<p>Because of the mass tourism industry that exploits sensitive locations all over our planet a new kind of tourism came into focus in the 1980’s. This new form of tourism was named ecotourism, and as the name reveals ecotourism deals with low-impact travel. Today, all sorts of places can be gazed upon in a flick of a switch; all you need is a television set. It is well known that destination marketing successfully uses visual media as a tool to sell trips to potential tourists. Therefore, this essay examines how ecotourism benefits from the great power of the television. The analyzed material contains of six different TV shows, sorted into two groups – travel shows and discussion programs. With the theory of the tourist gaze, semiotics, destination marketing and the experience economy the study resulted in the conclusion that all TV shows are built upon collective cultural representations found in the exotic and the authentic. With the help of the visual language, travel shows can give new meaning to a specific destination expressed in a system of mutual understanding and shared culture.</p>

<p><strong>Purpose –</strong> Target of this study is to develop a social media framework, the essential “ingredient” for a social media concept for the destination Usedom. The following question is in the centre of this investigations attention:  How to create awareness and dialogue by using Social Media for the destination Usedom taking into account the new Usedom Welcome Visitor Centre that will be open 2011?</p><p><strong>Methodology/approach</strong> – Mainly, an observational approach as research method is used to answer the research question, collecting empirical data not by questioning respondents, but by observing different forms of activity. Writing about social media, to use the Internet for observational research is natural and can be further enhanced due to the accessibility and retrieval of information and cross-validation of the information available from several sources.</p><p><strong>Findings</strong> – Social media marketing eliminates the middlemen and provides destinations with the unique opportunity to have a direct relationship with their customers. In today’s knowledge-society where</p><ul><li>people want to engage – want to be active – want to create content on their own </li><li>people talk: online and offline - positive or negative – with or without the destination</li></ul><p>NOT participating is NO option. In case of the isle of Usedom, the Social media concept should be of listening and outreach character. As a holistic marketing approach where “everything matters” is needed for destinations, online and offline activities need each other. In addition to social media marketing even search engine optimisation, ad words and target mails are important tools for a successful online strategy.</p><p><strong>Research limitations/implications – </strong>Most important is the time limitation. The validity period is limited. A Social Media framework of today is not the social media framework of the future. Social media is changing rapidly. New channels appear - others disappear. Moreover, another limitation is the subjectivity: the author of this study observes the Internet in accordance to the research question and allocates a sample pursuant to her knowledge and experience.</p><p><strong>Practical implications</strong> – Aside from the destinations’ website being adapted by social media elements, Facebook serves as ideal tool to nurture relationships between the customer and the destination by being creative, honest and assessing competitors as partners. As one of the easiest and most versatile social networks for professionals today, Facebook is a profile and presence aggregator, channelling all online activity through one main hub and combining almost every online social tool that can be used.</p><p><strong>Originality/value –</strong> Targeting the destination Usedom, but also being applicable for other German tourist destinations, this study provides both: a theoretical and with ideas filled framework to create awareness and dialogue by using social media as complement to traditional marketing activities. Being the first investigation that has been done for the destination Usedom in the field of social media, this study aims to inspire other tourist destinations as well as students to learn about social media and to further investigate in this field.<strong> </strong></p><p> </p>

Because of the mass tourism industry that exploits sensitive locations all over our planet a new kind of tourism came into focus in the 1980’s. This new form of tourism was named ecotourism, and as the name reveals ecotourism deals with low-impact travel. Today, all sorts of places can be gazed upon in a flick of a switch; all you need is a television set. It is well known that destination marketing successfully uses visual media as a tool to sell trips to potential tourists. Therefore, this essay examines how ecotourism benefits from the great power of the television. The analyzed material contains of six different TV shows, sorted into two groups – travel shows and discussion programs. With the theory of the tourist gaze, semiotics, destination marketing and the experience economy the study resulted in the conclusion that all TV shows are built upon collective cultural representations found in the exotic and the authentic. With the help of the visual language, travel shows can give new meaning to a specific destination expressed in a system of mutual understanding and shared culture.

