Economics and Marketing

For the last two decades “yield management” (also called “revenue management”) has been increasingly employed in the hospitality sector in order to improve the yield from hotel structures. What’s more, the focus is progressively more centred on the customer instead of the room inventory. However, up to now, little research has investigated the effects of these practices on the relationships between hotels and their clients. This paper firstly examines the nature and the various aspects of customer perceptions regarding yield management practices, focusing especially on perceptions of fairness. Secondly, the paper analyses the variety of actions that hotel companies may design and implement in order to properly anticipate, face and manage customer conflicts resulting from perceived unfairness due to the use of the revenue management levers. Finally, these managerial techniques adopted by the hotel companies are considered in the framework of a business ethics approach. (JEL: M19, M31)

Following severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), a complex interplay of pathomechanism, such as exitotoxicity, oxidative stress, inflammatory events, and mitochondrial dysfunction occurs. This leads to a cascade of neuronal and axonal pathologies, which ultimately lead to axonal failure, neuronal energy metabolic failure, and neuronal death, which in turn determine patient outcome. For mild and moderate TBI, the pathomechanism is similar but much less frequent and ischemic cell death is unusual, except with mass lesions. Involvement of mitochondria in acute post-traumatic neurodegeneration has been extensively studied during the last decade, and there are a number of investigations implicating the activation of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP) as a "critical switch" which determines cell survival after TBI. Opening of the mPTP is modulated by several factors occurring after a severe brain injury. Modern neuroprotective strategies for prevention of the neuropathological squeal of traumatic brain injury have now begun to address the issue of mitochondrial dysfunction, and drugs that protect mitochondrial viability and prevent apoptotic cascade induced by mPTP opening are about to begin phase II and III clinical trials. Cyclosporin A, which has been reported to block the opening of mPTP, showed a significant decrease in mitochondrial damage and intra-axonal cytoskeletal destruction thereby protecting the axonal shaft and blunting axotomy. This review addresses an important issue of mPT activation after severe head injury, its role in acute post-traumatic neurodegeneration, and the rationale for targeting the mPTP in experimental and clinical TBI studies.

Here we investigated the incidence of cortical spreading depolarizations (spreading depression and peri-infarct depolarization) after traumatic brain injury (TBI) and their relationship to systemic physiologic values during neurointensive care. Subdural electrode strips were placed on peri-contusional cortex in 32 patients who underwent surgical treatment for TBI. Prospective electrocorticography was performed during neurointensive care with retrospective analysis of hourly nursing chart data. Recordings were 84 hr (median) per patient and 2,503 hr in total. In 17 patients (53%), 280 spreading depolarizations (spreading depressions and peri-infarct depolarizations) were observed. Depolarizations occurred in a bimodal pattern with peak incidence on days 1 and 7. The probability of a depolarization occurring increased significantly as a function of declining mean arterial pressure (MAP; R 2 ¼ 0.78; p < 0.001) and cerebral perfusion pressure (R 2 ¼ 0.85; p < 0.01), and increasing core temperature (R 2 ¼ 0.44; p < 0.05). Depolarization probability was 7% for MAP values of >100 mm Hg but 33% for MAP of 70 mm Hg. Temperatures of 38.48C were associated with a 21% depolarization risk, compared to 63% for >38.48C. Intracranial pressures were higher in patients with depolarizations (18.3 AE 9.3 vs. 13.5 AE 6.7 mm Hg; p < 0.001). We conclude that depolarization phenomena are a common cortical pathology in TBI. Their association with lower perfusion levels and higher temperatures suggests that the labile balance of energy supply and demand is an important determinant of their occurrence. Monitoring of depolarizations might serve as a functional measure to guide therapeutic efforts and their blockade may provide an additional line of defense against the effects of secondary insults.

