Retail Development and Impact Assessment in Czech Republic: Which Tools to Use?

The transformational period and especially the second half of the 1990s meant a dynamic expansion of Czech retailing and its spatial structure. The uncoordinated construction of the recently emerging large-scale retail outlet has raised a question whether their construction should be regulated. Due to the non-existent regulation of retail development on a national level, weak role of the local physical plans and feeble position of Building Offices compared with retailers and developers, no reference framework exists for retail development. In the light of these facts, it is obvious that a sensitive regulation tool is necessary for retail development. The paper discusses the results of a survey among Building Offices in the Czech Republic focused on the opinions on the need of the introduction of Retail Impact Assessment (RIA) study. More than half of the respondents oppose the RIA study and do not consider it necessary, mainly because they believe that the existing legislative and planning documentation is sufficient for the regulation of large-scale retail outlets. The results clearly show that the increase in the planning prestige and use of the existing regulation mechanisms within the physical plan are the priority for the Czech planning practice.     

Time to Say Goodbye

Tim Hortons’ first donut store was established in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1964; other stores were added over time as the chain gradually diffused across Canada to become the country’s largest quick-service restaurant chain with more than 2,400 restaurants. In achieving this dominant status it adopted one of the strategies of any successful restaurant chain; utilizing a uniform architectural style to emphasize to customers the consistency in its menu and operations. This article examines the processes underlying the development of the Tim Hortons brand and the diffusion of its restaurants into the US, specifically the appearance of their restaurants in the Great Lakes borderlands. The study found a consistent architectural style in Ontario but several different styles in Michigan and New York. It is suggested that this lack of consistency in brand identification in its US restaurants is a contributory factor to their lack of profitability and smaller sales.     

浅探我国饭店餐厅的设计和装饰

本从餐厅室内设计和装饰的基本原则出发,对餐厅设计予以剖析,并从企业经营、传统与现代时尚的角度解释一些社会现象,为未来的饭店餐厅设计提供一种现代模式。     

基于网络评论内容分析的餐饮消费者行为研究

网络评论是餐饮消费者潜意识中的消费偏好、感知等内在需求的外显投射,是其餐饮消费中最关注内容的外在显现。文章基于内容分析法,以大众点评网为例,对餐饮消费者的网络评论内容进行分析。结果表明:高价位餐厅消费者较低价位餐厅消费者的满意度评价更高,连锁餐厅消费者较单体餐厅消费者满意度更高;不同消费水平的消费者消费偏好有明显差异,低价位餐厅消费者更关注核心诉求,即食物本身的吸引力和价格高低,中价位餐厅消费者更关注服务,高价位餐厅的消费者更关注餐厅的综合品质,消费决策中更看重餐厅的环境、服务等非食物要素;从消费感知角度看,餐饮消费者最关注的前五位要素是:食物、环境、服务、价格和便利性。     

‘Putting Place on a Plate’ along the West Cork Food Trail

ABSTRACT

In 2011, Ireland's National Tourism Development Authority (F?ilte Ireland) announced a plan to increase the number of food tourists to the country. According to the plan, Irish food will be recognized for the quality of its regional food experiences that evoke a unique sense of place. To further the plan, it created a program entitled ‘Place on a Plate’ which encourages restaurant owners/chefs to offer fresh locally sourced seasonal food and list the names of local suppliers on their menus. This paper examines the effectiveness of this ‘Place on a Plate’ strategy by examining 53 restaurant menus along the West Cork Food Trail in southwest Ireland to determine whether they contain: (1) a statement as to the origin of their food supplies, (2) a listing of local food producers, and (3) geographical place name references on individual menu items. The study found that the majority of restaurants do not include a statement as to the origin of their food supplies, indeed only three out of the surveyed restaurants provided complete food supply listings. The largest number of menu items to be connected with a place were linked with Ireland followed by West Cork and the Atlantic. The results suggest that the ‘Place on a Plate’ strategy has had a limited impact and that more education needs to occur about its potential to contribute to West Cork's gastronomic identity.     