Kvalitetsmärkningen Naturens Bästa arbetar för att marknadsföra upplevelser som inte är bra enbart för turisten utan även för miljön och omgivningen. Idag blir vi som konsumenter mer och mer medvetna och måna om vår miljö och den värld vi lever i. Således borde en kvalitetsmärkning som Naturens Bästa kunna vägleda oss till att finna arrangemang inom turismen som hjälper oss att välja arrangörer som verkligen lever upp till de krav vi ställer. Problemet som finns är dock att denna kvalitetsmärkning inte syns i den gemensamma marknadsföringen av destinationer i nuläget. Utifrån detta är syftet med uppsatsen att undersöka varför kvalitetsmärkningen Naturens Bästa inte har någon framskjutande roll i marknadsföringen av destinationer. Vi har använt oss av en kvalitativ insamlingsmetod i form av personliga intervjuer i vår undersökning för att få fram varför kvalitetsmärkningen inte syns i marknadsföringen. Intervjuerna genomfördes med respondenter från turistbyrån i Västerås, Västmanlands kommuner och landsting samt turistbyrån i Skinnskatteberg. Den teori uppsatsen bygger på är turism och marknadsföring, destinationsmarknadsföring och kvalitetsmärkning. Utifrån denna teori har intervjufrågorna utformats och den insamlade primärdatan sedan analyserats. Med utgångspunkt i den genomförda analysen framkom det att Naturens Bästa inte har någon framskjuten roll i marknadsföringen av destinationer till stor del på grund av att kunskapen om kvalitetsmärkningen är dålig ute bland turistorganisationerna. Detta beror enligt vår mening på brist av information. Ytterligare en anledning är att det finns en ovilja att använda märkningen i broschyrerna. / The quality label Natures Best is committed to market experiences that are not only good for the tourist, but also for the environment.  Consumers today become more and more aware of their surrounding and the world we live in. Therefore, a quality label like Natures Best should be able to guide us to find arrangements within tourism that helps us choose arrangers that really lives up to the demands we have. The problem recognized, is that this quality label is not visible in the common marketing of destinations today. From this point of view, the purpose with this thesis is to investigate why the quality label Natures Best does not have a prominent role in the marketing of destinations.  In our examination of why the quality labeling does not have a prominent role, we have used a qualitative method of collection in the form of personal interviews. The interviews were carried out with respondents from the tourist bureau in Västerås, “Västmanlands kommuner och landsting” and the tourist bureau in Skinnskatteberg. The theory which the thesis is based upon is tourism and marketing, destination marketing and quality labeling. The questions for the interviews and the analysis of the primary data have been formed based on this theory. With a starting point in the conducted analyze, it emerged that Natures Best does not have a prominent role in the marketing of destinations because there is a poor knowledge about the quality label among the organizations. According to us, this is due to a lack of information. Another reason is that it exist a reluctance to use the label in the brochures.

The numerous man-made disasters and natural catastrophes that menace major communities accentuate the need for proper planning for emergency evacuation. Transportation networks in cities evolve over long time spans in tandem with population growth and evolution of travel patterns. In emergencies, travel demand and travel patterns drastically change from the usual everyday volumes and patterns. Given that most US and Canadian cities are already congested and operating near capacity during peak periods, network performance can severely deteriorate if drastic changes in Origin-Destination (O-D) demand patterns occur during or after a disaster. Also, loss of capacity due to the disaster and associated incidents can further complicate the matter. Therefore, the primary goal when a disaster or hazardous event occurs is to coordinate, control, and possibly optimize the utilization of the existing transportation network capacity. Emergency operation management centres face multi-faceted challenges in anticipating evacuation flows and providing proactive actions to guide and coordinate the public towards safe shelters. Numerous studies have contributed to developing and testing strategies that have the potential to mitigate the consequences of emergency situations. They primarily investigate the effect of some proposed strategies that have the potential of improving the performance of the evacuation process with modelling and optimization techniques. However, most of these studies are inherently restricted to evacuating automobile traffic using a certain strategy without considering other modes of transportation. Moreover, little emphasis is given to studying the interaction between the various strategies that could be potentially synergized to expedite the evacuation process. Also, the absence of an accurate representation of the spatial and temporal distribution of the population and the failure to identify the available modes and populations that are captive to certain modes contribute to the absence of multimodal evacuation procedures. Incorporating multiple modes into emergency evacuation has the potential to expedite the evacuation process and is essential to assuring the effective evacuation of transit-captive and special-needs populations . This dissertation presents a novel multimodal optimization framework that combines vehicular traffic and mass transit for emergency evacuation. A multi-objective approach is used to optimize the multimodal evacuation problem. For automobile evacuees, an Optimal