Here we investigated the incidence of cortical spreading depolarizations (spreading depression and peri-infarct depolarization) after traumatic brain injury (TBI) and their relationship to systemic physiologic values during neurointensive care. Subdural electrode strips were placed on peri-contusional cortex in 32 patients who underwent surgical treatment for TBI. Prospective electrocorticography was performed during neurointensive care with retrospective analysis of hourly nursing chart data. Recordings were 84 hr (median) per patient and 2,503 hr in total. In 17 patients (53%), 280 spreading depolarizations (spreading depressions and peri-infarct depolarizations) were observed. Depolarizations occurred in a bimodal pattern with peak incidence on days 1 and 7. The probability of a depolarization occurring increased significantly as a function of declining mean arterial pressure (MAP; R 2 ¼ 0.78; p < 0.001) and cerebral perfusion pressure (R 2 ¼ 0.85; p < 0.01), and increasing core temperature (R 2 ¼ 0.44; p < 0.05). Depolarization probability was 7% for MAP values of >100 mm Hg but 33% for MAP of 70 mm Hg. Temperatures of 38.48C were associated with a 21% depolarization risk, compared to 63% for >38.48C. Intracranial pressures were higher in patients with depolarizations (18.3 AE 9.3 vs. 13.5 AE 6.7 mm Hg; p < 0.001). We conclude that depolarization phenomena are a common cortical pathology in TBI. Their association with lower perfusion levels and higher temperatures suggests that the labile balance of energy supply and demand is an important determinant of their occurrence. Monitoring of depolarizations might serve as a functional measure to guide therapeutic efforts and their blockade may provide an additional line of defense against the effects of secondary insults.

Background Mitochondrial dysfunction is a major limiting factor in neuronal recovery following traumatic brain injury. Cyclosporin A (CsA) has been recently proposed for use in the early phase after severe head injury, for its ability to preserve mitochondrial bioenergetic state, potentially exerting a neuroprotective effect. The aim of this study was, therefore, to evaluate the effect of CsA on brain energy metabolism, as measured by cerebral microdialysis, and on cerebral hemodynamics, in a group of severely head injured patients. Methods Fifty adult patients with a severe head injury were enrolled in this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Patients received 5 mg/kg of CsA over 24 h, or placebo, within 12 h of the injury. A microdialysis probe was placed in all patients, who were managed according to standard protocols for the treatment of severe head injury. Findings The most robust result of this study was that, over most of the monitoring period, brain dialysate glucose was significantly higher in the CsA treated patients than in placebo. Both lactate and pyruvate were also significantly higher in the CsA group. Glutamate concentration and lactate/pyruvate ratio were significantly higher in the placebo group than in CsA treated patients, respectively 1 to 2 days, and 2 to 3 days after the end of the 24-h drug infusion. The administration of CsA was also associated with a significant increase in mean arterial pressure (MAP) and cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP). Conclusions The administration of CsA in the early phase after head injury resulted in significantly higher extracellular fluid glucose and pyruvate, which may be evidence of a beneficial effect. The early administration of CsA was also associated with a significant increase in MAP and CPP and such a potentially beneficial hemodynamic effect might contribute to a neuroprotective effect.

For the last two decades “yield management” (also called “revenue management”) has been increasingly employed in the hospitality sector in order to improve the yield from hotel structures. What’s more, the focus is progressively more centred on the customer instead of the room inventory. However, up to now, little research has investigated the effects of these practices on the relationships between hotels and their clients. This paper firstly examines the nature and the various aspects of customer perceptions regarding yield management practices, focusing especially on perceptions of fairness. Secondly, the paper analyses the variety of actions that hotel companies may design and implement in order to properly anticipate, face and manage customer conflicts resulting from perceived unfairness due to the use of the revenue management levers. Finally, these managerial techniques adopted by the hotel companies are considered in the framework of a business ethics approach. (JEL: M19, M31)

Obiettivo del paper: L&#x27;articolo offre un&#x27;analisi critica del modello dei Gap/SERVQUAL proposto da Parasuraman, Zeithaml e Berry alla fine degli anni Ottanta. Partendo dai contributi accademici esistenti, il lavoro analizza l&#x27;impatto di un approccio integrato dei flussi di comunicazione e delle dinamiche competitive sul modello dei Gap, superandone la visione prevalentemente introspettiva e considerando le possibili relazioni interne ed esterne. Metodologia: Lo studio dell&#x27;evoluzione e delle criticità del modello dei ...

