We show how the notions of accessibility, vulnerability, and resilience can be used to shed light on the sustainable management of a natural area that is used for ecotourism. To this end, we construct and analyze two queuing-theoretic models that approach the problem of sustainable management in...

In this note, we study a guided tour providing firm that operates in a stochastic environment. The environment is stochastic because this firm’s costs are deterministic but its revenues are stochastic. Since revenues are stochastic, the profits of this firm are also stochastic. For such a...

We study the provision of information to tourists in a probabilistic setting. Specifically, we provide answers to three hitherto unstudied questions in the tourism literature. We first delineate a continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) model of a tourist information center (TIC) and then we compute...

We first delineate a general model that accounts for the common features of sightseeing trips to city attractions and to locations such as lakes and parks. Next, we use the theory of discrete-time Markov chains (DTMCs) to formalize this general model and then we compute the one-step transition...

Our primary objective in this note is to show how useful the theory of discrete-time Markov chains (DTMCs) is in helping model and understand the little studied but salient problem of the provision of off-peak season guided tours to tourists. To this end, we first delineate a DTMC model that...

We study two approaches to the optimal provision of guided tours to tourists by a firm during the slack season. In the “scheduling by numbers” approach, our firm focuses on the number of tourists who must be in our firm’s premises before this firm begins to use the tour guide to provide...

We first delineate a general model that accounts for the common features of sightseeing trips to city attractions and to locations such as lakes and parks. Next, we use the theory of discrete-time Markov chains (DTMCs) to formalize this general model and then we compute the one-step transition...

Recently, Batabyal and Yoo (2009) have conducted a probabilistic analysis of guided tours for a single class of tourists during the slack season. In this note, we extend the above analysis by considering the case of two distinct classes of tourists. Specifically, we first describe a general...

Issues germane to the provision of guided tours for tourists wishing to visit a particular location during the slack season have received scant theoretical attention in the tourism literature. Therefore, we conduct a stochastic analysis of guided tours for tourists during the slack season. We...

Recently, Batabyal and Yoo (2009) have conducted a probabilistic analysis of guided tours for a single class of tourists during the slack season. In this note, we extend the above analysis by considering the case of two distinct classes of tourists. Specifically, we first describe a general...