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Develops a method for estimating the monthly milk price schedule needed to counter the effects of seasonality, which is an enduring feature of milk production in the UK. The issue of seasonality has been mostly ignored in studies estimating milk supply functions. In this paper milk supply functions which explicitly take account of seasonality are estimated for Northern Ireland and Scotland. Pre‐testing of monthly milk price and milk supply time‐series, using an extended HEGY test and an ADF test, indicated the presence of deterministic seasonality. Empirical milk supply models incorporating seasonal dummy variables to account for deterministic seasonality were estimated in the two regions of study. The results of these models were used to calculate the monthly producer milk price schedule required to encourage dairy farmers to produce an even monthly milk supply pattern. These calculations indicated that, in the long run, a peak‐to‐trough seasonal price differential of around 8 pence per litre would be required to produce an even pattern of milk supply in Scotland, and 11 pence per litre would be required in Northern Ireland.

Increasing operational costs and narrowing profit margins are forcing many Hong Kong travel agencies out of business. Studies have demonstrated the strategic importance of revenue management (RM) implementation for travel agencies that wish to remain competitive. Hong Kong travel agencies should learn from these examples and modify their existing practices. As travel agencies have many of the characteristics of traditional and non-traditional RM industries, they should be able to adopt the RM operational strategies that have been successful in other industries. This study’s methodology is qualitative; in-depth interviews are conducted with 10 industrial professionals. The results provide valuable insights into RM implementation in Hong Kong travel agencies. The implementation strategies discussed here include the use of perishable inventories, predictable demand, segmentation, reservations made in advance, limited capacity and appropriate cost and pricing structures, all of which aid in profit optimisation. The results indicate that RM can improve travel agencies’ competitive stance and enhance profit maximisation. RM practitioners need to fully understand the concept and techniques and have the determination to develop and promote the system among personnel at every level of the travel agency.

The objectives of this paper are to analyze the drivers of smoked marine fish prices and examine the challenges along the value chain to inform policy.

The study relies on cross-sectional data from 158 fish smokers, 100 wholesalers, and 120 retailers in Ghana. The challenges faced by the actors along the chain are identified and ranked using Kendall's coefficient of concordance. The three-stage least square estimation approach is employed to control for endogeneity resulting from the simultaneous equations for prices of different fish types and their substitutes.

The results reveal that marketing experience, the extent of competition, price of substitutes, payment terms, and variable cost items, such as transportation cost and storage charges, are key determinants of smoked fish prices along the value chain. Lack of access to credit is the main constraint to the marketing of smoked marine fish, irrespective of the actor or the fish type.

Many studies have established the linkages between fish consumption, prices, and food security in the literature. However, there is a dearth of information on the responsiveness of fish prices to changes in the market and seller-specific factors to drive policy to stabilize prices along the value chain.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2021-0566

Early twentieth century transatlantic migration was both a massive transoceanic population transfer and a complex travel business. The successful growth of this multinational commerce was based not on fare reductions, but on risk management strategies. Shipping lines provided costly carrying capacity sufficient to accommodate severely fluctuating demand for transatlantic migration, and did so in a manner which improved the reliability and quality of travel for migrants.

This paper aims to deepen the current knowledge of seasonality by investigating visitors’ intentional and behavioural patterns during peak and off-peak seasons. It compares the variation in several key behavioural factors, namely, duration of stay, party size, revisit intention, spending and breakdown of spending in different sectors in hospitality and tourism including entertainment, restaurant, accommodation and transportation. Moreover, this research expands the understanding by examining the effectiveness of two innovative strategies of offering a digital app and organising a unique event to tackle seasonal imbalances through stimulating visitors’ intention to change their timing of visit from peak to off-peak periods.

The author initially used a Delphi approach to gather experts’ opinion on the two scenario settings: event organisation and a trip planner app. The scenarios aimed to potentially encourage visitors to change their visit time to off-peak seasons. Then, using a quantitative survey, the travel habits and spending behaviours of 310 participants were captured. Furthermore, the survey assessed their intention to travel during off-peak seasons in response to the implementation of the two innovative strategies.

The results revealed that although the number of visitors who travel in off-peak seasons may be lower, their daily spending is higher than peak season visitors. In addition to total spending per day, the duration of stay, part size, quality of accommodation and re-visit intention of visitors indicated significant variation between peak and off-peak seasons. According to the statistical analysis’ results, organising events (including festivals) proves more effective in encouraging visitors to travel during off-peak seasons compared to digital innovation (i.e. a trip planner app). This finding is in line with the tenets of the Jobs-to-be-Done Theory of innovation.