This paper explores the effects generated by the Milan Expo 2015 on local hotels, with a particular focus on seasonality and operating performance. Four different seasonal periods are considered and ten hypotheses formulated. The analysis adopts a longitudinal approach based on STR data. The findings support an overall significant reduction of seasonality. The main effects relate to weak seasonal periods, when demand is predominately centered around only one segment. Concerning operating performance, occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR registered higher values in 2015, demonstrating significant growth when compared to previous years. RevPAR increased in all four periods, especially during the lowest seasonality (112%), triggered by occupancy (50%) and rate (41%). The case study also establishes a qualitative benefit, in that, within the three seasonalities, rates increased more than occupancy, thus improving financial margins. Finally, the Expo reduced the performance gaps between the four seasonal periods.

The study aims to contribute to the research on service quality, analyzing almost 30 years of research on the Gaps Model proposed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry in the 1980s. A literature review has been conducted from 1985 to 2013 with the purpose of underlining the model evolution and its criticisms. Major international academic databases have been consulted. On this basis the paper summarizes some theoretical-conceptual and methodological-operational critical aspects identified by scholars who analyzed and applied the model and the scale. Despite that, the Gaps Model and the SERVQUAL scale are still the most used instruments to study service quality in marketing literature. The analysis allows to identify interesting points for future research on the topic of service quality. The conceptual framework presented in the paper does not include any empirical research that could be eventually implemented to validate the findings.

During the last years radical changes in the global economy have dramatically affected business strategies and transformed the habits of customers and firms and the ways they interact. The nature of competition and the forms of organizing and managing corporations, as well as consumer behaviors, have all been significantly modified. Furthermore, as observed by Philip Kotler (2000), change is occurring at an accelerating rate. Globalization, technological advances, and deregulation are the three fundamental drivers of this rapid and significant evolution. The present book, written by Giampaolo Viglia, deals with the impact that new information and communications technologies (ICTs) have on marketing strategies and tactics. The author gives special attention to the new marketing and communicative tools that can be used to interact with customers, and then on pricing issues and revenue management techniques. Writing the foreward for this book, fruit of the research work of the author within Italian and Spanish universities, is an appreciated opportunity for me to remark on some particular considerations.

The reference price, used by consumers to evaluate market prices, has tremendous relevance in dynamic pricing. Reconciling current heterogeneous theories and studies on reference prices, this paper analyzes the impact of hotel price sequences on consumers' reference prices through a lab and a field experiment. Experiment 1 tests the importance of retrospective price evaluations, while Experiment 2 evaluates the impact of three forms of competition: (i) simultaneous behavior, where firms adjust prices simultaneously; (ii) leader-follower behavior, where one firm acts as the leader; and (iii) independent behavior, where each player takes its rival's strategy as given and seeks to maximize its own profits. The results show that consumers decrease their reference price when competing hotels adjust their prices simultaneously. Relevant managerial implications are drawn for the hospitality industry, which is affected by the presence of online travel agencies that announce the daily rates offered by each competitor.

Drawing on the services marketing and sharing economy literature, the study identifies the leading reputational attributes that boost popularity in sharing economy platforms. As popularity stands as a purchase decisionmaking tool, the purpose of this paper is to jointly examine the influence of personal reputation and product description. A sample of Airbnb listings was collected in November 2016 in Italy and UK (n=502). The database consists of popularity variables along with personal reputational attributes and the description of the product being offered. The findings of the study, based on the Shapley Value Regression, suggest that personal reputation is of paramount importance, explaining alone almost 40% of popularity variation. The paper concludes with theoretical implications on self-branding and, given the importance weights of the different attributes in popularity building, practical implications for sellers operating in sharing economy platforms.

PurposeThis paper aims to provide a review of hotel performance within the hospitality and tourism research domain. The authors use network analysis to examine two research questions. The first relates to ascertaining general trends within the hotel performance literature, and the second focuses on identifying the salient streams and sub-topics.Design/methodology/approachArticles were selected according to three criteria: keywords, journals and year of publication. The analysis embraces 20 years (1996-2015). These choices assure a wide coverage of the literature. Using these three criteria, the sample includes 1,155 papers. For the analysis, the authors created a network of papers designated as nodes, and the citations among the papers as links. A network approach recognizes the internal structure of the network by identifying groups of nodes (papers) that are more densely connected between themselves than to other nodes within the network (modules, clusters or communities).Findings...

