This research explored why self-selected refugees made a decision to choose Sweden as a final destination after introducing the restrictive asylum laws (2016:752) by the Swedish Government in 2016. With a pragmatist approach, data were gathered through a mixed-methods research design to investigate the research questions at hand by analyzing quantitative surveys, further supported by and expanded upon by the qualitative follow-up interviews with five respondents. The findings showed that Sweden was selected as a destination of choice due to the country’s perception in terms of freedom, human rights, “welcomeness” and quality of life. The results from this research demonstrated that refugees’ social networks played a decisive factor in the asylum destination decision. Thus, it showed the importance of migrants networks in forming the image of the intended country, hence, influencing the destination choice. On the other hand, the restriction of migration laws played only a minor role in the decision-making, and economic opportunities played a marginal role in influencing the choice of destination. Accordingly, from the results of this research one can conclude that the choice of destination is primarily directed by irrational reasons.

With the rise of social media platforms and the phenomenon of social mediainfluencers, consumer behavior has drastically changed within the tourismindustry.A case study was conducted by the authors to determine the ways consumerbehavior within the tourism industry has been affected by social media. Theempirical data in this study were gathered by semi-structured interviews,which is a qualitative research approach. A deductive approach was used forthis thesis and it is written from a tourism influencer / destinations’self-marketing perspective. The authors interviewed five travel influencers andtwo destinations about their perception of their job, their influence and theirexperiences.With the gathered data, the authors made a conclusion regarding several wayssocial media is influencing consumer behavior in the tourism industry.

The conventional methods of determining the Origin-Destination (O-D) trip tables involve elaborate surveys, such as home interviews, requiring considerable time, manpower and funds. To overcome this drawback, a number of theoretical models that synthesize O-D trip tables from link volume data have been developed in the past. The focus of this research was on two of these models, namely, The Highway Emulator (THE) and the Linear Programming (LP) models. These models use target/seed tables for guiding the modeled trip tables. In an earlier research effort conducted by Virginia Tech Center for Transportation Research, potential was noted for enhancing these models' performances by using a superior target/seed table. This research study exploits the readily available socio-economic/census data and link volume information and proposes a methodology for obtaining improved target/seed tables, by performing the trip generation and trip distribution steps. This table was provided as target to THE and LP models, and their performances evaluated using Pulaski town as case study. In addition to measuring the closeness of the output tables to surveyed tables and their capability to replicate observed volumes, their improvements over the case when a structural table is used as target was also studied. Tests showed that the use of the superior target/seed table significantly improved the performance of the LP model. However, for THE, mixed trends are seen in terms of different measures of closeness. The sensitivity of the user parameter to place certain degree of belief on the target/seed table for LP model was also analyzed. / Master of Science

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IKEA is a brand that is known around the world and because it features many markers in their products, operations, and marketing that showcase its country of origin, Sweden has gained worldwide recognition simultaneously. The tourism industry could benefit from this positive image that Sweden has gained through IKEA’s popularity, by marketing themselves among the brand’s consumers using that positive image. Recently, Visit Sweden, the national DMO of the said country, has developed the campaign ‘Discover the Originals’ that responds to IKEA’s link with Sweden and tries to include tourism in that image among consumers. This quantitative study aims to see whether such campaigns that respond to the product-country image of private companies are effective in impacting the travel intention of the companies’ consumers. The first research question aims to find out the impact of IKEA’s product-country image on the intention of Belgian IKEA customers to travel to Sweden. This will be analysed by interpreting the correlation between brand image and country image as the independent variable and travel intention as the dependent variable. The second research question on the other hand will evaluate whether the ‘Discover the Originals’ campaign that is developed by Visit Sweden to respond to IKEA’s strong relationship with its country of origin, is increasing intention to travel to Sweden. The study confirms the applicability of previous research on the specific case of Belgian IKEA customers, given that the positive product-country image of IKEA on other foreign markets was already supported. Using the results of an online questionnaire that was distributed in relevant Facebook groups with members that were residing in cities spread over Belgium, analyses were made and interpreted. This delivered results that are aligned with the findings from existing literature. Positive product-country image impacts visit intentions after being exposed to the campaign, which indicates that the campaign is in particular valuable when targeting IKEA customers as brand familiarity and -image play an important role in how the audience reacts to it. These results reveal the opportunity for DMOs and private companies to work together and strengthen each other’s brands while contributing to the further development of the country as a tourist destination.