Spatio-Temporal Evacuation (OSTE) framework is presented for generating optimal demand scheduling, destination choices and route choices, simultaneously. OSTE implements Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) techniques coupled with parallel distributed genetic optimization to guarantee a near global optimal solution. For transit evacuees, a Multi-Depots, Time Constrained, Pick-up and Delivery Vehicle Routing Problem (MDTCPD-VRP) framework is presented to model the use of public transit vehicles in evacuation situations. The MDTCPD-VRP implements constraint programming and local search techniques to optimize certain objective functions and satisfy a set of constraints. The OSTE and MDTCPD-VRP platforms are integrated into one framework to replicate the impact of congestion caused by traffic on transit vehicle travel times. A proof-of-concept prototype has been tested; it investigates the optimization of a multimodal evacuation of a portion of the Toronto Waterfront area. It also assesses the impact of multiple objective functions on emergency evacuation while attempting to achieve an equilibrium state between transit modes and vehicular traffic. Then, a large-scale application, including a demand estimation model from a regional travel survey, is conducted for the evacuation of the entire City of Toronto. This framework addresses many limitations of existing evacuation planning models by: 1) synergizing multiple evacuation strategies; 2) utilizing robust optimization and solution algorithms that can tackle such multi-dimensional non deterministic problem; 3) estimating the spatial and temporal distribution of evacuation demand; 4) identifying the transit-dependent population; 5) integrating multiple modes in emergency evacuation. The framework presents a significant step forward in emergency evacuation optimization.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att kartlägga de nordiska nationella destinationsorganisationernas digitala nätverk och därefter analysera hur nätverket och de olika plattformarna används för att slutligen diskutera på vilket sätt det går att generalisera ett optimalt nyttjande av nätverk för destinationskommunikation. Frågor som som använts för att undersöka detta är: Hur ser de nordiska ländernas nationella destinationsorganisationers digitala nätverk ut? Hur har nätverkssamhällets trender influerat de nordiska ländernas nationella destinations- kommunikation? Nätverk och nätverkssamhälle är den teoretiska ram som undersökningen utgått från. Närmare bestämt är det Van Dijks teorier om de trender som finns i dagens nätverkssamhället som ligger till grund för undersökningen. Med turismbranschen och deras digitala nätverk som undersökningsobjekt var det även relevant att ta hänsyn till branschförutsättningar och det som förespråkas inom strategisk kommunikation för sociala medier. Metoden som använts för att genomföra studien är kvantitativ nätverks- och innehållsanalys. Studien visade att de nordiska nationella destinationsorganisationer följer nätverkssamhällets trender på många punkter samtidigt som det finns utrymme att utvecklas mer. De använder medvetet användargenererat innehåll, för dialog och har ett visuellt uttrycksätt. Nätverken skulle kunna ha en högre täthet och/eller utveckla den personliga anpassningen. Den koncentrationen av valda kanaler, innehåller de populära ”Big Three ” – Facebook, Twitter och YouTube. De nordiska länderna har goda förutsättningar för att vara i framkant med den nätbaserade kommunikationen då Internet används i hög grad i alla nordiska länder, vilket genererar en hög Internetmedvetenhet i dessa länder. Trots detta finns det inte en tydligt bild av att organisationerna använder sitt digitala nätverk optimalt utan variationerna i användandet ger utrymme för alla länder att hitta utvecklingsmöjligheter. / The purpose of this paper is to identify the Nordic national destination organizations' digital networks. After analyzing the network and the different platforms the result is used to discuss how we can generalize an optimal utilization of a destination network. Questions that were used for this this were: What does the Nordic countries' national destination organizations digital network look like? And, How has social networking trends influenced the Nordic countries' national destination communication? The theoretical framework that was used for this research was network analysis and the Network Society. Van Dijk's theory about the trends that exist in today's networked society was specifically used as base for this research. With the tourism industry and its digital network as a subject, it was also relevant to take into account the industry conditions and what is advocated within strategic communication for social media. The method used to conduct the study is quantitative network analysis and content analysis. The study showed that the Nordic national destination network society organizations follow the trends in many ways, but there is capacity to develop it even more. They consciously use user-generated content, converse and use visual content for expression. The networks could have a higher density and/or develop the idea of ”personalization” more. The concentration of selected channels, includes the popular "Big Three" - Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The Nordic countries are well placed to be at the forefront of the online communication as the Internet is widely used in all the Nordic countries, which generate a high Internet awareness in these countries. Despite this, there is not a clear picture of the organization using their digital network optimally. The variations of how the organizations use their networks shows that all of the countries can find opportunities for even more progress.