I grandi eventi possono determinare significativi effetti sulle performance delle destinazioni turistiche e delle imprese che in esse operano. Tuttavia, in letteratura si è posta maggiormente l&#39;attenzione sui fattori non economici generati da queste &quot;special occasion&quot;. Il presente articolo vuole contribuire a colmare questo gap, esplorando i benefici economici generati dall&#39;esposizione mondiale &quot;Milan World Expo 2015&quot; sul comparto alberghiero di Milano.L&#39;articolo, partendo dagli studi pregressi che hanno analizzato le forme di stagionalità in questa destinazione, configura quattro periodi, identificati considerando soprattutto i segmenti attratti dalla Città (business, fieristico e leisure). La base dati utilizzata (STR) consente di disporre di informazioni giornaliere relative a occupazione, tariffa media (ADR) e RevPAR e permette di sviluppare un approccio longitudinale (periodo 2004-2015).Le evidenze emerse suggeriscono il rilevante impatto generat...

Due to the widespread adoption of revenue management strategies within the hospitality business, pricing has become more and more a central topic both for academics and practitioners. In particular, pricing has evolved towards value-based approaches, dynamic and customized through the use of price differentiation. “Rate fences” are the criteria that hotels adopt to separate customer segments whose service values may differ. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the academic literature as well as the business practices relating to this subject. The authors propose a logical link between rate fences and the hedonic pricing approach. Main topics are 1) rate fence classifications and 2) the effectiveness of rate fences and their impacts on perceptions of fairness. Overall, this contribution suggests that time-based rate fences are fundamental at the destination level, and they are strictly connected to seasonality. Destinations&#39; policymakers and firms can consider strategies and...

Product sampling and free trials are a common practice in many industries. The present article aims to analyze the offer of complimentary rooms within the hospitality business. Despite the widespread use of this marketing tool, the phenomenon appears to be understudied within academic contributions and not comprehensively tracked by corporations specialized in hotel market data and benchmarking. The article aims giving a comprehensive view of the topic, combining both existing literature and sectorial applications. Theoretical contributions, concrete practices and practical implications are discussed and further research directions are identified.

The global economic crisis is affecting not-for-profit performances: endowments are suffering, revenues and contributions are diminishing. At the same time donors are targeted by a pressing good-cause related marketing and the competition for resources is particularly keen. Not-for-profits like USA Universities are then confronted with different marketing tools: some of them are typical of forprofits and concern customers, their segmentation and their purchasing-power exploitation; some are, instead, typical of not-for-profits and aim to gain propensity and trustworthiness of donors. The economic and marketing literature counts several contributions about the implementation of marketing, fundraising, investing and other miscellaneous strategies whose final aim is the revenue maximization. From draft application to mature strategies, marketing is exploited by the 'cultural entrepreneur' who copes with the eternal trade-off between cultural-artistic purposes and an efficient allocation of resources. As a matter of fact, inside of the organization the competition between marketing experts and fundraisers for the allocation of budget and resources is increasing. The paper's research goal is to investigate the revenue diversification in USA Universities, referring to 2012's data of IRS Forms with the highest 2012 revenues. The cluster analysis gives evidence that the highest gain is the result of the implementation of revenue diversification for hybrid profiles. The most crowded cluster is the Marketing Expert with the second highest gain. Focused on revenuemaximization, USA universities are surviving thanks to an efficient resource allocation in marketing, fundraising and other financing strategies.

The global economic crisis is affecting performances of not-for-profits. At the same time donors are targeted by a pressing good-cause related marketing, so that the competition for philanthropy is particularly keen. U.S. universities can be public, not-for-profit and for-profit. U.S. not-for-profit universities are confronted with different marketing, fundraising and revenue diversification. Above all, marketing concerns customers and their segmentation and their purchasing-power exploitation; fundraising aims to gain the trustworthiness of donors, instead. The aim of this paper is the analysis of the revenue diversification of a sample of 100 U.S. not-for-profit universities according to IRS (Internal Revenue Service) Forms. These 100 U.S. universities had the highest 2012's revenues for the Guidestar ranking (www.guidestar.org). The cluster analysis gives evidence that the highest gain and the highest solvency are both connected with the implementation of revenue diversification for one profile. The most crowded cluster is the Marketing Expert with the second highest gain.