NEWS
05-07 June 2024
THE INC (Tourism, Hospitality and Events International Conference) has been one of the conferences I regularly attend. I presented my findings on how innovative LCCs are regarding carry-on baggage, a topic I am eager to explore further and deeper.
29 May 2024
After several months of preparation, the TRC’s annual Symposium materialised. A plethora of speakers from diverse backgrounds presented their views and findings on blending and introducing emerging technologies in Aviation and Tourism. I am thankful to all contributors, in front and behind the scenes who made this event not only take place but be extremely successful and fruitful!
03 April 2024
Today I had the opportunity and privilege to be invited by the Cultural Centre of Olympic Airways Employees (POLKEOA) to present my findings on the social footprint of Olympic Airways in Greece, 15 years after its privatisation. It has been the first time that several academics presented their findings on this subject. It has been an honour and a blast!
27 February 2024
I had the opportunity to talk with Ms Christina Vidou about education at UK Universities. The interview is in greek and you can listen to it here. The interview begins after the 37th minute.
25 February 2024
Today an interview with Lina Giannarou was published at Kathimerini, a daily Greek newspaper regarding the challenges academics face at UK HE Institutions. The interview is in greek and can be found here.
11 September 2023
Today I am starting a new role at Edinburgh Napier University (ENU) as Associate Professor of Aviation and Tourism Management. I am joining The Business School, Department of Tourism and Languages. The Department and its courses have been ranked in the Top 10 UK Modern University for Hospitality, Leisure, Recreation and Tourism – THE World university Rankings 2022. ENU has been ranked #1 university for Student Satisfaction in Edinburgh for the fourth consecutive year – National Student Survey 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023
21 July 2022
The reality is a large proportion of staff involved in facilitating any given flight don’t work directly for the airport the plane takes off from, or the airline that owns and runs the plane. Air Traffic Controllers are mostly NATS employees (National Air Traffic Services), border control officers are Border Force employees while baggage handlers and check in agents are also likely to be employees of a ground handling company. So airports and airlines only have so much control: they depend on many other public and private entities for the system to run smoothly.
My comments were hosted at this article.
24 June 2020
Airlines around the world carry on top of passengers, their baggage. Carried baggage adds to the total weight of the aircraft resulting in increased fuel consumption. Increased fuel prices led airlines around the world to introduce baggage fees to improve their revenues against their increased operating costs. This option was initially introduced in hold luggage, baggage that is not taken in to the cabin by the passenger. Over time though, several airlines, primarily low cost carriers, introduced fees for carry on baggage too.
In 2019, 4.397 billion people flew according to the World Bank (2020) when ICAO reported 4.5 billion passengers for the same period (ICAO, 2019). According to the same report, ICAO estimates that 1.4 billion passengers in 2019 were carried by low-cost carriers, approximately 31 per cent of the world total scheduled passengers. The annual growth in passenger numbers in 2019 compared to the previous year was 5.3 per cent for low-cost carriers, almost 1.5 times the rate of the world total average passenger growth which was 3.6 per cent (ICAO, 2019).
Despite their massive growth and their increasing market share which accounted for 31 percent in 2019, low-cost carriers do not have a common approach on the size of cabin baggage or the pricing policy. There are airlines who charge, airlines that do not charge at all, and other that charge or not, depending on the type of fare of ancillary services (add on) the passenger purchased. These differences are addressed in this paper in order to create groups of carriers that have very similar policies on pricing and accepting carry on baggage.
The paper was presented at THE INC 2022 in Limassol, Cyprus.
13 June 2022
The chaos at airports is intensely frustrating but we must resist the temptation to accord too much blame to any party involved. Airports and airlines are letting passengers down but there are a lot of factors outside their control. airports and airlines are faced with a very complex problem and it is unfair to judge them too harshly for the recent failures.
My comments were hosted at this article.
13 April 2022
Research on destination governance aims at understanding the complex and multi-layered nature of stakeholder participation, decision-making and implementation of destination strategies. A relevant body of knowledge has contributed to the definition and analysis of modes and archetypes of governance in tourism (Bramwell, 2011; Hall, 2011; Presenza & Cipollina, 2010), particularly in the study of Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) as nodal decision-making and tourism planning entities (d’Angella, De Carlo & Sainaghi, 2010; Zahra & Ryan, 2007). More recently, the literature has advocated to a shift towards metagovernance theory to better understand the “actual political practices” of structuractionist decision-making in tourism (Amore & Hall, 2016, p. 116). According to Jenkins, Hall and Mkono (2014, p.549), “there is a wide range of tourism metagovernance practice in operation” which has been overlooked in the literature. To overcome this gap, recent advancements in the field contributed to the conceptualization of destination metagovernance (Amore & Hall, 2016; Amore, Prayag & Hall, 2018).
The book can be found at Goodfellow Publishers.