Surviving in a Competitive Spatial Market: The Threshold Capture Model

Many facility location decision models ignore the fact that for a facility to survive it needs a minimum demand level to cover costs. In this paper we present a decision model for a firm that wishes to enter a spatial market where there are several competitors already located. This market is such that for each outlet there is a demand threshold level that has to be achieved in order to survive. The firm wishes to know where to locate its outlets so as to maximize its market share taking into account the threshold level. It may happen that due to this new entrance, some competitors will not be able to meet the threshold and therefore will disappear. A formulation is presented together with a heuristic solution method and computational experience.     

城市民族餐馆空间分布的区位选择及文化邻近性

民族餐馆是餐饮服务业的特殊形式，认识其行业性质及文化特性是理解民族餐馆空间分布的关键。本研究以郑州、开封和洛阳为案例，从市场区位选择、文化邻近、城市格局等多个维度，对城市民族餐馆分布进行了探索性分析。研究发现，城市民族餐馆分布在空间分布结构上呈等级扩散分布，其集聚核心大多位于城市传统商业服务业中心；商圈、大学、医院等人口密集区，是城市民族餐馆市场选择的重要区位。民族餐馆与城市商圈具有较高的空间重合度，与大学、医院等区位要素空间关系因城而异。商圈周边布局民族餐馆的概率较高；城市民族餐馆在少数民族居住生活区域高度集中，民族商业文化传统对民族餐馆分布具有向心集聚作用。本研究认为城市民族餐馆分布取决于城市发展格局、市场区位选择及文化邻近的综合作用，民族餐馆的分布概率因城市规模大小、区位地点差异及空间尺度而发生变化。     

顾客对情境主题餐厅表演的感知研究——以广州味道云南食府为例

本文在构建情境主题餐厅概念的基础上,选取广州味道云南食府的顾客为研究对象,基于问卷调查,运用结构方程模型(SEM)、T检验和非参数检验的方法,探讨顾客对情境主题餐厅表演的感知特征。主要结论有:(1)情境主题餐厅表演感知影响顾客感知价值;(2)情境主题餐厅表演的感知价值影响顾客满意度;(3)情境主题餐厅表演感知影响顾客满意度;(4)顾客特征差异影响他们对情境主题餐厅表演的感知、感知价值和满意度。该结论对于新文化地理学城市微观文化空间的顾客感知理论有重要价值,对于情境主题餐厅的经营和发展也有一定的实践意义。     

A Statistical Method for Analyzing the Relative Location of Points in a Bounded Region

This paper develops a statistical method for analyzing the relative location of points in a bounded region. The location of points in relation to the center of the region in which they are located is discussed. Four spatial objects called reference objects are defined to represent the relative location: (1) the boundary, (2) skeleton, (3) nucleus, and (4) global center. The distribution of distance between points and a reference object yields a cumulative distribution function (CDF). Comparison of CDFs for a reference object allows us to analyze whether the points tend to be located close to the reference object or, for instance, whether the points are clustered around the center of the region. The significance of the CDF is statistically tested by Monte Carlo simulation. The method proposed is applied to the distribution of restaurants in retail clusters.     

Modeling Discontinuous Change in Retailing Systems: Extensions of the Harris-Wilson Framework With Results From a Simulated Urban Retailing System

This paper provides a test of an extension to the Harris-Wilson (1978) model for examining discontinuous change in retailing systems. While the Harris-Wilson model has been used almost exclusively to examine discontinuous change in the size of retail outlets, Fotheringham (1985) and Fotheringham and Knudsen (1986b) have recently shown it can be extended to model discontinuous change in the size and the relative location of retail outlets. Here, we present a test of this extension in a simulated urban retailing system. We also consider in more depth the supply side of the Harris-Wilson framework and show how discontinuous changes between non-zero equilibria can be modeled. Until now this has been impossible due to the previously restricted nature of the model. The generalization presented and examined here also allows an investigation of the trade-off between the size and the location of retail outlets and of the effects of different types of consumer shopping behavior.     

