This book offers insight into important trends in the global travel and tourism industry and analyzes developments in the aviation and hospitality industry and destination management. The most recent developments in marketing and sales as well as in travel technology and business travel are of key importance for managing travel and tourism companies. The articles are based on presentations and panel discussions presented at the world ́s largest tourism convention, the ITB Convention Market Trends & Innovations.

Following the outbreak of the international financial crisis, Southern Europe became an epicentre of economic instability and international concern. The prospect of a sovereign debt default in the eurozone’s ‘flaky fringe’ sent shock waves through the European and global economies. Examining the crucial initial phase, when the financial crisis was just beginning to spill over into the real economy, the volume surveys the impact of the September 2008 Lehman Brothers’ collapse across the EU’s southern periphery. The six South European eurozone members – Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta – are viewed in comparative perspective with EU candidate state and non-eurozone member, Turkey. In an era before the spectacular EU/IMF bailouts, the picture that emerges is one of national differentiation, illuminating these countries’ different starting points and varying policy responses in the face of the gathering financial storm. This book was published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

With high hopes that the worst of the financial crisis is now behind us, our efforts looking forward must be more vigilant. Change is constant in the electronic business management landscape and we must continue to look for organizational efficiencies, competitive strength, strategic differentiation and value creation in both int- organizational and collaborative settings. Seeking new and innovative application areas of information technology, in general, and e-business management solutions, in particular, while simultaneously critically evaluating and constantly challenging our own research contributions, methods and practices. It is for these reasons (and many more) that we are particularly excited about and grateful for the collection of papers included in this volume, LNBIP 58, on Sustainable e-Business Management. The papers selected in this volume address these emerging e-business issues and have been organized into three research lines: e-Business Models and IS in Financial Markets, e-Commerce Use and Design, and e-Business Research Issues and Methods. We are delighted to kick off the first group of papers e-Business Models and IS in Financial Markets with a study by Masao Kakihara of Yahoo Research in Japan, proposing a dynamic revenue model framework and design. This section also includes a fresh look into two pressing e-business areas with Doerr, Benlian, Vetter and Hess’s examination of content provider pricing of music as a service and Dutta and Menon’s interesting study of the determinants of customer acquisition and e-tailer revenue.

Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: At present (spring 2009), the world experiences one of the most severe economic crises in post-WWII history, precipitated mainly by the U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis which became apparent to the broad public in 2007. In 2008, the U.S. sub-prime crisis turned into a global financial crisis, and subsequently into a global economic downturn that forced numerous countries into recession. Stock markets have fallen, large financial institutions have collapsed, and governments had to come up with rescue packages to bail out their financial systems. Although it can be argued that overall the tourism industry may not be as vulnerable as other commercial sectors when it comes to fluctuations in clients purchasing power, in the medium term tourism businesses are still likely to be at least as seriously affected by the upcoming new distribution of economic power as any other industry. A long-term trade and industry downturn may bring about a broad range of changes to the world, like altered roles of the United States, the European Union and the Asian block, insecurity and crime, a different understanding of handling energy resources, further polarization between rich and poor, or changing values and therefore consumer preferences in general to name just a few. All these factors may potentially have adverse impacts on tourism businesses, and thus require adequate attention and timely academic research. However, change can also mean positive development and can open up new chances and opportunities for the world economy. These opportunities need to be identified, assessed and exploited. With an estimated direct and indirect contribution of the travel and tourism sector of 9.4 percent to global GDP, 10.9 percent to world exports and 9.4 percent to world investment, the significance of the industry s role in the struggle for economic recovery clearly must not be underestimated. As the tourism industry is all about pleasant experiences and the positive things in life, it is sometimes hard to think about crisis management. When having to operate in an economically insecure environment of the current dimension, numerous managers therefore face the challenging situation of having to make decisions in fields they do have little or no knowledge about. However, in a fast-changing and highly volatile economic climate like the present, inaccurate decisions by executives of tourism businesses can have devastating consequences and can [...]