The numerous man-made disasters and natural catastrophes that menace major communities accentuate the need for proper planning for emergency evacuation. Transportation networks in cities evolve over long time spans in tandem with population growth and evolution of travel patterns. In emergencies, travel demand and travel patterns drastically change from the usual everyday volumes and patterns. Given that most US and Canadian cities are already congested and operating near capacity during peak periods, network performance can severely deteriorate if drastic changes in Origin-Destination (O-D) demand patterns occur during or after a disaster. Also, loss of capacity due to the disaster and associated incidents can further complicate the matter. Therefore, the primary goal when a disaster or hazardous event occurs is to coordinate, control, and possibly optimize the utilization of the existing transportation network capacity. Emergency operation management centres face multi-faceted challenges in anticipating evacuation flows and providing proactive actions to guide and coordinate the public towards safe shelters. Numerous studies have contributed to developing and testing strategies that have the potential to mitigate the consequences of emergency situations. They primarily investigate the effect of some proposed strategies that have the potential of improving the performance of the evacuation process with modelling and optimization techniques. However, most of these studies are inherently restricted to evacuating automobile traffic using a certain strategy without considering other modes of transportation. Moreover, little emphasis is given to studying the interaction between the various strategies that could be potentially synergized to expedite the evacuation process. Also, the absence of an accurate representation of the spatial and temporal distribution of the population and the failure to identify the available modes and populations that are captive to certain modes contribute to the absence of multimodal evacuation procedures. Incorporating multiple modes into emergency evacuation has the potential to expedite the evacuation process and is essential to assuring the effective evacuation of transit-captive and special-needs populations . This dissertation presents a novel multimodal optimization framework that combines vehicular traffic and mass transit for emergency evacuation. A multi-objective approach is used to optimize the multimodal evacuation problem. For automobile evacuees, an Optimal Spatio-Temporal Evacuation (OSTE) framework is presented for generating optimal demand scheduling, destination choices and route choices, simultaneously. OSTE implements Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) techniques coupled with parallel distributed genetic optimization to guarantee a near global optimal solution. For transit evacuees, a Multi-Depots, Time Constrained, Pick-up and Delivery Vehicle Routing Problem (MDTCPD-VRP) framework is presented to model the use of public transit vehicles in evacuation situations. The MDTCPD-VRP implements constraint programming and local search techniques to optimize certain objective functions and satisfy a set of constraints. The OSTE and MDTCPD-VRP platforms are integrated into one framework to replicate the impact of congestion caused by traffic on transit vehicle travel times. A proof-of-concept prototype has been tested; it investigates the optimization of a multimodal evacuation of a portion of the Toronto Waterfront area. It also assesses the impact of multiple objective functions on emergency evacuation while attempting to achieve an equilibrium state between transit modes and vehicular traffic. Then, a large-scale application, including a demand estimation model from a regional travel survey, is conducted for the evacuation of the entire City of Toronto. This framework addresses many limitations of existing evacuation planning models by: 1) synergizing multiple evacuation strategies; 2) utilizing robust optimization and solution algorithms that can tackle such multi-dimensional non deterministic problem; 3) estimating the spatial and temporal distribution of evacuation demand; 4) identifying the transit-dependent population; 5) integrating multiple modes in emergency evacuation. The framework presents a significant step forward in emergency evacuation optimization.

El objetivo de la Tesis Doctoral es estudiar la imagen de destino turístico y el proceso global de satisfacción del turista mediante la adopción de un enfoque integrador. En particular, se trata de analizar la influencia que tiene la imagen disponible del destino turístico en las distintas etapas del proceso global de satisfacción del turista, la naturaleza y los factores que participan en la formación de la imagen de destino turístico y los factores que contribuyen a la generación de las expectativas del turista de un futuro encuentro en el destino vacacional. Con objeto de cubrir estos objetivos, en la Tesis Doctoral se revisa la literatura sobre la imagen de destino turístico, la satisfacción del consumidor y, dentro de este último campo de investigación, las expectativas. A partir de esta revisión se defiende la naturaleza cognitiva-afectiva de la imagen, se propone un modelo teórico que integra la imagen de destino turístico en las distintas etapas del proceso global de satisfacción del turista y se formulan las hipótesis relativas a los factores que participan en la formación de la imagen y la generación de las expectativas del turista. Para contrastar el conjunto de hipótesis se realiza una investigación tanto cualitativa como cuantitativa. Tras el análisis de resultados se evidencia empíricamente la estructura cognitiva-afectiva de la imagen de destino o la importancia de la imagen y las emociones del turista en el proceso global de satisfacción, entre otros aspectos de interés.

