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Examines the practice of overbooking at hotel and tour operator levels. By accepting more reservations than their available capacity, hotels hedge against the problem of cancellations. Hotels located in popular tourist resorts, allocate their capacity to multiple tour‐operators who through the vacation packages they offer, fill the hotels' capacity. Shows that for this type of hotel, an overbooking policy applied at the hotel level and derived using the capacity of the hotel as a whole, gives better cost savings than when formulating an overbooking policy for each tour‐operator separately. The result of the analysis provides significant managerial implications since a hotel dealing with multiple tour‐operators, in devising its overbooking policy needs only to consider the occupancy of the hotel as a whole and not the performance of each tour‐operator. This simplicity is further reflected in the reduction of information required to be recorded.

Focusing on the creation and distribution of packaged holidays, this text covers the fundamentals of business and the relationship between tour operators and destinations. With particular reference to sustainability, it provides a wealth of information regarding eco, nature and adventure trips, as well as niche and special interest products.

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ofthe University of Luton ; The aim of this research was to compare the distribution channel relationships in two different tourism markets: the mature market of Britain and the evolving market in Poland, with a view to assessing likely courses of tourism development in Poland. Relationships in channels of distribution can be understood as all the interactions, processes and flows taking place between companies involved in exchange of products and services. The focus of the research was an investigation of channel relationships between travel agents and tour operators. The evolution of tourism channel relationships in Britain and Poland was investigated in three stages: initiation, implementation and review, following the Kale and McIntyre (1991) and Crotts et al. (1998) models. Analysis of existing literature established that historical, political and economic backgrounds, as well as demand and supply, impact in different ways upon the structure of such channels in each country. Following that recognition two phases of empirical research were conducted using a mixed methods approach. The exploratory phase was based on interviews with British and Polish travel agents and tour operators, and from this phase a set of propositions was developed regarding travel agents' and tour operators' attitudes towards channel relationships. These propositions were explored using data collected from a detailed questionnaire survey distributed to a sample of British and Polish tour operators and travel agents. The results from this quantitative research were qualitatively augmented by outcomes from indepth interviews. The key findings from the research were that the Polish distribution system resembled to some extent the old British tourism structure. It was, however, unable to directly follow the development route undertaken by British companies. The pattern of operation was different in both countries due to four factors. Firstly, the distortions in operations in Poland originated from the post-socialist business structure; secondly, the diversity of business in Poland was much greater than in Britain, whilst, thirdly, the level of vertical integration between companies and the level of the development of information technology was more extensive in Britain. Finally, although the relationship development process consisted of similar stages in both countries, the field investigations showed differences in partners' selection, monitoring and support. The Polish companies relied heavily on social bonding and social ties in the selection stage, while in Britain the transparency and higher stability in the market reduced the necessity of close social bonding between employees and companies. The overall conclusion from the research is that the Polish travel companies are likely to follow many aspects of the British route, though with some specifically Polish characteristics. The initial evaluation of channel partners and the evaluation of the relationship between agents and tour operators would be strengthened in Poland, if there were a strong, regulatory and advisory association in the Polish market such as ABTA in Britain. Further research is recommended in terms of the impact of information technology on channel relationships in tourism and the role of tourism associations in the organisation of the tourism market.

Few empirical studies on sustainable tourism take into account the perspective of developing countries' actors. This is even the case in debates about the need to adapt sustainability's definitions to the context of developing countries. The present study aims at giving a voice to developing countries' actors by describing how inbound tour operators (ITOs) in Kenya conceive sustainable tourism and their role in promoting it. ITOs were reached through the two official Kenyan category associations for tour operators and through Ecotourism Kenya. Both a survey and in-depth interviews were used to gather data. Results suggest that Kenyan ITOs are familiar with the current definition of sustainability as being constituted of an economic, a social and an environmental dimension. Contrary to expectations, respondents weight their responsibility towards the natural environment at least as highly as their social responsibility. In the end, it is the business long-term survival that dictates this choice: respondents are aware that tourists expect to find in Kenya a flourishing natural environment. Kenyan ITOs are on the whole keenly aware of their role in promoting sustainability to tourist, staff and the community. They experience as a major challenge the lack of institutional pressure from the government. Though this is a common complaint of organisations in developing countries, it is interesting in a Kenyan context where the Government has deployed several policy initiatives on sustainable tourism. A major limitation of this study is the limited sample. Only category associations' members were sampled, leaving ITOs that operate in the informal economy unheard.Keywords: sustainable tourism development, corporate social responsibility, inbound tour operators, Kenya

Turkey's national policy of expanding the number of hotel rooms nationwide over the past two decades has been successful in increasing supply, but at a cost. The government offered strong incentives for entrepreneurs to open hotels on the nation's Mediterranean and Aegean coasts. Many of the hotels that opened as a result, particularly those in low-price tiers, offer repetitive concepts and are not professionally managed. As a consequence, Turkey's resort operators rely heavily on international packagetour operators to fill their rooms. What has turned into an oversupply of rooms gives the tour operators market power over the lodging operators, forcing the latter into price competition. To compensate for their lack of income, the lodging operators offer minimal services (or are unable to offer good service). A particular challenge to the hoteliers is the tour operators' practice of changing bookings at the last minute, which causes lodging operators with unused capacity to accept low rates for otherwise empty rooms. While Turkey's lodging entrepreneurs probably cannot change the external factors that force them to accept low prices, they could address their internal problems of lack of cooperation and poor management skills.

Turkey's national policy of expanding the number of hotel rooms nationwide over the past two decades has been successful in increasing supply, but at a cost. The government offered strong incentives for entrepreneurs to open hotels on the nation's Mediterranean and Aegean coasts. Many of the hotels that opened as a result, particularly those in low-price tiers, offer repetitive concepts and are not professionally managed. As a consequence, Turkey's resort operators rely heavily on international packagetour operators to fill their rooms. What has turned into an oversupply of rooms gives the tour operators market power over the lodging operators, forcing the latter into price competition. To compensate for their lack of income, the lodging operators offer minimal services (or are unable to offer good service). A particular challenge to the hoteliers is the tour operators' practice of changing bookings at the last minute, which causes lodging operators with unused capacity to accept low rates for otherwise empty rooms. While Turkey's lodging entrepreneurs probably cannot change the external factors that force them to accept low prices, they could address their internal problems of lack of cooperation and poor management skills.