualifications; c) academic staff mobility is much higher in NCEs; d) the involvement of higher institutions in joint degrees (JD) is higher in NCE compared to Med countries. Hence, our findings suggest that within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) substantial differences among its country members do exist and that policy measures may be needed to close these differences