The study applies in an innovative way a set of marketing concepts to sun and sea tourist destinations in two continents. The frame of reference analyzes mass tourism, tourist destinations and its management mechanisms; in the field of international marketing studies, it is contemplated the concept of country image, regarding the perception of its population and socioeconomic development, and its influence in the image of the tourist destination. In the construct known as consumer based brand equity of tourist destinations, brand awareness, brand associations, quality, perceived value and loyalty are examined, as well as the visitor satisfaction, considered a necessary antecedent to loyalty. / El treball desenvolupa un conjunt de conceptes de màrqueting d'una manera innovadora a les destinacions turístiques de sol i platja de dos continents. El marc de referència de l'estudi analitza el turisme de masses, en la modalitat de sol i platja i, d'altra banda, l'estudi de les destinacions turístiques i els seus mecanismes de gestió. En el camp del màrqueting internacional, es contempla el concepte d'imatge de país, en temes relatius a la percepció de la població i el desenvolupament socio-econòmic, en connexió amb la imatge de la destinació turística. En el constructe conegut com a capital de marca de destinacions turístiques, basat en el consumidor, s'analitzen la consciència de marca, les associacions de marca, la qualitat, el valor percebut i la lleialtat, a les quals s'afegeix la satisfacció del consumidor, per la seva condició d'antecedent necessari de la lleialtat.

Beer, brewing, and the public house have been celebrated institutions in English culture for centuries. The drink occupies a venerable position in the gastronomy of most regions and is an integral component in the lives of many. There is an emerging literature on culinary tourism as an increasingly important element of cultural tourism. Local cuisine can be used to distinguish unique tourist regions from their competitors in an ever-globalising world. While wine tourism in particular has been studied quite thoroughly in recent years, beer tourism has been largely neglected. The purpose of this study is to explore the current state of, and potential for beer tourism in Yorkshire, England. Beer tourism can be described as “visitations to breweries, beer festivals, and beer shows for which beer tasting and experiencing the attributes of a beer region are the prime motivating factors for visitors” (Plummer et al. 2003). Through the use of a mail survey, short interviews, participant observation and secondary data collection techniques the author explored the extent to which local breweries use beer tourism practices; the specific beer tourism techniques being used by breweries in Yorkshire, and their perceived benefits and limitations; the partnerships, alliances and cooperation that may exist between the brewers themselves, and the tourism and hospitality industries; if and how tourism stakeholders draw upon beer and brewing to promote and market the region to tourists, and the role that brewers may play in this process. The author also made recommendations for brewery managers and regional marketing boards based upon relevant academic literature and the specific findings of this study. The author makes note of numerous findings on participation rates for breweries in tours and beer festivals, the perceived benefits and limitations that beer tourism has for brewers, and research on the branding and marketing of Yorkshire beer. A detailed typology of breweries based upon their relationship and degree of integration with the tourism industry is introduced. Furthermore, a tentative hypothesis based upon a brewer’s rationale for involvement in tourism and the size and success of that brewery is presented. This hypothesis must be empirically tested in future research to determine its acceptability. The author also presented a detailed review of the relevance of wine tourism literature for the field of beer tourism. It was found that although the two forms of beverage tourism share many commonalities, there exist as many differences. This comparison ultimately emphasises the importance of developing a specific beer tourism literature. It is hoped that the findings of this beer-specific research may be used by others with a keen interest in beer and tourism to undertake additional studies in the field. This study solely investigates the links between beer producers and the tourism and hospitality industry in Yorkshire, England. A similar study in an alternative setting would most likely yield interesting results. Furthermore, additional studies on beer and tourism should take the size, brewing output capacity, and possibly the revenue of a brewery into account in order to investigate potential differences between breweries’ tourism strategies based upon their size and success in their market.