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Purpose – Environmental awareness has significant impact on hotel selection. As hotel customers’ become more ecologically conscious tend to prefer hotels that have environmental policies in place. The purpose of this paper is to examine customers’ perceptions of what a green hotel should do or should be and exploring intentions to choose a green hotel. Design/methodology/approach – An empirical research study was conducted using an online survey. The questionnaire used investigates what a green hotel should do or should be environmental concerns, eco-friendly attitudes, eco-friendly activities, awareness, overall image, intention to pay more and intention to visit a green hotel. In total, 159 completed and usable questionnaires were received. Findings – Findings reveal that potential customers’ are highly environmentally conscious. However, they are not fully aware about green hotels and do not always intent to visit a green hotel, or are willing to pay more. Originality/value – Hotel customers’ perceptions towards intention to visit a green hotel are different among various ages and geographic locations. Thus, the study focuses on perceptions of Generation Y in Greece. Hotel managers should be aware of customers’ buying behaviour towards green practices and communicate more, green hotel practices.

In this study Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) and business performance of banks in Greece are examined through an accounting approach. Using accounting data (financial ratios), the post-merger performance of a sample of Greek banks, listed on the Athens Stock Exchange that executed at least one merger or acquisition in the four-year-period from 2004 to 2007, is investigated. For the purpose of the study, a set of nineteen ratios is employed, in order to measure banks’ operating performance and to compare pre- and post-merger performance for three, two and one year before and after the M&A. The results revealed that M&As had a positive impact on the post-merger performance of merger-involved firms, except of dividend policy, which had to be moderate and conservative, because of the global financial crisis. The results showed that the effect of M&As on sample’s business performance, is not direct, but it becomes obvious during the next two years. Last, the number of ratios, which are statistically and significantly changed, is bigger as the control interval widens and the common ratios have an identical variation.

Casting is a manufacturing process by which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process. Casting materials are usually metals or various cold setting materials that cure after mixing two or more components together; examples are epoxy, concrete, plaster and clay. Casting is most often used for making complex shapes that would be otherwise difficult or uneconomical to make by other methods.Due to the fact that several parts are designed with the involve of FEA we have more complex parts. Industries have to manufacture the complex parts and be in the limits of failure, for better analysis FEA are using also in the manufacturing process by simulate the casting of the complex parts.

Nowadays, the use of Social Networking Sites (SNS) is becoming indispensable. On SNS people provide authentic information about their travels, gained through personal experience and when they interact over a long period of time they trust the opinions of their ‘friends’ or ‘followers’ and take them into consideration when making a purchase decision. The paper aims at investigating attitudes of MBA students towards SNS use for travel activities. It takes into consideration four popular SNS, namely Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google +. Fishbein model was used for the evaluation of students’ attitudes. The findings reveal that MBA students use SNS for getting socialized with other travelers and companies and informed about tourism destinations/companies/travel. Facebook is the most popular Social Networking Site for travel activities except from the professional reasons (e.g., search for job in the tourism sector), in which LinkedIn comes first.

Information services provided through the web allow hotels to improve communication, marketing and e-commerce. This paper alms to identify common hoteliers' practices on their websites' design. It argues that hoteliers provide groups of relative information services and not isolated or case services. Using an extended web survey, this study identifies which information services are offered through Greek hotel websites. While recording users' attitudes, this study estimates the significance rates of the information services. Multidimensional scaling followed by Hierarchical Cluster Analysis produced clusters of information services, which were studied according to their size, occurrence and significance. Greek hotel websites are primarily designed so as to be electronic brochures and, while they generally satisfy most of the users' needs, they partly serve as online transactions media, a function considered significant by users.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify and evaluate the practices hoteliers use to design their hotel web sites. It argues that hoteliers provide groups of relative information services, they provide them in different degrees of occurrence, and some of them being significant are not provided to meet the customers' demands, while others are provided regardless of their low perceived significance.Design/methodology/approachThis work distinguishes groups of information services according to their occurrence and significance. The content of 798 Greek hotel web sites is recorded using the frequencies of 66 information features. Also a sample of 17 users provides the significance ratings of the information features.FindingsGreek hotel web sites are primarily designed to serve as electronic brochures and, while they generally satisfy most of the users' needs, they partly serve as online transactions media, a function considered significant.Practical implicationsIdentifies and rates the rendered groups of related information services at hotel web sites.Originality/valueEnables hoteliers and web designers to evaluate significant web sites' characteristics.

Summarization: A method of sizing stand-alone photovoltaic systems regarding the reliability to satisfy the load demand, economy of components, and discharge depth exploited by the batteries is presented in this work. Solar radiation data simulated by an appropriate stochastic time series model, and not actual measurements, are used in the sizing procedure. This offers two distinct advantages: (a) sizing can be performed even for locations where no actual data exist, (b) the influence of the variation of the statistical parameters of solar radiation in sizing can be examined. The method has been applied and tested for several representative locations all over Greece for which monthly daily average values of solar radiation are given by ELOT (Hellenic Organization of Standardization). Presented on: International Journal of Photoenergy

Information offered through hotel web sites may serve as a means for increasing the effectiveness of marketing and eCommerce of hotel businesses. The objective of this research was to examine and measure the quantity and type of information provided though the selected hotel web sites. A model was used, based on a conceptual framework, which consists of seven major hotel website dimensions, including Facilities information, Customer contact information, Reservation-price information, Surrounding area information, Management of the website, Company information and Communication. The managerial features of the businesses: star rating, size and chain membership were taken into consideration. It was found that the Athens hotels used in this study do not make maximum and uniform use of the possibilities offered to attract customers through the web information services. Higher class hotels as well as chain hotels appear to be more active in offering information services.

Although neighboring countries and both members of the EU, Greece and Bulgaria have very different social and economic environments in which entrepreneurial activities take place. At the same time, there are strong entrepreneurial ties between private firms of the two countries, initiated by organizations how see those different environments as opportunities to further develop their business by operating across the borders. This fact has result to a large number of private and public firms, mainly from the Greek side, that have moved their operations in Bulgaria as well as to many Bulgarian citizens who commute to the Greek side looking for work. Although this phenomenon has been well descripted in the literature, the research on understanding the actual reasons is only minimal. In this paper, we map the entrepreneurial and investment activities between the two countries in order to better understand cross-border activities of the firms. In order to do so, we use quantitative data covering both entrepreneurial activities, such as joint ventures and the direct investments between the two countries in an effort to understand the direction, the spatial concentration and the sectoral dissemination of the entrepreneurial activities undertaken. We analyze data relevant to the existing cross border entrepreneurial activities and their orientation and both quantitative and qualitative information for the firms, joint ventures, public - private partnerships and other forms of formal collaborations. Our analysis provides interesting results for the specific organizations, the conditions and targets for which they choose to cross the borders. Furthermore, our research sheds light on the competences and the competitive advantages those firms try to gain. Based on those results, our paper concludes by providing insights on the regional and organizational strategies for the internationalization and the development of bilateral collaboration between the organizations of the two countries that could contribute positively in responding to the current economic crisis in Greece. Keywords: cross border cooperation, international entrepreneurship, Greece, Bulgaria JEL Codes: L26, F23, F21