No. 1 (2012)

The exciting advancements emerging from the research community about context-aware personalization services let envisage a new generation of e-tourism platforms best suited for addressing the challenges faced by the tourism industry to serve effectively the mobile scenario. This paper presents some recent developments in the field of mobile recommender systems applied to the tourism domain that allow to take full advantage of the knowledge of the current interaction context to tailor the information shown to the user and the interaction flow to best suit the situation. General design guidelines for system architectures are also proposed to help migrate from traditional web-centric e-tourism applications to more Comprehensive and modular platforms supporting the full integration between web and mobile services.

The paper provides empirical evidence supporting the assumption that content plays a critical role in determining the virality, i.e. the influence, of social media information. The analysis focuses on multimedia content on Twitter and explores the idea that links to multimedia information increase the virality of posts. In particular, we put forward the following three hypotheses: 1) posts with a link to multimedia content (photo or video) are more retweeted than posts without a link, 2) posts linking a photo are more retweeted than posts linking a video, and 3) posts linking a video raise more sentiment than posts linking a photo. Hypotheses are tested on a sample of roughly two million tweets posted in July 2011 including comments on Berlin, London, Madrid, and Milan relevant from a tourism perspective. Findings support our hypotheses and indicate that multimedia content plays an important role in determining the volumes of retweeting.

Objectives – Recently, there has been a growing interest in User-Generated Content (UGC), and Web 2.0 in particular, as one of the most important sources of information for consumers making a purchasing decision. There is a substantial body of literature covering the influence of UGC on the tourist information search but very few studies have focused on examining referral and conversion traffic from UGC to other key online and offline information sources (cross-visitation). Further, little research has focussed on analysing when consumers use UGC along with their information-search and the related cross-visitation. Moving on from a brief literature review on UGC and its influence on tourists’ choices, the aim of this study is to contribute towards filling this gap by taking a snapshot of the rapidly changing field of consumer choices. We look at how consumers gather information and make their decisions regarding travel purchases, based on an empirical investigation carried out on a sample of Italian tourists. Methods – This study is based on an empirical investigation that was carried out by sending a semistructured questionnaire by e-mail (on-line survey). A snowball sampling technique was used allowing to reach a convenience sample of 623 respondents from all regions of Italy. Results – The findings suggest that UGC plays a relevant role, along with all the online searching and booking behaviour of tourists, particularly UGC within third-parties websites (Expedia, Booking.com etc) which appears to be especially significant in the early stage of the tourist information search process. Conclusions – In tune with prior research, the findings suggest that hotel marketers should monitor their brand reputation over the internet and should pay particular attention to UGC uploaded onto On line Travel Agencies (OTAs), considering that it is by looking at ratings and comments within these websites that consumers’ decision making actually starts in most instances. Further, an effective development and control of the hotel’s online presence on a UGC platform can improve the success rate of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) procedures, increasing the traffic on the official website of hotels.

From many informal meetings with Italian hotel managers in the last five years, some recurrent questions have emerged about Revenue Management and Multi-channelling strategy applications, two crucial challenges for the global hospitality industry. Four outstanding problems are related to the confusion between RM and profit management, the doubt whether RM must be diversified by distribution channels, data quality for RM and multichannel management and the compatibility between RM and CRM. The paper propose comprehensive but synthetic diagnostics of the problems and proposes specific suggestions for their solution.

Social Network Analysis methods are used to study the effects of an intranet collaborative platform in the process of reorganization of an Italian multinational enterprise. The analysis highlights the level of participation by the employees and testifies the extent of collaboration between them beyond the strict hierarchical affiliation. It proves how informal connections are established autonomously and how these connections help in the process of merging different units. It also shows the important role of middle hierarchical levels in fostering this process.

ICT are a primary factor in explaining tourism sector trends, driving competition among destinations and accommodation segments, and encouraging vertical integration processes along the sector value chain. From an updated overview of regional sector, this paper investigates the presence of a company website as well as the penetration rate of web booking engines within Sardinia hotel industry. If only the most relevant structures have adequate technological equipments, the survey reveals a widespread delay in adopting appropriate tools for direct marketing. Development potentials are therefore contextualized within the actual institutional framework, aimed to sustain a progressive upgrade of hospitality sector in order to meet renewed tourism market needs.