This book examines the changing business and economic environment for postal services in Lithuania and the upcoming challenges for this industry. Postal services continue to play a central part in the development of national economies. However, the economic and social role of postal services has changed rapidly and fundamentally over the last two decades. In most industrialized countries, paper-based communications are in serious decline, while the demand for parcel delivery services is rising steadily with the continuing development of e-commerce, just-in-time production techniques, and global supply chains. For the postal sector as a whole, the centre of gravity has shifted dramatically from letters and documents to parcels. The authors explain how the organizational paradigm has inexorably shifted from that of a national, government-owned postal administration providing the basic delivery services required by society, to a system of interdependent local and regional undertakings that both compete and cooperate with one another. The book argues that there are no indications that the postal sector has stopped changing, and that it seems most probable that the European Union's postal sector will look quite different in 2035 than it does today. In closing, the book explains how the shareholders of postal services companies have recently confirmed that the time has come to rethink the strategy of creating and maintaining competitiveness in the postal services industry.

This book presents the latest knowledge on the still under-researched field of academic tourism, which over the past decade has gained in importance at local and national economic levels as a result of increasing international mobility of students and academic staff in higher education. A wide range of themes are explored from various perspectives, with the focus on Europe. Particular attention is paid to academic tourism demand, expenditure, and economic impact; the relationships between academic tourism and local and regional development, sustainable development, and environmental sustainability; and the importance of academic tourism for the internationalization of higher education and international cooperation and development. Further topics to be considered include the significance of academic tourism for the dynamics of tourism destinations and insights from experimental tourism research. In addition to theoretical chapters and state of the art reviews, readers will find insightful empirical and case studies. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers, students, and practitioners, including policy makers.

This open access book discusses service design capabilities in innovation processes, and provides a framework that guides design students, practitioners and researchers towards a better understanding of operational aspects of service design processes. More specifically, it revisits service designers' capabilities in light of the new roles that have opened up in innovation processes on different scales. After years of being inadequately defined, the professional profile of service designers is now taking shape. Today private and public institutions recognize service designers as essential contributors to their innovation and development processes. What are the capabilities that characterize a service designer? These essential capabilities are what service designers should acquire in their education and can sell when looking for a job.

The organization and management of the arts and public-sector arts organizations in Britain have undergone major changes over the last twenty years. This book analyzes the process and politics of change in the world of the arts and develops an analytical framework for understanding an under-researched area of British political life.

This book explores total revenue management (TRM), an emerging concept in revenue management that incorporates existing principles and tools of revenue management across all profit streams. It is a professional's guide to using TRM in an optimal and innovative manner to gain competitive advantage. Readers will gain comprehensive insights into the strategies, tools and principles of TRM including existing and emerging revenue streams across the value chain. The author offers a transparent and holistic explanation of pricing strategies, segmentation methods and distribution principles which enable implementation of TRM in organizations.

This book provides a management perspective on the full historical, contemporary, and geographic landscape of hospitality and tourism (H&T) in Africa. In so doing, it critically assesses and challenges the applicability of Western theories within the African context and draws attention to the insights offered by African management concepts. A variety of key topics are examined, including, for example, H&T management practices and management innovation in Africa, the drivers of and variation in uptake of Western management practices, policies and strategies to promote the development of H&T organizations, the influence of management practices on the competitiveness of African countries as tourism destinations, and areas for improvement of H&T organizations in Africa in the digital age. The approach is multidisciplinary. Both local and global perspectives are presented by authors from Africa, Europe, North America, and Asia, with inclusion of intra- and inter-country comparisons. This book will be essential reading for scholars, students, businesses, and policy makers with an interest in H&T in Africa.

This book focuses on the implications of digitalisation in the mobility service industry. Based on an analysis of more than 450 survey responses, it explores and assesses mobility in the age of digitalisation. The content covers both changes in the relationship between the company and its customers and a potential paradigm shift among leading companies. The findings suggest that a shift from traditional mobility management to a more customer-centred management perspective is both widely accepted and increasingly necessary. Nevertheless, the inclusion of services that are not primarily concerned with overcoming spatial distances is considered to be less attractive. Given its scope, the book will be of interest to researchers and professionals who are involved in digitalisation in the mobility service industry.