This study contributes by conceptualising the mechanism of seasonality and its impacts on subsectors of tourism and hospitality. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is one of the few empirical research that compares the behavioural patterns of visitors including their average spending per day between peak and off-peak seasons. Previous studies focused on specific regions or sectors, whereas this research investigates visitors’ behaviour on a broader scale to provide more comprehensive view. Furthermore, this study is novel due to practising an outside-in approach through investigating the effectiveness of the two innovative strategies aimed at addressing seasonality in the hospitality and tourism industry from visitors’ point of view.

The unstable money demand function over the recent decades may explain the unsatisfactory performance of the exchange rate model. Numerous studies have shown that Divisia money serves as a better variable for a stable money demand function. In this study, Divisia money is used as an alternative money supply in MYR/USD exchange rate determination. This study finds that Divisia money differential, real income differential, relative short-term interest rate and real stock prices affect the MYR/USD exchange rate in the long run. The major implication of this study is that policy-makers could monitor the MYR/USD exchange rate via the money supplies following the principle of Divisia monetary aggregate, which assigns higher weightage to more frequently traded monetary assets.

This study aims at exploring the role of perceived disease seriousness in consumers’ preference for generic versus branded drugs, by shedding light on new factors impacting consumer purchase behaviour for pharmaceutical products.

An exploratory study based on a quantitative analysis has been conducted with a sample of 100 participants who have been presented with two different scenarios: one related to more serious disease (as in cardiological disease) and one related to less serious disease (as in the seasonal flu). This paper considered Italy as a research setting where the recent mandatory prescription of the active ingredient by doctors leaves the final purchase decision in consumers’ hands

Results show that, although consumers are free to choose whether to buy a branded or a generic prescribed active ingredient, their choice is mainly driven by the role of the brand. Consumers’ intention to buy generic drugs is higher in the case of diseases perceived as less serious, while the intention to buy branded drugs is higher in the case of disease perceived as more serious.

This study contributes to marketing research and practice by proposing that consumers’ perceived seriousness of their disease should be considered as a further factor in identifying new marketing strategies in those contexts in which the choice between branded or generic drugs is free.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct economic evaluation of a school meal programme based on principles of a New Nordic Diet (NND) by assessing the costs of the NND lunch, compared with packed lunch from home, and investigating potential effects of adjusting the NND principles underlying the school meals on the costs and on the rate of food waste.

The analysis combines recipes, dietary records and food waste data from a school meal intervention with collected price data within an economic optimization framework.

A New Nordic School meal programme consisting of a morning snack and a hot lunch based on fixed seasonal menu plans and with 75 per cent organic content is 37 per cent more expensive in terms of ingredient costs than corresponding packed school meals. This cost differential can be almost halved by introducing more flexible scheduling of week plans and reducing the level of organic ambition to 60 per cent. Reducing portion sizes could reduce the cost differential by an extra 5 per cent, which would also reduce food waste by about 15 per cent.

Higher costs and food waste in a restrictive ingredient sourcing school meal programme can be reduced by increased flexibility in meal scheduling, reduction in organic content and reduced average portion size.

In the ever‐changing electronic environment of the twenty‐first century, price is one of the key strategic elements that is often overlooked by firms. The paper addresses differential pricing in business‐to‐consumer electronic commerce, in particular differential pricing for hotel services sold on the Internet. Hotels are able to take advantage of differential pricing for various segments because the market for hotels can be divided into narrow customer segments. An overview of e‐commerce and Internet marketing is provided. The characteristics of products sold online and differential pricing are discussed. Pricing policies for on‐line marketing are examined with a special emphasis on differential pricing, customer loyalty and segmentation. With the help of secondary data, online pricing strategies used by hotels on the Internet are evaluated. Finally, conclusions are drawn and implications for the hotel industry are discussed.

In September 2000, Amazon.com attempted to implement a differential pricing structure that would track online purchasing behaviors to charge loyal customers higher prices for the same product. Amazon’s customers met this new pricing initiative with extreme displeasure, forcing the company to end its trial with differential pricing. Differential pricing is not new. Industries such as travel and retail have charged consumers different prices for years through special promotions such as frequent flyer miles and loyal customer discount cards. Why is it then that Amazon’s customers perceived the company’s differential pricing structure as being unfair? More importantly, are there times when such pricing is acceptable? An understanding of the concepts of distributive and procedural justice, as well as equity theory and dual entitlement, provides managers with the defining principles of price fairness. Implementing these concepts and theories into the firm’s pricing practices will increase the likelihood that customers will perceive differential pricing as being fair.