Search results

The static world of flight scheduling where schedules rarely change once published is becoming more responsive with schedule change updates leading up to the departure date due to demand volatility and unpredictable demand patterns. Innovation in cash flow generation will take center stage to operate the business in these uncertain times. Forecasting demand for future flights is a challenge since historical demand patterns are not meaningful which requires a new adaptive robust revenue management approach that monitors key metrics, detects anomalies and quickly takes corrective action when performance targets cannot be achieved.

The novel COVID-19 pandemic decimated the travel industry in 2020 and continues to plague us with no end in sight. With the steep drop in revenues, airlines need to adapt to a new marketing planning process of scheduling, pricing and revenue management that is more nimble to adapt quickly to changing market conditions. This new approach will continue to be relevant in a post-COVID-19 world during and after economic recovery.

A methodology for airline revenue planning: scheduling, airline pricing and revenue management, has been proposed that will also work in a post-COVID-19 era.

The limitation of the proposed model is that it needs to be applied in practice to determine the true benefits of this novel approach to airline revenue planning.

Flight scheduling will rely more on clean sheet scheduling, schedule revisions and close in refleeting to better match demand to supply. The office of the chief financial officer will have a permanent task force to monitor cash flow and come up with innovative solutions to generate cash flow for liquidity. Adaptive robust revenue management workflows will be integrated into traditional revenue management workflows in the future for competitive advantage.

In a post-COVID-19 world it is anticipated that airline business processes will transform to be nimbler and more proactive in making timely decisions at a greater velocity.

The approach to airline revenue planning for scheduling, pricing and revenue management is a new business process that does not exist today at scale in the airline industry.

This paper proposes a theory-based process model for the generation, articulation, sharing and application of managerial heuristics, from their origin as unspoken insight, to proverbialization, to formal or informal sharing, and to their adoption as optional guidelines or policy.

A conceptual paper is built using systematic and non-systematic review of literature. This paper employs a three-step approach to propose a process model for the emergence of managerial heuristics. Step one uses a systematic review of empirical studies on heuristics in order to map extant research on four key criteria and to obtain, by flicking through this sample in a moving-pictures style, the static stages of the process; step two adapts a knowledge management framework to yield the dynamic aspect; step three assembles these findings into a graphical process model and uses insights from literature to enrich its description and to synthesize four propositions.

The paper provides insights into how heuristics originate from experienced managers confronted with negative situations and are firstly expressed as an inequality with a threshold. Further articulation is done by proverbialization, refining and adapting. Sharing is done either in an informal way, through socialization, or in a formal way, through regular meetings. Soft adoption as guidelines is based on expert authority, while hard adoption as policy is based on hierarchical authority or on collective authority.

The findings are theory-based, and the model must be empirically refined.

Practical advice for managers on how to develop and share their portfolio of heuristics makes this paper valuable for practitioners.

This study addresses the less-researched aspect of heuristics creation, transforms static insights from literature into a dynamic process model, and, in a blended-theory approach, considers insights from a distant, but relevant literature – paremiology (the science of proverbs).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and identify the price sensitivity of consumers of three- and five-star hotels and to determine the impact of bundling strategies on consumers’ price sensitivity.

To calculate price sensitivity, authors apply the van Westendorp’s price sensitivity meter (PSM). To understand the impact of bundling strategies, univariate and bivariate techniques are applied.

PSM results reveal the optimal prices and the range of acceptable prices for three- and five-star hotel. The bundling strategy results reveal that five-star customers are less sensitive to mixed-leader bundling. Regarding mixed-joint bundling, managers could improve sales through bundling strategies if they selected an attractive service (e.g. restaurants).

Findings assist hotel managers to understand the different price sensitivities, according to the hotel typology. Managers can manage prices without the risk of losing market share or revenue. The results help managers in deciding which bundling strategies they can create, as well as the services to be included to achieve highest profitability.

No research to date to the best of the authors’ knowledge has attempted to understand and compare the role of bundling strategies in three- and five-stars hotels. Moreover, no research has attempted to measure and compare customers’ price sensitivity of three- and five-stars hotels.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the antecedents of perceived customer value, such as the perceived quality and perceived sacrifices, and the effects on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty (CL) in the restaurant industry.

Based on an extensive literature review, a research model and questionnaire were designed. To assess the hypothesised relationships, data were collected in a field survey. Partial least squares regression (a variance-based regression analysis of SEM) was selected to analyse the relationships within the research model.

The findings of this study indicate that the perceived monetary sacrifice (PMS) and perceived service quality were found to be antecedents of perceived value (PV), whereas PMS was the major precursor of PV. Further, PV was found to have a substantial influence on customer satisfaction and CL.

The study provides a better understanding of the price–value–satisfaction–loyalty relationships in the restaurant context in a more holistic sense and recommendations to move this research stream forward.

In Mexico, only 19.3 per cent of industrial water is treated (Green-Peace, 2014, pp. 3-4), whereas municipal treatment levels are approximately 50 per cent (CONAGUA, 2014a). This paper aims to focus on how the wastewater treatment plant policy, from a circular economy perspective, is affected by the governance context at the Presa Guadalupe sub-basin. Circular economy can contribute to water innovations that help in improving water quality. However, such benefits are not easily achieved. This case provides an example of the complexity and challenges that the implementation of a circular economy model can face.

Data are collected via semi-structured in-depth interviews with the stakeholders that are members of the Presa Guadalupe Commission. The contextual interaction theory (CIT) is the theoretical basis for this analysis (Boer de and Bressers, 2011; Bressers, 2009).

