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Introduction
International tourism is of great importance to the economies of Mediterranean countries with its creation of foreign exchange earnings, employment, generation of income and regional development effects ([25] Dieke and Karamustafa, 2000). However, the Mediterranean tourism industry has traditionally been characterized by strong seasonality, with large differences in occupancy rates between winter and summer ([3] Amelung and Viner, 2006; [41] Hoti et al. , 2007). Seasonality not only reduces profitability and renders human resources management difficult, it also causes temporal variations in the capacity utilization of facilities and hence their productivity ([6] Ashworth and Thomas, 1999; [53] Krakover, 2000; [43] Ismert and Petrick, 2004). In a peak season or in a region with only one strong season, congestion and overbooking will reduce the quality of service if the number of tourists exceeds the bed capacity. In such conditions, businesses may suffer a decline in their profit that would not be compensated in the low or off-season ([68] Parrilla et al. , 2007).
There are a number of studies focusing on the effects of seasonality on employment ([7] Ball, 1988; [57] Lee-Ross, 1999; [39] Hinch and Jackson, 2000; [31] Flognfeldt, 2001; [67] Nesheim, 2003; [32] Getz and Nilsson, 2004). [53] Krakover (2000) has studied the relationship between the factors causing changes in the number of employees working in Israeli hotels and the tourism demand. The variables that have been investigated can be categorized as international and domestic tourist demand, occupancy rates, seasonality indices, and long-term trends. The study of Krakover indicates that there is a negative correlation between the changes in employee numbers and the occupancy rates. [6] Ashworth and Thomas (1999) analyzed the employment strategies developed against seasonality in the UK between 1982 and 1996. One of the most important problems related to the seasonal employment is to hire and keep the full-time skilled human resources. This results in the direction of low-educated, unskilled, and semi-skilled workforce to the industry. This causes unsustainability of the quality of services ([47] Jolliffe and Farnsworth, 2006). In fact, seasonality affects all aspects of the tourist industry, including hotel occupancy rates, as well as employment and retention of labor, and under-utilization of tourist attractions and services during the off-season ([49] Koc and Altinay, 2007). Furthermore, overcrowding is...