Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2003. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (M Arch)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2010. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: David Fortin. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 41-43).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Purdue University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 186-196). Also available online.

Tour operators and travel agents are threatened with disintermediation in the travel and tourism industry, especially as a consequence of altered customer demand and new information and communication technologies which foster direct bookings. In this thesis, however, it is argued that major European tour operators are reinventing their business activities to adapt to these changes and to secure their strategic position in the package holiday business. These tour operators are in particular developing and implementing new information and communication technology strategies to support both their production and distribution of holiday packages and, moreover, to enable them to automatically assemble and market individually tailored holidays. Data to support this argument was gained from an extensive empirical survey in Britain and Germany. A total of 44 tour operators were interviewed in Britain and Germany, which controlled over 65% of their respective national market shares. The interviewed tour operators also included ten of the top twelve European tour operator groups. Leading tour operator associations and charter airlines were interviewed in addition. This research provides a detailed insight into the tour operator sector, particularly in Britain and Germany, thus contributing to research in the travel and tourism industry. Moreover, a theoretical framework is developed and proposed, largely based on industrial organisation and new institutional economics literature. The application of this framework in this thesis for the study of the package holiday business contributes to travel and tourism research, and provides a useful methodology for the study of a sector or industry.

Thesis (M.Com.(Tourism Management))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Executive summary in English. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1993. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-67).

This thesis focuses on an under-researched area of tourism - individualised travel - by examining non-institutionalised solitary travellers. The purpose of the study is to discover precisely why non-institutionalised solitary travellers travel alone. In order to understand the travel behaviour and motivation of solitary travellers, they are contrasted with group tourists. To be able to tackle this research problem, Grounded Theory is chosen as the most appropriate approach, for the following reasons. First, Grounded Theory is a methodology which makes its greatest contribution in areas about which little is known. Second, its aim is to generate rather than to test theory. Based on the computer-assisted content analysis and interpretation of relatively neglected qualitative data obtained from interviews and diaries, sixteen socio-psychological justifications for solo travel are empirically identified. From these responses, a taxonomy of non-institutionalised solitary travellers is inductively constructed. It consists of two basic types. First, there are those who travel alone because they simply have no available travel companion, referred to as "solitary travellers by default". Second, there are those individuals who deliberately travel on their own, and who are regarded as "solitary travellers by choice". The elaboration of such a distinction is the primary contribution made by this research to tourism knowledge. A secondary contribution is realised by confronting the data on solitary travellers and group tourists with the extant literature on tourist typologies - an exercise that raises a number of issues about the mythical status of the former. As a result, an alternative taxonomy is generated that consists of two distinct types of tourists - individualistic and collectivistic. The individualistic tourist is someone for whom internal personal values. (e.g., sense of accomplishment) are the most important principles in life, who has motives stemming from ego-enhancement (e.g., personal development), and for whom travel means the investment of personal cultural capital. The collectivistic tourist, on the other hand, is someone who assigns greater priority to external personal values (e.g., sense of belonging), whose motives originate in the anomic conditions of society, and for whom travel is little more than a short break from routine.

The rapid expansion of tourism degrees over the last 30 years has been fuelled by the expansion of Higher Education, the popularity of tourism as an area of study, and the attraction of tourism careers. However, the tourism industry has not always been involved in these developments, nor appreciative of tourism degrees. Tourism employers have suggested that tourism graduates do not meet their needs, and voiced concern about the relevance of tourism degrees. Yet, there has not been a comprehensive study which explores employers' perceptions of the value of tourism degrees. This thesis aims to address this by providing an in-depth exploration of how tourism employers perceive the value of tourism degrees. To achieve this aim, a mixed method approach was adopted. A qualitative approach to this study was employed in its first stage. The findings from this stage were used to inform the second quantitative stage. The results indicate that the perceived value of tourism degrees is based on both its employment relevance and academic status. From an employment perspective, the majority of jobs available to graduates are entry level jobs which do not require holding a degree. These jobs are often customer facing, with what employers term as 'personality' being considered a key requirement. Tourism degrees are not seen to contribute to graduates meeting this requirement. Rather, they are seen to contribute to gaining knowledge of the industry, which incidentally is low on the employers' list of requirements. The importance of relevant work experience where skills such as customer-service skills can be developed and demonstrated should thus not be overlooked. Work experience schemes based on cooperation between universities and the industry could also have a positive effect on graduates' employability not only by expanding their work experience, but also because such cooperation is often linked to a more positive view ofthe value of tourism degrees. Where jobs which do require holding a degree are concerned, employers indicated that tourism degrees do not provide an advantage. They associated tourism degrees with new universities, and perceive graduates from new universities to exhibit deficiencies in higher level graduate skills. This suggests that although the expansion of HE was designed to meet the needs of the economy, employers may not be convinced of its benefits. The results indicate that regardless of whether the tourism degrees provide good, sound academic base, if employers associate them with former polytechnics and lower academic standards they will still opt for graduates from elite institutions and more traditional degree subjects.

Mobility, a constant in the world of modernity, associated with fluidity, liquidity and flow has acquired new dimensions in late modern society due to the increasing and cumulative impact of innovations in communication and transport technologies. These developments have seen individualʼs voluntarily crossing borders and boundaries in ever-greater numbers in pursuit of opportunities and self-fulfilment. Travel and tourism, as global geographic movement and as a manifestation of mobility has come to be seen as a significant dimension within these global mobile movements. A developing research approach, centered on a new mobilities paradigm has emerged to illuminate some of the intersecting mobilities of capital, knowledge, ideas, danger, information and bodies that constitute and have enabled these global movements.

The topic of the diploma thesis is tourism of young people and it researches the influence of three chosen student's organisation on VŠE. First two chapters of the thesis are dedicated to the general description of tourism of young people which is also referred to as Youth Travel. This new segment of tourism shows specific characteristics as for motivation factors, budget, length of stay and usage of modern technologies which are described here. Next chapter deals with the benefits of this segment to the tourism industry. Various forms of Youth Travel and its demand is described in the second chapter more detailed. Third chapter speaks about three student's organisations -- AIESEC Praha, AEGEE Praha and ESN VŠE Buddy System -- which are also focused on outgoing tourism of their members. A research was carried out for the practical part of the thesis. The research examined knowledge of the students about the offer of their organisations, their personal benefits of membership in such a club and their travel habits. Later a second research was carried out among all the students of VŠE (meaning non-members also), which showed a potential for a new student's organisation, which would function as a tour-operator and would organize trips and tours for its members. In connection with this research there is a proposal for such a new organisation called VŠEtravel, z.s.