This book explains how startups and brands in general can achieve a high level of customer experience (CX) in today's dynamic and competitive times. A well-structured and easy to apply customer experience framework defines customer experience as the start and end point of all business activities. The framework steps and tools (such as NPS, Empathy Map, Customer Journey, Golden Circle, Design Thinking, A/B-Testing) are designed to have a maximum impact on successful company building and the customer experience, which is key to generate first and repeat buyers that become fans of the company. The tools originate from different disciplines, such as management, design, digitisation or psychology - as only an interdisciplinary approach enables superior insights for initiating the right customer activities in today's highly competitive times. With this book, it is possible to look at customer experience systematically and derive your own strategy towards success. The following are the main contributions of this book: * Provides a clear step-by-step guide to create a customer experience-centric company * Introduces most impactful tools that managers can use to successfully complete every step of our framework * Guides managers through the process of creating a start-up, which is less about magically coming up with innovative business ideas, but rather about applying proven principles in a new context

Style and structure: Written at the appropriate level for 1st year undergraduate students and those studying the subject for the first time. It's accessibility also appeals to non-native English speakers. Breadth of content: The text maps onto course content very well as it covers every major aspect taught on events management courses and explores the current developments and trends in the field, with particular focus on the array of technological developments which are hugely affecting the industry. Balance of Theory and Practice: Offers both practical and academic knowledge. Practical pedagogical tools include: case studies, interviews with industry experts, scenarios, end-of-chapter debate sections and employability skills sections. International in scope and content: New and updated case studies from a wide range of regions including those from emerging economies such as Africa, the Middle East and South-East Asia. Length: Written for 1st semester courses, where Bowdin (market leader) is considered to be too long.

The book provides a holistic and practical approach to lean management throughout the business value chain. The lean management framework and tools demonstrate the optimal design and use of methods, tools and principles for companies and organisations. The author describes comprehensively how lean management enables companies to concentrate on value-adding activities and processes to achieve a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. A wealth of best practices, industry examples and case studies are used to reveal the diversity and opportunities of lean management methodologies, methods and principles. Moreover, the book shows how lean management principles are ultimately applied in industries like automotive, healthcare, education and services industries.

This book aims to provide new research methods, theories and applications from various areas of management and engineering. In detail, the included scientific papers analyze and describe communication processes in the fields of logistics, informatics, service sciences and other related areas. The variety of the papers delivers added value for both scholars and practitioners. Information and communication technologies have been providing an effective network infrastructure and development platform for logistics and service operations. To meet the needs of consumers and to promote core competences, many institutions and firms have been developing new types of services. This proceeding focus on "AI and data driven technical and management innovation in logistics, informatics and services." In detail, the included scientific papers analyze the latest fundamental advances in the state of the art and practice of logistics, informatics, service operations and service science. This book is the documentation of the conference "11th International Conference on Logistics, Informatics and Service Sciences," which took place at the Shandong University. Due to the impact of COVID-19, LISS 2021 took place online as a virtual conference.

Management of supply chains has been evolving rapidly over the last few years due to the inception of Industry 4.0, where businesses adopt automation technologies and data exchanges leading to dynamic and interconnected supply chain systems. Emphasizing on analytical approaches such as predictive and prescriptive modeling, this book presents state-of-the-art original research work dealing with advanced analytical models for the design, planning, and operation of the supply chain to provide faster and smarter decisions in the era of digitization. In particular, the book integrates machine learning and operations research models for faster and smarter decisions, presents prescriptive analytics models for strategic, tactical, and operational decision making in the supply chain, and addresses recent challenges such as sustainability in the supply chain, supply chain visibility, and supply chain digitalization. Key concepts are illustrated using real-life case studies, making the book a valuable reference for researchers, technical professionals, and students.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of and discussion about the relationship between green tourism, economic growth and globalization. It explores numerous topics relating to tourism including transport efficiency, foreign direct investment, clean energy, climate change dynamics and advances in sustainable tourism management. The book begins with discussion of sustainable tourism and economic growth, particularly focusing on management strategies. It then presents the relationship between energy use and tourism, looking at green energy and energy shock. It then discusses transport efficiency, tourism efficiency and financial growth in both developed and developing countries. This book is of interest to researchers, policymakers, and postgraduate students in the areas of energy, environmental and tourism economics.

This book approaches the tourism and hospitality industry from a regional science perspective. By analyzing the spatial context of tourist travels, the hospitality sector, and the regional impacts of tourist activities, it demonstrates the value of the regional science paradigm for understanding the dynamics and effects of tourism and hospitality-related phenomena. Written by leading regional science scholars from various countries as well as professionals from organizations such as OECD and AirBnB, the contributions address topics such as migration, new types of accommodation, segmentation of tourism demand, and the potential use of tracking technologies in tourism research. The content is divided into five parts, the first of which analyzes spatial effects on the development of firms in the tourism industry, while the second approaches temporal and spatial variability in tourism through analytical regional science tools. The broader economic and social impacts of tourism are addressed in part three. Part four assesses specific tourism segments and tourist behaviors, while part five discusses environmental aspects and tourism destination policies. The book will appeal to scholars of regional and spatial science and tourism, as well as tourism specialists and policymakers interested in developing science and evidence-based tourism policies.

To meet the rising demand for scientific evidence in the context of rural tourism research, this book explores tourism and tourism-related diversification activities performed by farming households and entrepreneurs in rural communities. To do so it adopts a consistent conceptual and empirical microeconomic approach and employs econometric methodology. Community-based rural tourism (CBRT) is attracting increasing interest in both developed and developing countries, since tourism is considered an effective way to promote rural development in all parts of the globe. Further, because information and communication technologies are developing rapidly, new types of communities are now formed more easily than ever. As such, this book covers not only traditional, closed agrarian communities, but also emerging communities formed by local nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and national networks of farmers who provide educational tourism for consumers. These emerging communities are beyond the range of traditional agrarian communities and complement each other, which helps overcome obstacles to rural tourism for farm operators and urban residents. Those communities also nurture the rural entrepreneurship that eventually will create a sustainable urban-rural relationship. This study-the first of its kind-contributes to the advancement of research on rural tourism from a microeconomic perspective. It presents a conceptual framework for understanding rural tourism from a microeconomic perspective; empirically clarifies the specific issues and constraints for the development of CBRT; and also investigates how to overcome these issues.

This book explores the move from manufacturing towards service industry jobs in China's economic development during the 12th Five-Year Plan period. The service industry now makes up the highest proportion of the GDP and employs the largest number of people in China. In the next Five-Year Plan period, it is necessary to actively push forward the strategic transformation by placing emphasis on the service industry to press ahead with system and mechanism reforms and policy innovations and cultivate diverse, sustainable and continuous forces for driving its growth. Efforts are made to upgrade the service industry to better achieve economic and social development in an innovative, coordinated, green, open, and shared way. This book will be of interest to scholars researching China's future.

This book explores contemporary tourism and coastal developments in Hyogo, Japan-the nation's only non-peninsular prefecture bordering two oceans. In striking detail, Dr. Lesley Crowe-Delaney skillfully contextualizes tourism industry and policy; illustrates coastal urban and rural development dichotomies; discusses hegemonic devices of nationalism, nature, authenticity and tradition, as embedded in tourism strategies; and highlights the nuances of Japan's distinctive administrative systems and specific approaches to tourism. Crowe-Delaney reveals the strains placed on coastal communities when fisheries, tourism, sustainable development, and national policies intersect, offering readers an enlightening discourse of the potency of tourism as a rejuvenation tool.