Society today is becoming increasingly digitalised. This has led to several daily routines that used to be handled either via telephone or face to face, are nowadays being handled via the internet. Important actors in society such as authorities but also companies open their web-sites at the internet, thereby enabling more options for people to interact with them, however the elderly group (+65 years) of users is not being included in the digitalization due to various reasons. The purpose of this study is to explore whether differences in user experience can be found within the elderly group and why. Furthermore, the purpose is to contribute with more material for future development of relevant interfaces. Initially, a group of seniors answered our surveys. Thereafter, the study deepened by doing interviews and observations of seniors when interacting with an online booking system. The result presents a number of factors such as previous experiences but also age related factors that affects the informants’ interaction with the interface. / Samhället präglas idag av en ökad digitalisering, vilket har lett till att ett flertal vardagliga ru-tiner som tidigare skötts antingen på plats med personal eller via telefon numera sköts via internet. Viktiga samhällsaktörer såsom myndigheter men även företag upprättar sina webbplat-ser på internet och därmed möjliggörs fler sätt för människor att interagera med dem. Dock inkluderas inte den äldre (+65 år) användargruppen i digitaliseringen av olika anledningar. Syftet med studien är att förklara huruvida skillnader i användarupplevelse går att finna inom den äldre (+65 år) populationen. Vidare är syftet att bidra till ökat underlag för framtida ut-veckling av relevanta gränssnitt. Initialt fick en grupp pensionärer besvara våra enkäter. Utöver enkätens data fördjupades arbetet genom att utföra intervjuer och observationer av pens-ionärer när de interagerade med ett bokningssystem online. Resultatet presenterar en rad fak-torer såsom tidigare erfarenheter men även åldersrelaterade faktorer som påverkar informan-tens interaktion med gränssnittet.

Travel agents, traditionally the sector of the travel and tourism industry that has held a strong position of power by providing an important link in the distribution channel between principals and consumers, are now finding their business under threat. Rapid changes in consumer demand, information technology and business systems are impacting on travel agency viability around the world. Increasing distribution costs have seen travel principals aiming to reach their customers with distribution that is much more direct than in the past, cutting the travel agent out of the system, or at the very least, reducing agency commissions. Strategic alliances have also given suppliers - particularly airlines - marketing synergies, and again reduced their need to rely on agents to distribute their product. Further synergies have come from the use of diagonal integration, a process whereby firms use information technologies to logically combine services for best productivity and most profitability; for example, Internet booking plus electronic ticketing. In addition the motivations and consumer behaviour of travellers are changing. The &64;new tourists&64; want experiences, not just a vacation, are more likely to know what they want, to do their own pre-purchase research, and to have a stronger preference for tailor-made arrangements. This market is independent, and more likely to rely on the Internet as a source of tourism information than to rely on the services of a travel agent to plan their trip. This thesis analyses the changes in the travel and tourism distribution system that point towards the apparent disintermediation of travel agents, and makes recommendations for new marketing strategies for travel agents, so that they may retain their viability into the twenty-first century.

In this thesis, airline network revenue management problem is considered for the case with no cancellations and overbooking. In literature, there exist several approximate probabilistic and deterministic mathematical models developed in order to maximize expected revenue at the end of the reservation period. The aim of this study is to develop models considering also the risks involved in the proposed booking control policies. Two linear programming models are proposed which incorporate the variance of the revenue. The objective of the models is to effectively balance the tradeoff between the expectation and variance of the revenue. The performances of the proposed models are compared to the previous models through a numerical study. The seat allocations resulting from the mathematical models are used in a simulation model working with several booking control policies. The probability distributions of the revenues are investigated and the revenues are compared in terms of expectation, standard deviation, coefficient of variation and probability of poor performance. It is observed that the use of the proposed models decreases the variability of the revenue and thereby the risk of probability of poor performance. Also, the expected revenues obtained by implementing the solutions of the proposed models with nested booking control policies turn out to be higher than other probabilistic models as long as the degree of variance incorporation is within some interval. When compared with the deterministic models, the proposed models provides for the decision makers with alternative, preferable policies in terms of the expectation and the variability measures.

