A combination of technical innovations, system cost reductions, and post-1970's tourism industry restructuring has led to the development and diffusion of a variety of sophisticated computer reservation systems, or CRSs. Questions remain as to the extent to which tourism suppliers and destinations have achieved CRS links. In this case study of two urban destinations, Montreal and Toronto, tourism supplier relationships with CRS technology are examined. Drawing on results from the accommodation and attraction sectors of each city, the varying degrees of CRS adoption and impact are illustrated. CRS adoption by firms is shown to be constrained by a variety of management market, and tourism product-oriented barriers. Strategies employed by tourism suppliers to counter and overcome these barriers are identified. Following a review of tourism and information technology policies within Canada, some regulatory initiatives that may assist in facilitating successful technology adoption and use among the various components of the urban tourism product are proposed. The constantly evolving 'technological' channels and networks of tourism marketing and distribution are shown to be important influences on tourism destination policy. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

We consider a yield-management approach to determine whether a restaurant should accept or reject a pending reservation request. This approach was examined by Bossert (2009), where the decision for each request is evaluated by an approximate dynamic program (ADP) that bases its decision on a realization of future demand. This model only considers assigning requests to their desired time slot. We expand Bossert's ADP model to incorporate an element of flexibility that allows requests to be assigned to a time slot that differs from the customer's initially requested time. To estimate the future seat utilization given a particular decision, a new heuristic is presented which evaluates time-slot/table assignments based on the expected number of unused seats likely to result from a given assignment. When compared against naive seating models, the proposed model produced average gains in seat utilization of 25%.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2009. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1983. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 44-45).

Thesis (Ph.D)--Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Dr. Laurie A. Garrow; Committee Member: Dr. John D. Leonard; Committee Member: Dr. Mark Ferguson; Committee Member: Dr. Michael D. Meyer; Committee Member: Dr. Patrick S. McCarthy. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Oregon State University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-112). Also available online.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration