Πρακτικά Συνεδρίων

Tourism development plays a crucial role for the local economy and residents’ quality of life, especially for Greece, a country suffering from financial crisis. The purpose of the paper is to examine attitudes of residents of a capital city at a prefecture of Central Greece that is Chalkida, the capital of Evia Island, toward tourism development. It was selected as it shares several similarities with most destinations of the neighboring region of Thessaly. Factor analysis of scaled items measuring their attitudes resulted in eight tourism-related factors: beneficial economic, social and cultural influences, welfare impacts, economic cultural and social costs of tourism development and community support. Results indicate residents’ expectations from tourism development were not met, as community support toward tourism sector is rather limited. Economic costs of tourism development exert detrimental effects on the welfare of residents, as well as their cultural and social context. In this way, tourism industry lacks community support and as a consequence a rather alienated environment for tourism developments is nurtured. On the contrary, economic benefits are strongly and positively related to welfare, culture benefits, and community support on cultural or historic based tourism. Alike, welfare is associated with social and cultural benefits. Moreover, younger residents are less opting to support tourism development although they share the same perceptions about tourism development with older ones.

Tourism is a socio-economic phenomenon with important effects on human life and national economies of the states. The journey, i.e. the movement of man from the place of permanent residence in another place, is the key element of tourism. Alongside main ingredient is the incentive for vacations and recreation, a fundamental right of all people. As with other Greek destinations with a heavy reliance on a basic sun, sea and sand tourism model, Thessaly region is busy trying to diversify its tourism product. Cultural tourism is seen as one important means of achieving diversification. Nowadays, new cultural tourism is focused on the integration of production and consumption, and it creates linkages between suppliers and consumers. Instead of passive consumption, cultural tourists demonstrate a proactive approach to meeting their needs, wanting to actively participate in experiences while travelling. On the other side, suppliers focus their attention on the close interaction with consumers and co-creation of high quality experiences. This study will try to, synthesize and present all the principal cultural resources that exist and remain unexploited in the region of Thessaly as well as—in the end—will propose a strategic plan of cultural tourism promotion even in times of economic crisis.

The development of social media has been reported to have reshaped the tourism industry, as in general revolutionary information and communication technologies have deeply affected the society and its overall functioning. Facebook and Tripadvisor are two of the applications mostly discussed that do have an important impact on the image of the companies associated with the sector. The contribution of Greek tourism in the country’s economy has been highlighted several times over the years. However, not all the regions contribute equally. More specific, coastal areas and islands that represent the core Greek tourist product, sea and sun, are the most popular ones. Others, like Thessaly, despite their potential, are struggling to maintain a piece of the pie. Through this study is attempted, two hot issues, such as social media and tourism, to be approached and to conclude in whether a digital investment for the region of Thessaly would be a valuable one. In order to answer that, relevant literature has been reviewed. The current situation has been described, involving the promotion of both Thessaly as destination and tourism-related enterprises using ICTs and social media. The factors affecting the effectiveness of the investment, like economic circumstances, the geography and culture of the region are also examined.

The remarkable and multilateral developmental impact and perspective of H.E.Is is widely known. Moreover, the spread of competence and technological innovation should not be a privilege for a few people who have the possibility of acquiring knowledge and skills from the International Academic Institutions. Unfortunately, raw reality remains the same and in order to be reduced, the “conventional” Academic Institutions ought to evolve constantly and develop more remarkable international collaborations in order to be able to exist, operate and contribute to the strongly competitive environment. Based on the above references, the undergraduate course of the Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Business and Economics, of the Technological Educational Institution (T.E.I) of Thessaly is being evaluated through the Benchmarking process as it has been defined by the Hellenic Quality Assurance & Accreditation Agency (H.Q.A), as well as with the standards of other internationally recognized and accredited institutions (e.g. European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education – E.N.Q.A, Chartered Management Institution – C.M.I etc.) in order to detect any deviations that would need specific suggestions and improvement procedures able to make this Department strongly competitive.

The purpose of the study was to explore the levels of job satisfaction of Greek employees and to examine the effects that specific personal characteristics have on these levels of job satisfaction. The sample consisted of 252 (51.7%) males and 235 (48.3%) females of different bank organizations. The results of the present study suggest that in general Greek bank employees are enough satisfied with their job in general. Moreover, MANOVA and post-ANOVA analysis have concluded that specific personal characteristics of the bank employees affect different aspects of their job satisfaction and their levels of job satisfaction in total such as gender, age, marital status, educational level and the position that they hold in the bank. Also, the years of their general experience as bank employees, the years that they have been working in the specific institution and the years that they have been working in the same position affect their job satisfaction in a statistically significant way.

The purpose of the study is to examine the Greek bank employees attitudes about the present organizational culture of the bank where they work and about their desired organizational cultures after five years. The sample consisted of 252 (51.7%) males and 235 (48.3%) females of different bank organizations. The results of the present study suggest that bank employees think present organizational culture as controlling while at the same time they would prefer more clan and adaptive types of culture in the organization. Also, ANOVA analysis has shown that in terms of the attitudes about the present organizational culture only the variable of years of general experience as bank employees affect their attitudes, with employees with 1-10 year sof experience grading the present culture as more hi-erarchical and less adaptive and participative. As far as desired organizational cultures are concerned men and women state different preferences, administrators would like it to be more hierarchical and new employees would like it more to promote participation and adaptation to the external environment and less orientated to the market.