Vincenzo Fasone

ClustOfVar and the segmentation of cruise passengers from mixed data

The ClustOfVar algorithm is applied to segment cruise tourists.The technique is suitable for mixed qualitative and quantitative variables.Clusters of cruise visitors to Uruguay are detected and analysed.Economic impact is linked to positive perception of local people.Port of call and age are main discriminators of groups. Market segmentation comprises a variety of measurement methodologies that are used to support management, marketing and promotional policies in tourism destinations. This study applies ClustOfVar, a relatively recent algorithm for cluster analysis from mixed variables. The technique finds groups of variables by using a homogeneity criterion based on the sum of correlation ratios for qualitative variables, and squared correlations for quantitative variables. Then principal components from each cluster of variables are extracted in order to segment cruise passengers. CART analysis is finally used for the sake of finding the variables that drove the formation of the clusters. All the analysis is based on an official survey of tourists who disembarked in Uruguayan ports. The analysis identified five clusters, both for variables and cruise passengers. Findings highlight the importance of the enjoyment of the contact with local people for the economic impact, as well as the important role of age and gender related variables. Managerial implications are also discussed.

Measuring business performance in the airport context: a critical review of literature

Purpose Over 15 years have passed since the first paper was published applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure airport productivity. Since then, a wave of studies has appeared refining and validating this technique as one of the most reliable in the airport context. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a critical review of this accumulated literature. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents an exhaustive review of approximately 60 peer-reviewed published papers on business performance measurement through DEA applications in the airport industry. Findings The paper analyses the research on DEA technique chronologically and by geography. Managerial and academic practitioners’ interest in conducting performance measurement studies has grown and benchmarking techniques have become more sophisticated. Research limitations/implications Despite the popularity of the methodological framework of DEA, it can be improved by further research to continue refining and exploiting deeply the basic DEA scores. Some innovations have appeared from studies using alternative approaches to DEA, e.g. a Bayesian approach. Practical implications The conclusions explore the research contribution, its final value delivered to airport management and some practical aspects and recommendations for the selected field of work. Originality/value The paper explores the contribution of research to final value delivered to airport management by describing the main complementary procedures refining DEA technique scores for improving the operational efficiencies of airports through benchmarking. As well as by presenting the results of the assessment of major determinants of efficiency at airports around the world.

Air transport performance: current evidences about the efficiency of Italian airports

This paper analyses the performance of Italian airports. We construct and estimate a data envelopment analysis, under Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes (CCR), Banker, Charnes and Cooper (BCC) and superefficiency models, in order to obtain efficiency scores for 14 airports for the period 2009-2011. In addition, we use a Malmquist Index for measuring the evolution of the productivity of individual airports along the time. The results show that Genoa, Rome, Naples, Bergamo and Bologna exhibit the best practices when distributing efficiently their production factor available to face an increase in the demand, keeping this behavior during all the period under study. These airports are efficient in both constant returns to scale (CRS) and variable returns to scale (VRS), indicating that scale is the prevailing source of efficiency.

Airport development and sustainability: a case of multi-airport system in Italy

During the last decades, airports have been substantially transformed in a dynamic and competitive industry. Today each airport faces the challenging task of coordinating all the services provided to work efficiently. Airports need to find a way to overcome economic, financial and infrastructural problems in a coherent attempt of definition of a conceptual framework of the airport business as a whole. In this context, an increasing relevance has the model of multi-airport system (MAS) able to overcome economic and financial issues and to provide a sustainable infrastructure management strategy. The role played by management and technicians has been studied in order to define a recognisable (well-known) model for airport sustainability. The research uses case study analysis approach to obtain experimental outlines by Italian air transport context as representative case of MAS approach. More in details, business and technical data accounted from Puglia’s airports have been considered. The main findings of the research seems to demonstrate that the basic hypothesis, according to which a well-structured multi-airport system can contribute significantly to infrastructure management and development in a way of sustainability, is valid only if it is supported by a coordinated managerial approach.

Ex-ante assessment of the implementation of an energy management policy in Northern Africa

Energy management policy is an important part of the environmental and climate change policies and permits to reach the goals of improved security of energy supply, economic efficiency and of greenhouse gases emissions reduction. In these years, the use of market mechanisms to meet environmental objectives is really growing, with the most important example to use of emissions trading schemes to control greenhouse gases emissions, e.g., EUs climate and energy policy sets a 20% reduction in energy consumption to be achieved by 2020 through energy-efficiency improvements. In this context, this paper aims to assess whether it is possible to transfer to the North African context the lesson learnt from the more representative experiences or if it is necessary to adopt an ad hoc system.

Defining a sustainable overbooking approach in the hospitality industry

Tourism industry is characterised by a growing uncertainty about volume of demand and relationships with tourists. Hotels often practice overbooking to face uncertainty, seeking to maximise rooms’ occupancy rates acting on the reduction of uncertainty on demand. At the same time overbooking is often correlated to an increase of uncertainty in relationships because it is very difficult to predict how different customers might react facing overbooking. This article aims to compare two different overbooking approaches: the traditional overbooking approach and an alternative one, called fair and transparent overbooking, according to which customers are made aware in advance of the possibility of overbooking. The main objective is to understand what are the consequences of traditional overbooking, both positive and negative, and then to figure out if the introduction of a new overbooking formula could alleviate the negative consequences, while maintaining the benefits, making it more sustainable from a social, relational and economic point of view. The theoretical analysis is supported by an empirical survey which aims to verify how overbooking is common, for which reasons is mainly practised by hotels and what are the main benefits and problems. Finally, the survey aimed to explore the possibility of practicing the fair and transparent overbooking.