Traditional analysis of tourism demand has been mainly based on the consideration of economic variables aiming at explaining the evolution of either tourists’ expenditure or overnight stays or arrivals. This study is based on a collection of both economic variables and non-economic factors surveyed since 1998–2013 for 99 Italian NUTS3 (Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics) regions (provinces). It is the first study in which such a wide array of non-economic and economic variables has been investigated for a panel data at this geographical level by using a simultaneous equations model. The analysis shows that all considered variables are significant for the evolution of tourism demand and that climate, tourism supply and entrepreneurial capabilities have the largest impacts.

Il presente lavoro fornisce una definizione della stagionalità della domanda di servizi turistici e ne evidenzia le principali cause ed il possibile ruolo delle imprese e delle amministrazioni pubbliche. Viene quindi fornita una rassegna delle principali teorie che legano la stagionalità alla domanda di lavoro. Vengono quindi presentate delle serie storiche della domanda di servizi turistici e di una proxy dell'occupazione nel comparto turistico delle nove province dell'Emilia Romagna. Viene infine fornita un'analisi shfit and share dell'evoluzione dell'occupazione in ognuna delle province, evidenziando l'effetto legato alla crescita regionale, quello relativo all'industrial mix e quello riferito al potenziale competitivo della singola provincia.

The EU Community Support Framework (CSF), in the transport sector, aims at implementing a sustainable network characterised by a more balanced modal split and by integrated connectivity among the transport nodes. This study provides a concise description of the CSF, PON and POR programmes and tests – by means of a multicriteria approach – the degree of coherence among them. The results highlight that the strategy pursued during the 2001-2006 period sought to strengthen some priority nodes located in the TEN-T network and that there is a marked heterogeneity between the PON projects and the POR projects.

This paper presents the findings of a stated preference research conducted in Tanzania (East Africa). The objective of the survey was to determine the relative importance as well as monetary values attached to freight transport quality attribute by shippers in this region. In-depth interviews with the logistic managers of companies that produce and ship goods were conducted. The freight transport quality attributes considered in this survey were flexibility, frequency, loss and damage, reliability, and transit time. The monetary values of these attributes have been computed as willingness to pay for their improvement as well as willingness to accept compensation for a decrease in their quality. The results show that shippers in this region consider travel time, loss and damage and frequency as the most important quality attributes. This may have relevant implications for the infrastructural transport policies to be implemented in the country.

This paper considers speed and reliability, measured by the average and variance of the lead time, to examine the relevance of the latter variable on inventory costs. By using a flexible simulation framework, it is shown that reducing variability does not necessarily reduce costs and might in fact increase the costs of safety stock, depending on the shape of the demand distribution during lead time and the targeted service level. This offers a novel explanation for the wide variety of value of reliability figures obtained in empirical transport economics research.

The present work offers a discussion of the value of reliability and of its relevance in integrated transport networks. It first considers the main microeconomic models that have been proposed in order to identify the value of reliability and it also presents an international overview of VOR estimations aiming to ascertain the similarities and heterogeneities among transport modes and countries.