<p>Tourism is a spatial phenomenon. Tourist behaviour on-site is not only dependent on the destination itself, but also on the situation in other places, tourists’ spatial mobility and access to information. On the basis of this argument, the whole tourism system is taken into account in this thesis. The aim is to analyse the interplay between mobility, tourist behaviour and guidebooks. The focus lies on German tourists in Sweden. Due to the importance of guidebooks to this visitor group, the thesis concentrates particularly on guidebooks as source of information.</p><p>In the first article, power relations that steer the selection of Swedish tourist sites in German guidebooks are analysed. The results show that the selection of tourist sites is dependent on personal, editorial, geographical, economic and tourism-sociological factors. The production of information is dependent on a complex web of power relations, the core of which is constituted by authors, publishers and readers.</p><p>In the second article, the content in German guidebooks on Sweden is analysed. Besides Stockholm and Northern Lapland, the regions presented most frequently are usually located in the south of the country. It is found that guidebooks influence German tourists’ choices of tourist sites in Sweden, and that this influence increases with the distance from Germany. The study also shows that guidebooks contribute to constructing tourism space and providing places with meaning.</p><p>In the third article, it is shown that information and time availability influence tourist mobility. The existence of an individual travel rhythm is confirmed, which is defined as a travel pattern that is independent of the tourist sites that are visited. It includes, among other things, long travel distances the first and last days of the holiday, a short first stay-over, the longest stay in the region with the greatest distance from home, and a relation between the length of stay at one place and the distance covered when departing.</p><p>In the last article, tourist behaviour is analysed. The results dispel the predominant impression in current tourism discourse that states that tourists are continually active during their holidays. It is found that the major difference between home and tourist behaviour is not constituted by the activities themselves, but by a difference in place, followed by a slower pace in which activities are performed and a limited time period. Spatial mobility, the characteristics of place and access to information all influence tourist behaviour on-site.</p><p>In conclusion, it is found that tourist information, mobility and behaviour on the spot are closely connected. Tourists consume the tourism space created in guidebooks, and recreate this space when travelling, as they choose individually how to respond to the information provided. Actors, places and tourist structures all exist in relation to each other. For the resulting behaviour in place, this means that it is not only the supply at the destination that is important, but also the situation in tourists’ home regions and along their travel routes.</p>

Tourism is a spatial phenomenon. Tourist behaviour on-site is not only dependent on the destination itself, but also on the situation in other places, tourists’ spatial mobility and access to information. On the basis of this argument, the whole tourism system is taken into account in this thesis. The aim is to analyse the interplay between mobility, tourist behaviour and guidebooks. The focus lies on German tourists in Sweden. Due to the importance of guidebooks to this visitor group, the thesis concentrates particularly on guidebooks as source of information. In the first article, power relations that steer the selection of Swedish tourist sites in German guidebooks are analysed. The results show that the selection of tourist sites is dependent on personal, editorial, geographical, economic and tourism-sociological factors. The production of information is dependent on a complex web of power relations, the core of which is constituted by authors, publishers and readers. In the second article, the content in German guidebooks on Sweden is analysed. Besides Stockholm and Northern Lapland, the regions presented most frequently are usually located in the south of the country. It is found that guidebooks influence German tourists’ choices of tourist sites in Sweden, and that this influence increases with the distance from Germany. The study also shows that guidebooks contribute to constructing tourism space and providing places with meaning. In the third article, it is shown that information and time availability influence tourist mobility. The existence of an individual travel rhythm is confirmed, which is defined as a travel pattern that is independent of the tourist sites that are visited. It includes, among other things, long travel distances the first and last days of the holiday, a short first stay-over, the longest stay in the region with the greatest distance from home, and a relation between the length of stay at one place and the distance covered when departing. In the last article, tourist behaviour is analysed. The results dispel the predominant impression in current tourism discourse that states that tourists are continually active during their holidays. It is found that the major difference between home and tourist behaviour is not constituted by the activities themselves, but by a difference in place, followed by a slower pace in which activities are performed and a limited time period. Spatial mobility, the characteristics of place and access to information all influence tourist behaviour on-site. In conclusion, it is found that tourist information, mobility and behaviour on the spot are closely connected. Tourists consume the tourism space created in guidebooks, and recreate this space when travelling, as they choose individually how to respond to the information provided. Actors, places and tourist structures all exist in relation to each other. For the resulting behaviour in place, this means that it is not only the supply at the destination that is important, but also the situation in tourists’ home regions and along their travel routes.

No description available.

