With the advent of rising mobility and leisure time together with a structural ten- dency for declining airfares, tourism has become a sector of major significance in modern economies. There is a wealth of literature on the motives of tourists, on the sustainability aspects of large-scale tourism, on the expected economic and social consequences of tourism in host countries and regions, on the attractiveness of dif- ferent localities and tourist sites (e.g., beaches, historico-cultural heritage, nature etc.), or on local or regional initiatives to promote tourism (e.g., through tourism packages, e-services etc.). Tourism research has indeed become a booming and timely research approach in contemporaneous economics. There is indeed a host of descriptive, qualitative and policy-oriented research, but applied and quantitatively-oriented economic research is still underrepresented. Fortunately, we have witnessed in the past years an upsurge of model-based eco- nomic research in the tourist sector, which builds on powerful research tools in quantitative economics, such as discrete choice models, social accounting matrices, data envelopment analysis, impact assessment models or partial computable equilib- rium models including environmental externalities. The present volume originates from this novel research spirit in tourism economics and aims to offer an attractive collection of operational research tools and approaches in tourism research. Orig- inality and advanced methodology have been the major criteria for selecting these contributions. They form an appealing record of modern tourism economic research and position tourism economics within the strong tradition of quantitative economic research, with due attention for both the demand and supply side of the tourism sec- tor, including technological and logistic advances in the sector. This volume offers thus examples of pioneering research in tourism economics.