Alexander Aguirre, Antonio Zayas, Diego Gómez-Carmona and José Antonio López Sánchez
Tourism sustainability is a challenge for 21st-century destinations – this paper aims to analyse smart destinations' sustainability through a case study of Benidorm, the first…
Abstract
Purpose
Tourism sustainability is a challenge for 21st-century destinations – this paper aims to analyse smart destinations' sustainability through a case study of Benidorm, the first world destination to be certified under the UNE 178501 standard as smart tourism destination (STD).
Design/methodology/approach
The methodological component has been divided into developing a framework for measuring sustainability through economic, social and environmental open data. Moreover, studying the plan's contribution “Benidorm, Destino Turístico Inteligente y Sostenible” to the city's sustainability through a time series analysis.
Findings
The main contribution shows that Benidorm's transformation into an STD leads to more sustainable cities. Thus, the conversion of Benidorm into an STD has a sustained effect in the medium and long term, contributing to the sustainability of the city.
Research limitations/implications
An open question as a limitation is the subjectivity of the distribution of the relative weight of each indicator. However, statistical analyses are developed to explore the relationship between indicators and global sustainability.
Practical implications
The debate to contextualise this paper is bridging the gap between sustainability and tourism intelligence, giving an original framework for measuring destination sustainability that provides a reasonable starting point for comparing tourism sustainability in different destinations.
Social implications
Tourists in the 21st century prefer environmentally friendly tourism. Marketing campaigns based on destination sustainability must be based on data rather than mere slogans.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the originality of this paper provides a flexible framework for measuring sustainability from open data sources, being one of the first empirical analyses to study the effects on the sustainability of converting a mature destination into an STD.
Details
Keywords
Gabriela Purcini, Leonardo Medeiros Medeiros Barretta, Luciana Ferreira and Marina Lourenção
This study aims to compare the influence of origin types (country-of-origin – COO versus geographic indication – GI) and wine worlds (new versus old wine country – represented by…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to compare the influence of origin types (country-of-origin – COO versus geographic indication – GI) and wine worlds (new versus old wine country – represented by Brazil and Italia, respectively) on the attitude of low-involvement Generation Z potential consumers from Brazil toward wine ads.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a two (COO vs GI) by two (New vs Old World) within-subject experimental design with 98 Brazilians from Generation Z. Latin square was used to systematically counterbalances the sequence in which participants were exposed to ads.
Findings
The results reveal that potential consumers’ attitudes are more positive when a COO is used in wine advertisements than when a GI is used. Besides, the consumers’ conative response is more positive when an Old World country (Italy) is used in wine ads than when New World country (Brazil) is used.
Research limitations/implications
This study expands existing literature by showing that, in wine ads, COO information elicits more positive responses than GI. It also suggests a preference among potential consumers for Old over New World wines in purchase, recommendation and consumption decisions.
Practical implications
The wine advertisements for the market segment investigated should highlight the COO instead of geographical indication (GI). Besides, the authors point out the importance of promoting the concept of GI among low-involvement Generation Z potential consumers.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to assess potential consumers’ attitudes toward wine ads, comparing COO and GI and determining which geographical cue elicits more positive consumer attitudes: origin types (COO vs GI) or wine worlds (Old vs New).
Details
Keywords
Hengyun Li, Lingyan Zhang, Rui (Ami) Guo, Haipeng Ji and Bruce X.B. Yu
This study aims to investigate the promoting effects of the quantity and quality of online review user-generated photos (UGPs) on perceived review usefulness. The research further…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the promoting effects of the quantity and quality of online review user-generated photos (UGPs) on perceived review usefulness. The research further tests the hindering effect of human facial presence in review photos on review usefulness.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on review samples of restaurants in a tourist destination Las Vegas, this study used an integrated method combining a machine learning algorithm and econometric modeling.
Findings
Results indicate that the number of UGPs depicting a restaurant’s food, drink, menu and physical environment has positive impacts on perceived review usefulness. The quality of online review UGPs can also enhance perceived review usefulness, whereas facial presence in these UGPs hinders perceived review usefulness.
Practical implications
Findings suggest that practitioners can implement certain tactics to potentially improve consumers’ willingness to share more UGPs and UGPs with higher quality. Review websites could develop image-processing algorithms for identifying and presenting UGPs containing core attributes in prominent positions on the site.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to present a comprehensive analytical framework investigating the enhancing or hindering roles of review photo quantity, photo quality and facial presence in online review UGPs on review usefulness. Using the heuristic-systematic model as a theoretical foundation, this study verifies the additivity effect and attenuation effect of UGPs’ visual elements on judgements of online review usefulness. Furthermore, it extends scalable image data analysis by adopting a deep transfer learning algorithm in hospitality and tourism.