Despite the abundance of karst terrains and the important role they play in a wide variety of roles including supplying freshwater drinking supplies, no single, comprehensive study investigates the role of informal education for the improved understanding and protection of the terrains. Commonly overlooked anthropogenic karst disturbances partially occur because of the poor dissemination of scientific information to the general populace and policymakers and budgetary and time constraints of municipalities, thus generating a need to use informal education to fill these shortcomings. The purpose of this study was to: 1) establish the status of and quantify the amount of karst-related informal education efforts pursued in the United States and abroad, 2) reveal if any differences in the nature of educational material exist with ownership (i.e. private vs. governmental) at karst attractions, and 3) evaluate the outcomes of increasing the educational karst material presented to show cave visitors through guided tours. The results of this study reveal that karst education is overall lacking in the United States and internationally, the focus of most recent educational endeavors is bats, and educational programs for children far outnumber the quantity of programs available to adult learners. This research also reveals that disconnects between the actuality of current show cave program characteristics and tour guide and manager opinions about informal karst education are abundant. Furthermore, although differences exist in the nature of the educational material presented to visitors during guided tours, the quality and quantity of material at both privately- and publicly-owned facilities is often significantly lacking. Yet, through field-based research this research proves minimal changes to tour content and guide re-training, can result in successfully increasing visitor karst knowledge while simultaneously maintaining the entertainment value of show cave operations.

A spacecraft tour trajectory is a trajectory in which a spacecraft visits a number of objects in sequence. The target objects may consist of satellites, moons, planets or any other body in orbit, and the spacecraft may visit these in a variety of ways, for example flying by or rendezvousing with them. The key characteristic is the target object sequence which can be represented as a discrete set of decisions that must be made along the trajectory. When this sequence is free to be chosen, the result is a hybrid discrete-continuous optimization problem that combines the challenges of discrete and combinatorial optimization with continuous optimization. The problem can be viewed as a generalization of the traveling salesman problem; such problems are NP-hard and their computational complexity grows exponentially with the problem size. The focus of this dissertation is the development of a novel methodology for the solution of spacecraft tour trajectory optimization problems. A general model for spacecraft tour trajectories is first developed which defines the parameterization and decision variables for use in the rest of the work. A global search methodology based on the tabu search metaheuristic is then developed. The tabu search approach is extended to operate on a tree-based solution representation and neighborhood structure, which is shown to be especially efficient for problems with expensive solution evaluations. Concepts of tabu search including recency-based tabu memory and strategic intensification and diversification are then applied to ensure a diverse exploration of the search space. The result is an automated, adaptive and efficient search algorithm for spacecraft tour trajectory optimization problems. The algorithm is deterministic, and results in a diverse population of feasible solutions upon termination. A novel numerical search space pruning approach is then developed, based on computing upper bounds to the reachable domain of the spacecraft, to accelerate the search. Finally, the overall methodology is applied to the fourth annual Global Trajectory Optimization Competition (GTOC4), resulting in previously unknown solutions to the problem, including one exceeding the best known in the literature. / text

Thèse--Lille. / Bibliography: p. 334-340.