Courier companies receive delivery orders at different times in advance. Some orders are known long beforehand, some arise with a very short notice. Currently the order delegation, deciding which car is going to drive which order, is performed completely manually by a (TL) where the TL use their experience to guess upcoming orders. If delivery orders could be predicted beforehand, algorithms could create suggestions for vehicle routing and vehicle selection. This thesis used the data set from a Stockholm based courier company. The Stockholm area was divided into zones using agglomerative clustering and K-Means, where the zones were used to group deliveries into time-sliced Origin Destination (OD) matrices. One cell in one OD-matrix contained the number of deliveries from one zone to another during one hour. Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) Recurrent Neural Networks were used for the prediction. The training features consisted of prior OD-matrices, week day, hour of day, month, precipitation, and the air temperature. The LSTM based approach performed better than the baseline, the Mean Squared Error was reduced from 1.1092 to 0.07705 and the F1 score increased from 41% to 52%. All features except for the precipitation and air temperature contributed noticeably to the prediction power. The result indicates that it is possible to predict some future delivery orders, but that many are random and are independent from prior deliveries. Letting the model train on data as it is observed would likely boost the predictive power. / Budföretag får in leveransorder olika tid i förväg. Vissa order är kända lång tid i förväg, medan andra uppkommer med kort varsel. I dagsläget genomförs orderdelegationen, delegering av vilken bil som kör vilken order, manuellt av en transportledare (TL) där TL använder sin erfarenhet för att gissa framtida order. Om leveransorder skulle kunna förutsägas i förväg kan fordonsrutter och fordonsval föreslås av algoritmer. Denna uppsats använde sig utav ett dataset från ett Stockholmsbaserat budföretag. Stockholmsområdet delades in i zoner med agglomerativ klustring och K-Means, där zoner användes för att gruppera leveranser in i tidsdelade Ursprungsdestinationsmatriser (OD-matriser).  En cell i en OD-matris innehåller antalet leveranser från en zon till en annan under en timme. Neurala nätverk med lång-kortsiktsminne (LSTM) användes för förutsägelsen. Modellen tränades på tidigare OD-matriser, veckodag, timme, månad, nederbörd, och lufttemperatur. Det LSTM-baserade tillvägagångssättet presterade bättre än baslinjen, det genomsnittliga kvadratfelet minskade från 1,1092 till 0,07705 och F1-poängen ökade från 41% till 52%. Nederbörd och lufttemperatur bidrog inte märkbart till förutsägelsens prestation. Resultatet indikerar att det är möjligt att förutse vissa leveransorder, men att en stor andel är slumpmässiga och oberoende från tidigare leveranser. Att låta modellen tränas med nya data när den observeras skulle troligtvis öka prognosförmågan.

The process of watching a movie is a common way to be entertained in this day and age. There are multiple ways in which people can enjoy a movie ranging from the big screen at a commercial theater, on their home's television, or even in a car while driving. One outcome associated with watching a destination movie might be that the viewer will be compelled to visit or not the location portrayed in the movie. It is a primary assumption of this thesis that movies have the ability to create or change an individual's image of a destination by its portrayal within the motion picture. This study was conducted in an effort to examine this global phenomenon called movie tourism and contribute to the tourism literature. This study focused on determining the differences between pre and post measures resulting from watching a destination specific movie. The research method was a pretest-posttest experimental design conducted to a convenience sample of 247 hospitality management students enrolled in a major metropolitan university located in the southeastern portion of the United States. The research instrument was a pre and posttest questionnaire that included structured and unstructured questions in order to capture the complex destination image. The treatment between the pre and posttest was a destination specific movie. A 100% response rate was obtained from the pretest group and a 99.2% response rate from the posttest group. Results of the study revealed that: 1) certain perceived destination images were different before and after the movie; 2) level of interest in visiting the destination was not different before and after the movie; 3) destination image had a positive relationship with the level of interest in visiting the destination; and 4) certain audience characteristics had an impact on destination image and interest in visiting the location. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed in the final chapter.