The findings show that the wastewater treatment plant policy plays an important role in a circular economy model. Some incentives towards a circular economy model are already in place; however, the hurdles of a top-down implementation perspective, low availability of resources, prioritisation of short-term results, lack of enforcement of the “polluter pays” principle and a linear model of water systems need to be overcome. If Mexico wants to move towards a circular economy model and if the government wants to enforce sustainable development principles, wastewater treatment is a challenge that must be addressed.

There are few studies in the circular economy literature that have analysed its implementation under a governance arrangement perspective.

In recent years, agricultural activities in the Mekong Delta have frequently faced the potential risks of drought, saline intrusion and unusually heavy rainfall because of climate change, leading to a decline in crop yield. Therefore, this study aimed to establish rice planting seasons in An Giang, an upper-located province in the Mekong Delta.

The impacts of seasonal variation on the key rice seasons were simulated using the Food and Agriculture Organization-crop model for the OM6976 rice variety grown in the study area. For the simulation, the model combined crop, soil, weather and crop management data.

The results show that seasonal variation because of changes in weather factors leads to alternation in crop yields across the study area. Specifically, the spring and summer rice planting seasons are advanced by one to two weeks compared with the baseline, and crop yield increased by 5.9% and 4.2%, respectively. Additionally, planting for the autumn–winter rice season on 3 August increased crop yield by up to 8.1%.

In general, rice planting seasons that account for weather factor changes effectively reduce production costs and optimise production.

This paper is designed to assess the sustainable value chain approaches for marketing channel development opportunities for agricultural products in coastal Bangladesh to combat climate change through an approach of community-based adaptation options.

The study was designed to select the potential value chain candidate and to analyze and establish a value chain map to benefit the crop farmers. In this connection, the resources of the whole context were evaluated. The approach uses few tools to generate three outputs, the last of which are the final list of value chains selected for in-depth assessment to design interventions as community-based adaptation practices of the study to combat climate change in the study areas.

The study demonstrated that the difference in the institutional circumstances of the end markets of the agriculture products is connected to the different categories of harmonization and control of the facilitating environment throughout the supply chains. National and local networks improve the value chain in terms of the value addition of the agriculture products, technology improvement, market access and profitability of the products. Strengthening the weak financial structure, focus more on formal financial systems and resolving sociocultural and climate change-induced hazard concerns are the major concerns on the development of value chains in the countries. Apparently, guarantee for good governance, checking illegal and unregulated market contexts, proper mitigation measures to climate change are some paramount important issues for the sustainable management of livelihood, yield, income and development.

All kinds of stakeholders of the agriculture product value chain should focus on competitiveness and productivity and look for and exploit multiple ways to add value once initial success has been attained with a single deal. Ensuring sustainability within the value chains is an important feature to cater to the challenges and changing demands of the age.

The study will help to established a sustainable value chain approach in response to climate change, which process will help to existent opportunities for firms to manage the issue of climate risk by codeveloping and employing adaptation options that may be more preferred or accepted by consumers across the entire chain for the sustainable management of livelihood, yield, income and development.

The primary aim of revenue management (RM) is to sell the right product to the right customer at the right time for the right price. Ever since the deregulation of US airline industry, and the emergence of the internet as a distribution channel, RM has come of age. The purpose of this paper is to map out ten turning points in the evolution of Revenue Management taking an historical perspective.

The paper is a chronological account based upon published research and literature fundamentally drawn from the Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management.

The significance and success to RM is attributed to the following turning points: Littlewood’s rule, Expected Marginal Seat Revenue, deregulation of the US air industry, single leg to origin and destination RM, the use of family fares, technological advancement, low-cost carriers, dynamic pricing, consumer and price transparency and pricing capabilities in organizations.

The originality of the paper lies in identifying the core trends or turning points that have shaped the development of RM thus assisting futurists or forecasters to shape the future.

A viable framework has been proven to reduce operational and institutional inefficiencies in the urban water supply sector. The absence of drivers necessary to develop a framework may have hindered institutional development and effective Ghanaian urban water supply management. Thus, the research aims to identify the drivers and develop a framework for effectively managing the urban water supply in Ghana.

The study utilised a qualitative research design approach and analysed collected data to proffer answers to the research questions. The research sampled 19 participants, and saturation was achieved.

Findings identified drivers for developing Ghana's urban water supply framework. They categorised them into the availability of water supply resources, the level of professionalism of the personnel, the provision of accessible quality water, the efficient management system of water supply, prudent financial management, ethics for managing water supply and the culture of managing water supply. These pertinent constructs form components of Ghana's urban water sector framework.

Besides supporting transformation and sustainability to develop a framework for managing Ghana's urban water supply sector, policymakers may utilise the developed model to evaluate public urban water supply compliance with Ghana's water sector performance.

The purpose of this paper is to identify low-costbus business models from different parts of the world and check their applicability in the Brazilian market. It also identifies crucial factors for the development of that kind of business and investigates the relationship between low-cost buses and other modes of transport. This research analyzes every relevant aspect to the applicability of low-cost business models in Brazil, driving to discussions and conclusions. The gains on the development of low-cost bus systems in Brazil may have a wide reach, from personal to general public benefits.

Business models for low-cost bus systems are used to analyze in a qualitative approach. The data are collected through semi-structured interviews, direct observations and documental basis. In addition, innovations over the previous five years are evaluated in order to establish a comparative pattern between companies.

There is a great potential in the Brazilian passenger market for the entrance of low-cost bus companies. The only question is just when it is the right time to enter that market. Most of the negative points presented for the implementation of a low-cost company are related to the current economical and political crisis in Brazil. It was identified as a potential cause for the overall decrease of the passengers market in recent years, and specifically of the bus passengers market.

The recent regulation changes, the high demand for passengers and even the similarity of possible routes in Brazil to the ones in Europe and in the USA make Brazil a fertile soil for the development of that kind of business. A similar price mechanism to the ones applied worldwide was also identified as doable in Brazil.