Do land use restrictions increase restaurant quality and diversity?

There is significant evidence that restrictions on residential land use reduce housing supply, increase house prices, and limit inflows of low‐income households. Local decision‐makers often argue that their efforts are mere attempts to preserve local amenities. We provide evidence that there is some truth to this claim: that residents of cities with more restrictions on land use appear to have access to higher‐quality and more diverse restaurants. In the process, we develop measures of restaurant quality based on organically generated data that, while strongly correlated with expert assessments, are more easily calculated at high frequencies and levels of geographic granularity.     

基于实体店比较的长春市外卖O2O餐饮业空间特征及成因

以实体餐饮商家信息和外卖O2O餐饮商家信息为数据基础,融合GIS空间分析和地理探测器等方法,对比分析两种餐饮业态的空间分布特征,并对外卖O2O餐饮业空间分异的成因进行讨论。主要结论如下：①基于路网单元的外卖O2O餐饮网点与实体餐饮网点数量等级存在较大关联。②外卖O2O餐饮业集聚中心正从城市中心区向郊区扩散,形成“圈层+多核心”的空间分布特征。③外卖O2O餐饮业依托商贸综合区和高校文教区高度集聚,并在空间上形成四个集聚热点区。④外卖O2O电子商务的空间发展特征更符合创新扩散假说,由创新中心向外围扩散。⑤对外卖O2O餐饮业空间格局起到主要解释作用的是外卖O2O餐饮商家所在区域的实体餐馆数量、医院数量和高校数量。     

Freedom of Establishment Versus Retail Planning: The European Case

Studies on retail planning in European Union (EU) Member States tend to be nationally oriented and, at best, compare national retail planning systems. They also appear to be based on an implicit assumption that retail planning should not be designed to fit the Single European Market (SEM). This paper analyses a series of judgments by the European Court of Justice and activities undertaken by the European Commission and concludes that this assumption is misguided and incorrect. The bottom line is that retail planning can interfere with freedom of establishment—one of the fundamental EU freedoms laid down in the Treaty of Rome—by limiting the realization of new shopping outlets and by redirecting retail to preselected locations. Such restrictions may be allowable if the Member State in question is able to demonstrate that they are non-discriminatory, appropriate and proportional on the basis of the interpretations of these fundamental principles in European Law. There is a European Retail Action Plan which aims to organize national retail planning systems in such a way that they are compatible with the principles of the SEM.     

大型旅行社空间扩张的区位选择--"上海春秋"案例

旅行社是介于旅游吸引物与旅游者之间的组织者,它对地理区位的选择是本文的探讨重点。本文以上海春秋国际旅行社为例,归纳它在国内宏、微观选址的经验,得到其以省会城市、著名旅游城市、新兴经济发达城市为节点的宏观网络和以中心门市及社区门市为节点的微观网络;根据区位因素理论,初步分析了与旅行社空间区位选择有关的一些因素,包括对市场、成本等一般性因素的分析和对行为等特殊性因素的分析;最后,提出旅行社的区位扩张不仅要重视物理空间,也要重视网络信息空间。     

Spatial Competition and Bounded Rationality: Retailing at the Edge of Chaos

The spatial dimension of competition among retail outlets is well researched and typically captured with spatial interaction models. A stream of theoretical research has studied the consequences of incorporating various types of dynamics into these models. We build on this research by incorporating a behavioral decision process based on bounded rationality, and by allowing for unexpected adversity in the environment in the form of exogenous shocks. Given these characteristics—spatial competition, boundedly rational decision making, and environmental adversity—we study the long-run dynamics of a model retail industry. The model reaches a stochastic steady state which is “poised,” in the sense that a shock may—or may not—trigger a wave of innovation which sweeps the entire system. Detailed investigation of this steady state shows that it has the characteristics of a general type of organization, known as self-organized criti-cality, that has been described in both theoretical biology and statistical physics.     