26 March 2022
Tourism and mobility feed one another, and the same principle applies on air travel. International tourism arrivals by air account for almost 60%. While it can be argued that the world today is well interconnected, there are still inequalities in air connectivity. Indirect and direct connectivity for instance impact the accessibility of a tourism destination and at the same time a destination’s attractiveness impacts its accessibility. Several tourism destinations are impacted by the air connectivity type that is available in their nearby or serving airport of their region or proximity. At the same time, airline business models have evolved and it is highly likely that this transformation will continue to unfold since the market and the passengers’ needs are constantly evolving. The introduction of long-range medium size aircraft might change the way connectivity used to operate till now. This paper explores the future of air connectivity following the introduction of these aircraft types.
The paper was presented at MTCON (Managing Tourism Across Continents), 24-26 March 2022, Antalya Turkey.
03 September 2021
Following the news that Wizz Air, following in the footsteps of United and Delta in the US, have set a December deadline for cabin crew to be vaccinated, Dr Pavlos Arvanitis, Senior Lecturer in Aviation Management at the University of Bedfordshire, says there is no clear-cut answer as to whether cabin crew should be vaccinated…
05 May 2021
I started a new job at the University of Bedfordshire, joining the Department of International Business, Marketing and Tourism. This Department is part of the Business School. I joined a vibrant and dynamic team of 40+ full time members of staff who research and teach the subjects of Tourism, Aviation and Airport Management, Marketing and Business. I am really excited for joining that team and I am looking forward to the journey ahead!
23 April 2021
I had the luck or curse to fly to Greece over the strictly essential travel only period as administered by the UK authorities. It has been a very costly experience since upon departure I had to take a PCR test and self isolate in Greece for 7 days. At the end of the 7 day isolation period I had to take another PCR test in order to be released from the quarantine. When flying back to the UK, I had to provide another negative PCR test at the Border Authorities and book the so called Day 2 and Day 8 (PCR) Tests on top of the ten day self isolation. The ten day period has been tough since I had to adhere to these strict regulations to protect not only myself but the public health also. I was receiving a daily phone call from Public Health England/UK Government to ensure that I was adhering to the self isolation. Although this might had felt intrusive, I think that it demonstrated how seriously the British Authorities see Public Health.
Despite the positive vibes though, the arrival at Heathrow on the 23rd April has been a significantly less pleasant experience. Despite landing almost forty minutes earlier at Heathrow, without holding – which is totally unheard of – the queue at Border Control was huge and the flow was water dropping. I have been waiting for over ninety minutes alongside with passengers flying not only from Athens but anywhere you can possibly imagine from, until more Border Control staff were available to check our documents and go through security at a much faster pace. When it was my turn to produce all these documents to the Border Control Officer, I was pleasantly surprised by receiving an apology for the delay! I could see in their eyes that the Officer was really genuine in their words and it was not a standard “customer friendly” phrase. Kudos to the British Border Control Officers and staff who have to deal with all these situations on a daily basis!
05 January 2021
I arrived at Heathrow in early January and everything was the same, compared to the EU era, until I entered the baggage reclaim area. I noticed that the sign over the exit door had changed from EU and International Arrivals to International Arrivals only. It is a new year, a new start and I am sure that everything will find their way, despite Covid-19 restrictions.
13 October 2020
I had to travel during the summer and autumn 2020 for important happy family events so it would had been absolutely devasting had I not been able to fly these times. I flew from London Heathrow, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly via an other European airport. I had a morning flight n July around 09am and upon arrival at Heathrow, it felt as if it was 10pm when the airport slows down, the number of people was reduced and the queues very small. Shops were shut, airline lounges were shut and the whole feeling was very strange. It was even stranger when I realised that although flying to popular destinations, the plane was half full, and this was not due to restrictions, it was purely down to lack of demand. In autumn, things were a bit better with more shops and airline lounges open, offering limited services though. We have to wait and see how it will feel in December if I manage to go home for the festivities.
13 May 2020
I was asked to comment on the impact the disruption of cruise tourism has in Southampton, being one of the major cruise ports in Northern Europe. Southampton is the home of Carnival UK, a major cruise company employing over 1000 staff directly.
Southampton’s Daily Echo published today the article titled: ‘Very big’ impact of Carnival job losses.
21 February 2020
First year students went on a three day field trip to Belfast and Northern Ireland where they had the opportunity to experience first hand the product this destination offers. The students had the opportunity to go behind the scenes at Belfast City Airport and interact with senior airport staff followed by the set of the “Games of Thrones” series which was filmed in several locations in Northern Ireland. They also had the opportunity to discuss with the cockpit and cabin crew of Flybe and explore the city of Belfast to identify the product and the heritage this city has to offer.
05 February 2020
On Wednesday 05 February 2020, I took part as a judge at a debating competition called debating matters in which sixth form students participate. It was a very enjoyable experience, where students had to argue for or against a series of controversial topics.
25 January 2020
In January 2020 I visited Fitur in Madrid. The exhibition was predominantly focusing on the Spanish destinations which coverex almost 40% of the exhibition space. 
20 December 2019
In December 2019 a new title was launched, The Handbook of Globalisation and Tourism edited by Dallen J. Timothy. More information on the book at the editor’s webpage.
Pavlos Arvanitis and Alberto Amore