Världen står inför stora utmaningar i framtiden sett till hur vi överanvänder de resurser som jorden har att erbjuda. Jordens miljö och dess hållbarhet är allt vi människor har och så som Bruntlandrapporten beskriver det måste vi agera nu för att bevara den för våra framtida generationer (WCED, 1987). Samtidigt ökar medvetenheten kring klimatförändringarna som vårt agerande har lett fram till. I och med det ställs allt större krav dels på individer men även på företag att ta sitt ansvar för klimatet och jorden.  För företagen har det blivit alltmer vanligt att arbeta med CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) som är ett verktyg för att integrera miljöansvaret, det sociala ansvaret samt det ekonomiska ansvaret i företagets verksamhet. Det privata resandet ökar allt mer och därmed även behovet av hotellboende. Hotellboendet är det gästen konsumerar och då detta är en upplevelse som inte fysiskt går att ta med sig hem benämns hotellbranschen som en del av tjänsteindustrin. Tjänster är komplexa och det finns utmaningar som hotellen därmed ställs inför då det blir mycket svårare att förmedla rätt information till gästerna innan gästen anländer till hotellet, vad är egentligen det de köper? Vi vill i denna studie sammanfoga hotellens hållbarhetsarbete med komplexiteten kring att hotell ingår i tjänsteindustrin och få en förståelse för vilka värderingar konsumenter har kring hållbarhet generellt och hur dessa värderingar relaterar till beteendet gällande bokning av hotell i synnerhet. Vidare undrar vi vad som skulle kunna motivera gäster att välja mer miljövänliga boendealternativ och hur, utifrån gästens värderingar, hotellen bör positionera sig. Detta undersöker vi genom att utföra en kvalitativ studie genom fokusgrupper och med en deduktiv forskningsansats i och med att vi utgår från tidigare forskning och teorier. Deltagarna i vår studie uppger att det för dem är ovanligt att relatera hotellbokning med hållbarhet men att det är intressant för dem att väcka dessa tankebanor. Resultatet visar också att de anser att hotellen har ett stort ansvar att vara miljömedvetna och hållbara men när det kommer till dem själva har vissa deltagare svårt att ta sitt ansvar fullt ut då hållbarhetsdebatten anses för ny för dem medan andra deltagare hävdar att det är rätt att tvingas göra aktiva val som väcker tankar hos individen om hur en kan påverka sin omvärld. Med det sagt så tyder resultatet av studien på att deltagarna har miljövänliga värderingar men att dessa värderingar inte alltid implementeras i beteendet, detta på grund av att vårt agerande baserad på vårt egna behov snarare än vad som är bra för hela världen. Deltagarna framhäver dock att i dagsläget så är det alltid pris och läge som kommer först när det gäller viktiga faktorer vid hotellbokning. Vi ser också tendenser i fokusgruppernas diskussioner som vi tolkar som att för att ett hotells arbete inom hållbarhet ska fungera behöver fyra faktorer uppfyllas. Arbetet skall vara Givande för gästen, Trovärdigt, Påtagligt och Utbildande. / The world faces great challenges in the future due to how we overuse the resources of the earth. The environment of the earth and its sustainability is all that we as humans have and as the Bruntland report describes, it is important to act now in order to preserve the earth for future generations (WCED, 1987). At the same time, the awareness of climate change is increasing and with that, the impact that our actions have had so far on the climate. With that being said, a greater demand for responsibility is being called for, both for individuals and corporate businesses. For businesses it has become more normal to work with a tool called CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility, which integrates the environmental, social and economic responsibilities for the business and its activities. The private travelling increases more and more and with that also the need for staying at hotels. The stay at the hotel is what the guest consumes and because the stay is an experience that you physically cannot bring home with you, the hotel trade is a part of the service sector. Services are complex and there are challenges for the hotels in conveying the right information to the guest before he or she arrives to the hotel and letting them know what it actually is that they buy and pay for. In this study, we want to merge the hotels sustainability work with the complexity of being a service company. We also want to gain an understanding of which values consumers have regarding sustainability in general and how these values relate to the behavior when booking a hotel particularly. Further on, we wonder what could motivate guests to choose more environmentally friendly hotel options, and from the guest’s values, how hotels should position themselves. We investigate this by performing a qualitative study by using focus groups with a deductive approach, meaning that we base our work on previous studies and theories and uses them to draw conclusions of the result. The participants in our study declare that it is unusual to relate hotel booking with sustainability but at the same time they think that it is interesting to awake this way of thinking. The results also shows that the participants think that the hotels have a great responsibility in being sustainable but when they are to apply this on themselves, some participants struggle a bit more and meaning that the debate of sustainability is too young for them. In the other hand, several other participants think that it is right to be forced into making own decisions that raise awareness about how individuals can influence the world around themselves. With that being said, the result of the study points towards that the participants have environmentally values but that these values not always is being implemented in their behavior, probably because that we base our behavior on our own needs rather than what is good for the whole world. The participants point out that price and location always comes first when booking a hotel. Lastly, we see tendencies in the discussions in the focus groups which we interpret into four factors which hotels need to fulfill in order to conduct functional sustainability actions. The actions should be Awarding for the guest, Trustworthy, Tangible and Educational.