Storytelling and meal experience concepts

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to explore how storytelling with local and regional origin can be used to develop meal experience concepts in restaurants. Focus is on Nordic food from the perspective of the experience economy. The first goal is to analyse the transformation of menus into experience concepts and dining areas into experiencescapes. The second goal is to investigate if storytelling activities in restaurants can lead to destination development. It is also reflected upon if meal experience storytelling in restaurants has implications for consumers’ everyday food consumption. Three cases in Sweden and Norway with different storytelling strategies are selected. In all these cases, the stories are unique, the places are linked to the stories and the personnel take part in the storytelling activities. The stories are easy to communicate and easy for the target group to connect to. The menus are linked to the story and are all based on local Nordic food culture and local food products. The menus are set and offered in experiencescapes that in various ways fit the stories. The concepts have contributed to the destinations with more visitors, more collaboration among businesses and increased media attention.     

城市设施环境对初中学生体质健康的影响——以大连市主城区为例

青少年学生体质下降,身体形态肥胖化。论文以BMI指数衡量学生体质健康,通过地理加权回归模型分析了校内、通学以及社区服务设施对初中学生体质健康的异质性影响。发现:(1)初中学生体质健康社区分异明显,超重低风险和未超重高风险社区围绕超重高风险社区集聚。(2)能量摄入型设施分布从中心向边缘逐渐减少,能量消耗型设施表现出相反的特征,道路网密度向中心集聚,医疗设施呈离散分布。(3)学校人均绿地面积,通学距离、道路网密度,公交站、西餐厅、休憩设施、零售设施、医疗设施可达性对学生体质健康的影响在中心区与边缘区具有异质性。     

Beyond the local: places,people, and brands in New England beer marketing

Despite decades of domination by a few large companies, the American beer market has seen a dramatic resurgence of microbreweries. Contrary to conventional oligopolistic market theories, small firms have consistently gained market share from their entrenched competitors. Researchers have attributed this success to “neolocalism.” Through their marketing, microbreweries appeal to consumers’ desire for connections to real people and distinctive products from local places. However, no study has verified whether this pattern is most characteristic of microbreweries. With newer firms threatening their market share, larger firms might adopt neolocal claims, but little empirical attention has been directed at large brewers, and mid-sized, regional firms have been largely ignored by researchers. This paper uses content analysis of beer packaging to investigate the nature of the appeals made to consumers. I find that while microbreweries do make neolocal claims, regional breweries are more likely to associate their products with places on a local scale. Large breweries make few such claims, but instead rely on “reflexive branding”: marketing that refers back to the brand itself rather than borrowing existing symbolism from people or places. These findings partly support the neolocal perspective, but also challenge our expectations of which firms use neolocal appeals the most.     

Problems in the Study of Domestic Commerce of the USSR

Greater attention to the study of the Soviet internal commerce is proposed, with particular emphasis on the geographical differences in retailing. The sources of marketable goods in any particular region are locally produced consumer goods, farm produce and forest products as well as goods shipped in from other parts of the USSR and from abroad. Regional economic-geographic factors affect both the volume and the structure of retail trade. Volume is affected by such factors as the size of population, income levels, regional prices, and the availability of retail outlets. Structure of retailing is affected by regional differences in production and consumption, income levels, ethnic preferences and seasonal changes.     

Geographical structure in nineteenth-century urban retailing: Milwaukee, 1836–1890

This study explores the spatial structure of retailing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the era before the introduction of the electric streetcar in 1890. It uses city directory listings to chart changes in the numbers and types of retail outlets, their degree of nucleation and the functional complexity of such nucleations. The evidence suggests the early appearance of non-central retailing, the rapid dispersal of high as well as low order goods to non-central sites and the early emergence initially of a three-level and then, by 1870, a four-level hierarchy of shopping clusters. The pattern of retail clustering varied with the class and ethnic character of neighbourhoods, and clusters gravitated toward major arterial routes even in the pre-mass transit ear. Urban retailing in the second half of the nineteenth century was neither randomly dispersed nor over-whelmingly concentrated in a single central retail district, but developed a spatial hierarchy that clearly anticipated modern patterns.