Η παρούσα εργασία ασχολείται με τη μελέτη των τεχνολογιών ανάπτυξης εφαρμογών σε περιβάλλον φορητών συσκευών και συγκεκριμένα σε Windows Phone 7.5 (ή Mango) συσκευές. Ιδιαίτερα δόθηκε έμφαση στη δημιουργία πολυμεσικών εφαρμογών πολιτισμικού περιεχομένου, οι οποίες θα είναι όχι μόνο λειτουργικές αλλά θα διαθέτουν επίσης ένα φιλικό περιβάλλον διεπαφής έτσι ώστε να αποτελούν μια ευχάριστη εμπειρία για τον τελικό χρήστη. Με αφορμή αυτό το ερέθισμα, σχεδιάσαμε και αναπτύξαμε το Museum Guide – ένα ολοκληρωμένο περιβάλλον διαχείρισης περιεχομένου που έχει σαν στόχο την ξενάγηση σε ένα χώρο πολιτισμού, όπως για παράδειγμα ένα μουσείο, εκμεταλλευόμενο τις πολλές δυνατότητες που προσφέρει μια Windows Phone 7.5 συσκευή. Έτσι χρησιμοποιώντας το Museum Guide ο επισκέπτης του μουσείου μπορεί να βλέπει τα εκθέματα καθώς και συνοδευτικό υλικό που περιλαμβάνει κείμενο, εικόνες, αρχεία ήχου και βίντεο. Επιπλέον μπορεί να επιλέγει κάποια από αυτά τα εκθέματα ως αγαπημένα και να μοιράζεται τις εμπειρίες του με τα υπόλοιπα μέλη της ομάδας του μέσω άμεσων μηνυμάτων. Για τη λειτουργία των άμεσων μηνυμάτων δημιουργήσαμε έναν ενσωματωμένο messenger που λειτουργεί πάνω από xmpp πρωτόκολλο με τη βοήθεια της βιβλιοθήκης Matrix. Εκτός από τα παραπάνω, το Museum Guide δίνει τη δυνατότητα στον χρήστη να λάβει πληροφορίες για ένα συγκεκριμένο έκθεμα, βγάζοντας απλά μια φωτογραφία τού εν λόγω εκθέματος με την κάμερα του κινητού. Την λειτουργία αυτή την ονομάζουμε on-demand ξενάγηση και δόθηκε ιδιαίτερη έμφαση στον αλγόριθμο με βάση τον οποίο γίνεται η αναγνώριση της φωτογραφίας που βγάζει ο χρήστης. Για το σκοπό αυτό μελετήσαμε και αξιολογήσαμε διάφορους αλγορίθμους αναγνώρισης εικόνας και καταλήξαμε στη χρήση hashing τεχνικών με τη βοήθεια της βιβλιοθήκης pHash. / The current thesis is on study of application development technologies in portable devices environment and namely in Windows Phone 7.5 (or Mango) devices. Especially emphasis was placed on creation of multimedia applications with cultural content which will not only be functional but also have a friendly interface in order to be a pleasant experience for the end user. In response to this stimulus, we designed and developed the Museum Guide – an integrated content management environment which aims at guidance in an area of culture, for example a museum, exploiting the capabilities of a Windows Phone 7.5 device. Thereby the visitor of the museum can use the Museum Guide to see the exhibits as well as accompanying material including text, photos, audios and videos. Additionally the visitor can mark any of these exhibits as favorites and share their experiences with the other members of their group through instant messages. For the operation of instant messaging, we have created an embedded messenger which works over the xmpp protocol using the Matrix library. Besides the above, the Museum Guide gives to the user the opportunity to receive information about a specific exhibit, just taking a photo of this exhibit with phone’s camera. We call this operation on-demand guidance and we emphasized especially on the algorithm of user’s photo recognition. For this purpose we studied and evaluated various image recognition algorithms and came to the conclusion to use hashing techniques with help of pHash library.

Ce travail de recherche vise à étudier les plusieurs variantes de problèmes de planification de voyage et de développer la technique efficace pour résoudre ce problème d'optimisation. Afin de modéliser ce genre de problème le problème d'orientation est devenu le point de départ prometteur. Par conséquent, ce modèle de base est étendue à plusieurs variantes pour permettre des fonctionnalités de séjour supplémentaires. Basé sur l'algorithme qui est appliquée avec succès à l'certaine version du problème, nous avons proposé la Itéré locale algorithme de recherche pour lutter contre dépendant du temps multi contrainte équipe Orientation un problème de temps Windows. Le MCTOPTW simple, prend en compte la limitation du budget de l'argent que de multiples contraintes, en plus de fenêtre de temps et le score de satisfaction associée tandis que le TDMCTOPTW considère l'intégration de réseau de transport public urbain dans la MCTOPTW. / This research work aims to investigate the several variants of trip planning problems and develop efficient technique to solve that optimization problem. In order to model this kind of problem the Orienteering Problem became the promising starting point. Therefore, this basic model is extended to several variants in order to enable additional tourist functionalities. Based on the algorithm that is successfully applied to the certain version of problem, we proposed the Iterated Local Search Algorithm to tackle the Time Dependent Multi Constraint Team Orienteering Problem with Time Windows. The simple MCTOPTW takes into account money budget limitation as multiple constraints in addition to time window and associated satisfaction score while the TDMCTOPTW considers the integration of urban public transportation network into the MCTOPTW.

A topic of this thesis is B2B online in a travel agency. The aim of this thesis is based on an analysis of trade relations between a travel agency and tour operators in the online environment to evaluate their functionality and to suggest possible improvements. The secondary aim is to see how the cooperation between the travel agency and suppliers works.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:15:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 1992-12-15T00:00:00Z / Analisa os programas de televisão que são, exclusivamente, para anunciar produtos e serviços. Para esse tipo de programa foi criada a denominação 'Shopping na TV' utiliza como estudo de caso o Shop Tour, um desses programas, exclusivo para anúncios de produtos e serviços a preços promocionais. Analisa esse novo estilo de propaganda sob o enfoque da teoria de marketing, abordando como referencial teórico: o processo de comunicação, a propaganda, a promoção de vendas e o comportamento do consumidor diante dessas formas de comunicação. Apresenta resultados da pesquisa de campo realizada com os anunciantes do Shop Tour.