This master thesis is analyzing effects and ways of gaining customers from on-line booking portals whose main function is to provide their registered used with customers for their accommodation. This work will concentrate on influence and ability of on-line portals to fill capacities of accommodation. This work will discover advantages and disadvantages of these portals based on opinion of registered users. The main goal is to determine which portals are the best on the Slovak market and what value added they have for registered users -- registered owners of accommodation.

Master of Public Health - MPH / Globally, the maternal mortality rate (MMR) dropped by 44%, from 342 deaths per 100 000 to 211 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2017. Developing countries have reached two-thirds coverage (69 %) of the recommended focused visits and first ANC. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, approximately 66% (201,000) of deaths occur during birth. MMR can be reduced if pregnant women initiate ANC early enough and receive quality care. In Swaziland, only 14% of pregnant women make their first ANC visit during the first trimester, 64% during the 2nd trimester and 22% during the 3rd trimester. The study aimed to explore pregnant women's perceptions of the factors contributing to late ANC booking in the Shiselweni Region.

El presente proyecto nació por la necesidad y mala experiencia de los usuarios al momento de realizar una reserva de espacios deportivos. Es por ello, que se pensó en Doing Sports una aplicación que permite reservar en cualquier momento y lugar un espacio deportivo y a su vez encontrar un compañero para realizar deporte o a ese amigo faltante en las “pichangas”. Asimismo, se explicará cómo se identificó el problema y la solución detectada. Además, se realizó las validaciones de las hipótesis a través de encuestas y entrevistas telefónicas. Para poder poner en marcha este proyecto el documento muestra un profundo análisis de las proyecciones financieras de ventas, costos y gastos que demuestran la viabilidad y rentabilidad que se puede obtener en la ejecución de Doing Sports.

El presente proyecto nació por la necesidad y mala experiencia de los usuarios al momento de realizar una reserva de espacios deportivos. Es por ello, que se pensó en Doing Sports una aplicación que permite reservar en cualquier momento y lugar un espacio deportivo y a su vez encontrar un compañero para realizar deporte o a ese amigo faltante en las “pichangas”. Asimismo, se explicará cómo se identificó el problema y la solución detectada. Además, se realizó las validaciones de las hipótesis a través de encuestas y entrevistas telefónicas. Para poder poner en marcha este proyecto el documento muestra un profundo análisis de las proyecciones financieras de ventas, costos y gastos que demuestran la viabilidad y rentabilidad que se puede obtener en la ejecución de Doing Sports. / The following project was created due to the client's needs and bad experiences at the very moment of booking some sport venues. Therefore, Doing Sports was created like an app to allow the booking of many sport venues at any time by giving you the chance to meet or find any mate or missing person to practice some sports in the “pichangas”. Likewise, it will explain how the problem was identified and the potential solution. In addition, the hypothesis validations were carried out through surveys and telephone interviews. This document shows in-depth financial analysis of the sales projections, costs and expenses that demonstrate the feasibility and profitability in the implementation of Doing Sports project. / Trabajo de investigación

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Background Today the hotel industry has become very digitalized compared to when there was only a travel catalogue to look in. Nowadays people search for information about hotels and read reviews from past guests online. There are different kinds of accommodations and lately it has become popular with shared services like Airbnb. With the rise of digitalization the hotel market competition has increased tremendously, therefore it is important for the hotels to keep a good reputation. Services like a hotel stay can be experienced differently from person to person and thus it is important for the service personnel to possess emotional intelligence.  Purpose The purpose with this study is to find out how the consumer behavior changes depending on the reviews. The study should give knowledge to hotel management about how it is possible to improve their relationship with guests by service, reviews and the use of digitalization. This study wants to update the research on the topic reviews and how it affects the consumers when booking a hotel with new information since the technology changes constantly and thus some research about the field in the past might not mirror the reality today.  Method This study was conducted using a quantitative method survey study in the form of an internet questionnaire. This questionnaire contained mostly closed ended questions however there were some open questions that allowed the participants to name a factor that was important for them. The survey used convenience sampling to be able to receive a lot of answers quickly. To ensure that the answers were of good quality anonymous answers has been applied and there was a qualification question that can sort out unqualified and spam answers to obtain the best quality. To analyze the results from the survey, descriptive analytics and statistical inference will be used and compared with previous research. The statistical analysis will be done by SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) and Excel.  Conclusion  The study has come to the conclusion that reviews affect and have an impact on all the different stages in the consumer decision making process. The study also conclude that it is important for the hotel to try to increase the number of reviews since with the rise of reviews the more trustworthy the reviews will be. The study also concluded that it has become important with digitalization in the hotel industry and that 29,5% of the study participants use the mobile app when booking a hotel. Thus, the hotel management must follow and adapt the hotel to the new way of communication.