Innovations in information technology have played an important role in the way business is conducted. Technology innovations have great impact on tourism destination marketing organizations such as convention and visitor bureaus, since they are highly dependent on information and timely distribution of it to the public. Information technology innovations such as the Internet allow CVBs to perform their marketing functions in a more efficient manner. The implementation of web-based marketing functions is impacted by organizational characteristics that either foster or hinder their implementation (Thong, 1999; Tornatzky & Fleischer, 1990; Wang & Fesenmaier, 2006; Zhu & Kraemer, 2005). Information technology innovations have been adopted by organizations in different levels of sophistication. Since the main function of a CVB is the promotion of a destination technologies that facilitate this process are important to this type of organization. Unfortunately, the marketing practice of American CVBs is still dominated by principles of mass marketing by communicating the same message to all consumers. As a result, the use of websites by American CVB has been limited to information provision functions and has lost opportunities to build relationship with customers through additional web-based marketing activities. This study proposes that CVBs should use web-based marketing activities to attract and retain relationships with customers. This study provides two main contributions to the existing literature: a) examines web-based marketing functions from a relationship marketing perspective and b) examines the impact of organizational characteristics on the sophistication level of web-based marketing functions. The use and effectiveness of web functions and its applications were examined. The results showed that the majority of the CVBs focus the use of their website to provide information. A standard multiple regression was used to investigate the impact of the organizational factors on the different web functions. The results of the regression show that size, financial resources and management team's technological expertise are the only factors that impact the level of web functions implemented by CVBs.

The research of the past two decades in travel and tourism has demonstrated that tourism destination image is a valuable construct in investigating the destination selection process and behavior of travelers. Most studies of consumer decision making in tourism have investigated the relationship between image of a destination and preference or visitation intentions for the destination. As competition among tourism destinations is getting more intense, it becomes increasingly important to understand the dynamic structure of image by studying forces or influences contributing to destination image formation so that a more effective image creation and correction strategy can be articulated. In the last two decades, research in travel and tourism has investigated many important issues regarding the image concept and contributed to understanding of tourist destination image. However, although numerous researchers across different fields emphasized the importance of understanding the forces contributing to image formation process, it has not received much attention in travel and tourism studies. Building upon the works from several fields and disciplines such as consumer behavior and marketing, travel and tourism, environmental psychology and geography, this study developed and empirically tested a conceptual model of the determinants of tourist destination image (image formation process). A major finding of the study was that a tourist destination in1age is formed by both stimulus factors and travelers' characteristics. The image of a tourism destination is dynamic and developed by chains of influences. The findings of a path analysis indicated that variety and type of information sources used, age and education influence perceptual/cognitive evaluations of tourism destinations. The perceptual/cognitive eval uatiol1s and socio-psychological travel motivations together influence affective evaluations of tourism destinations. The perceptual/cognitive and affective evaluations, then. form an overall Image of tourism destinations. It was also found that the overall image was more likely influenced by affect than perceptual/cognitive evaluations and affect together. In other words, affect serves as an intervening variable between perceptual/cognitive evaluations and overall image. The study contributed to the theoretical advancement of destination linage formation in the field of travel and tourism. It also contributed to consumer behavior and marketing by providing a structural model by which a simultaneous empirical treatment of the elements influencing image was investigated. The results of this study provided important implications for strategic image management and can aid in designing and implementing marketing programs for creating and enhancing tourist destination images. They can also aid in tailoring images for specific target markets, positioning tourism destinations, and designing advertising and promotional programs. / Ph. D.

Modern society is faced with an increasing level of environmental degradation. One effect of this is the loss of possibilities for children to interact with natural environments. Children’s interactions with nature come with a wide range of benefits, both physical and psychological, accentuating the need to develop outdoor spaces for children in areas of preserved nature. One way to approach this challenge is by developing recreational and educational nature trails aimed at children. Länsstyrelsen Gotland (the county administrative board) requested a theoretical suggestion for a children’s nature trail in a prospective nature reserve in Gotland and this study was done to bring forth such a suggestion. The study focused on what educational and recreational elements would be suitable to include in a nature trail for children and how to build ecological knowledge among its visitors in effective and creative ways. The material for this study was collected through semi-structured interviews with children’s caregivers and educators in combination with observations at existing nature trails for children using a geosemiotic approach. The results were analysed through a thematic analysis that extracted four main themes from the two sets of data with sub-themes to broaden the results. The themes and sub-themes were used to highlight elements suitable to include at the stations in terms of activities and layout of the trail, and how to get and keep children’s attention along the trail. A suggestion for a nature trail for children with eight stations was put together, steeped in the non-consumptive standards of ecotourism and with a clear focus on getting the visitors to learn about nature, especially through the framework of ecological literacy. Fun and play were seen as essential components to effectively build ecological knowledge and it is argued that perhaps the objects and activities provided at built-up ecotourism sites are necessary to get more people to visit nature in the first place.