Anat Tchetchik

Segmentation of Visitors to a Heritage Site Using High-resolution Time-space Data:

A novel method of data collection based on high-resolution time-space data recorded by global positioning system units was used to segment visitors to the Old City of Acre heritage site in Israel. This technique of accurately tracking the temporal and spatial behavior of visitors carrying the global positioning system units overcomes the well-known limitations of traditional data collection methods. Discrete-choice methods and a system of censored regressions were used to identify the decision-making process at each stage of the visit. The segmentation of the visitors was based on these decisions. It was found that different attributes associate the visitors with different segments at each level. Although the findings might be site specific, the data collection and the segmentation method could be used by tourism planners and decision makers at other sites.

The Impact of Fear of Flying on Travelers’ Flight Choice: Choice Model with Latent Variables

Flying is an important part of the tourist experience and a substantial component of its cost. While travelers’ decision making regarding air travel has been studied, the role of fear of flying (FOF), a very common phenomenon among air passengers, in the process has not been explicitly addressed. Since airline safety levels are difficult to assess, passengers who have FOF employ other attributes of the itinerary as a means of alleviating their fear. Based on a stated preference experiment and accounting specifically for FOF as a latent variable, we established that the individuals’ level of FOF affects the value they place on attributes of flight itineraries. We show that home carriers, scheduled carriers, and nonstop flights are fear-alleviating attributes. We also show that the price elasticities of demand for flights are smaller in absolute terms among people with a high level of FOF compared to their counterparts with low FOF.

From Research to Practice: Which Research Strategy Contributes More to Clinical Excellence? Comparing High-Volume versus High-Quality Biomedical Research.

The question when and to what extent academic research can benefit society is of great interest to policy-makers and the academic community. Physicians in university hospitals represent a highly relevant test-group for studying the link between research and practice because they engage in biomedical academic research while also providing medical care of measurable quality. Physicians’ research contribution to medical practice can be driven by either high-volume or high-quality research productivity, as often pursuing one productivity strategy excludes the other. To empirically examine the differential contribution to medical practice of the two strategies, we collected secondary data on departments across three specializations (Cardiology, Oncology and Orthopedics) in 50 U.S.-based university hospitals served by 4,330 physicians. Data on volume and quality of biomedical research at each department was correlated with publicly available ratings of departments’ quality of care, demonstrating that high-quality research has significantly greater contribution to quality of care than high-volume research.

‘Not on my vacation’: service encounters between able-bodied and disabled consumers – the case of high-contact service

ABSTRACT The effect of service encounters on customer satisfaction in high-contact services is gaining wider recognition among academics and practitioners alike. In this exploratory study, we aimed at gaining insight into a specific service encounter, namely, between able-bodied and disabled customers. While many studies have addressed the experiences of disabled persons in a plethora of situations, including tourism and leisure settings, the service experience of able-bodied customers sharing a service environment with disabled customers has been overlooked. Using a simple choice experiment, we showed that when given textual information about the expected presence of disabled guests in advance, two-thirds of the able-bodied study participants would be willing to stay in a hotel with a minor to moderate probability of being co-present with disabled guests. However, when a visual aid was provided together with the textual information, this figure decreased significantly. Implications and potential recommendations for policy-makers and hotel managers are presented, as are suggestions for future research. Such research is imperative if better inclusion of disabled tourists is to be achieved, with the resulting realisation of the immense underexploited economic potential of disabled tourism.