When planning itineraries in areas where major cities are spread out, what routing strategy is often mentioned?

Hub-and-spoke routing is a commonly discussed strategy for planning itineraries in regions where major cities are dispersed. This approach involves using a central hub, which serves as a focal point for travelers to transfer to their final destinations—spokes leading out from the hub. This method is particularly effective in maximizing efficiency and minimizing travel time, as it allows for multiple connections through a single centralized airport or station.

This strategy is advantageous because it can reduce operational costs for airlines or transport services and simplify scheduling. In areas with widely spaced destinations, a hub can facilitate easier access to several cities via less direct routes, rather than requiring direct connections to each individual city, which may not be feasible due to lower demand.

The other routing strategies, while they have their own applications, do not fit as well in the context described. Direct routing typically refers to travel plans that involve a straight path from origin to destination without unnecessary stops. Point-to-point routing focuses on direct connections between cities without a centralized hub, which could lead to less efficient travel in a spread-out scenario. Loop routing involves traveling in a circular path returning to the starting point, which doesn't apply when cities are sparsely distributed. Thus, hub-and-spoke routing is the most effective choice for optimizing itineraries