Promoção dos parques temáticos nos websites

Mestrado em Gestão e Planeamento em TurismoEsta dissertação pretende identificar os fatores críticos de sucesso em parques temáticos e o modo como estes fatores são explorados na promoção dos parques através dos seus websites. No âmbito do Turismo, a importância dos parques temáticos tem vindo, em geral, a aumentar. A Internet tem assumido uma grande relevância a nível da promoção turística nos últimos tempos, apresentando-se como uma nova oportunidade para os parques temáticos captarem o interesse do consumidor. Com base na revisão da literatura identificaram-se os fatores de sucesso dos parques temáticos e analisaram-se as oportunidades oferecidas pela Internet ao nível da promoção do turismo. Procedeu-se a uma investigação empírica com o objetivo de estudar a promoção a nível dos websites dos parques temáticos mais visitados da Europa, em 2012. Foi feita uma análise do conteúdo dos websites através da contabilização de palavras-chave relacionadas com fatores críticos de sucesso previamente identificadas na revisão da literatura. Os resultados obtidos no presente estudo permitiram identificar o ‘tema’ como o fator de sucesso mais proeminente nos websites dos parques temáticos, seguido das ‘atrações’, ‘preço’ e ‘emoções’. Os fatores com menor evidência ao longo dos websites foram o ‘staff’ e a ‘segurança’. O presente estudo fornece orientações importantes para os responsáveis pela promoção dos parques temáticos, nomeadamente, no que concerne à promoção dos parques através de websites.This dissertation aims to identify the critical success factors in theme parks and the way these factors are explored in the promotion of these parks through websites. In general, the importance of theme parks in the scope of tourism is increasing. Nowadays, the Internet has assumed a great relevance in the tourism promotion, presenting itself as an opportunity for theme parks to capture the consumers’ interest. Based on a literature review the success factors of the theme parks were identified and the opportunities offered by the Internet in the scope of tourism promotion were analyzed. An empirical research aimed to analyze the promotion through the websites of the most visited theme parks in Europe in 2012, was carried out. A content analysis of the websites was performed by counting words related to success factors previously selected based on the literature review. The results obtained in this study identified the ‘theme’ as the most prominent success factor in the theme parks’ websites, followed by ‘attractions’, ‘price’ and ‘emotions’. The factors with less relevance were the ‘staff’ and ‘security’. The present study provides important guidelines for those responsible for the promotion of theme parks, namely, as far as the promotion of theme parks through websites is concerned

Critical Success Factors for Positive User Experience in Hotel Websites: Applying Herzberg's Two Factor Theory for User Experience Modeling

This research presents the development of a critical success factor matrix for increasing positive user experience of hotel websites based upon user ratings. Firstly, a number of critical success factors for web usability have been identified through the initial literature review. Secondly, hotel websites were surveyed in terms of critical success factors identified through the literature review. Thirdly, Herzberg's motivation theory has been applied to the user rating and the critical success factors were categorized into two areas. Finally, the critical success factor matrix has been developed using the two main sets of data.Comment: Journal articl

Information Technology Applications in Hospitality and Tourism: A Review of Publications from 2005 to 2007

The tourism and hospitality industries have widely adopted information technology (IT) to reduce costs, enhance operational efficiency, and most importantly to improve service quality and customer experience. This article offers a comprehensive review of articles that were published in 57 tourism and hospitality research journals from 2005 to 2007. Grouping the findings into the categories of consumers, technologies, and suppliers, the article sheds light on the evolution of IT applications in the tourism and hospitality industries. The article demonstrates that IT is increasingly becoming critical for the competitive operations of the tourism and hospitality organizations as well as for managing the distribution and marketing of organizations on a global scale

Selling Rooms Online: The Use of Social Media and Online Travel Agents

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on the reason why hoteliers choose to be present in online travel agent (OTA) and social media web sites for sales purposes. It also investigates the technological and human factors related to these two practices. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a survey sent to a wide range of hotels in a Swiss touristic region. The empirical analysis involves the specification of two ordered logit models exploring the importance (in terms of online sales) of both social media and the online travel agent, Booking.com. Findings – Findings highlight the constant tension between visibility and online sales in the web arena, as well as a clear distinction in social media and OTA web site adoption between hospitality structures using online management tools and employing personnel with specific skills. Practical implications – The research highlights the need for the hospitality industry to maintain an effective presence on social media and OTAs in order to move towards the creation of a new form of social booking technologies to increase their visibility and sales. Originality/value – This research contributes to understanding the major role played by OTAs and social media in the hospitality industry while underlining the possibility of a major interplay between the two

Effects of customer trust and online experiences in building hospitality brands

Customer trust embodies customer beliefs of actually receiving a promised service and manifestations of consumer’s confidences in an exchange parties reliability and integrity. The study is based on the fact as to how trusts criteria affect online purchase especially in regard to booking and buying the accommodations and also that accommodation providers assume that are very essential for consumers to make the online purchase. In total 150 consumers and 80 hotels owners/operators in India were examined. There are enormous discrepancies between consumers and accommodation providers were searched. Like formal guarantee of providers, security concern, refund of price paid delivery time and information about confirmation and they will switch from one brand to other due to promise breakage, less service quality, high price charged. However, these trust criteria were viewed inconsequential by the accommodation providers. It concluded with vast number of suggestions and recommendations for the accommodation providers need to include in their websites and build reputation and strong brands in the hospitality market

Destination Online Communication: Why Less is Sometimes More. A Study of Online Communications of English Destinations

This research investigates the relationship between Web site design and the Web site end-user experience of a vast number of English tourism destinations, both local and regional ones. Following recent research in the field, this paper evaluates destinations' online communication based on the implemented Web site features and on the effectiveness of the communication itself, borrowing its research methodology from different domains. After content and functionality analysis, a user-experience, scenario-based investigation has been carried out, which demonstrated that complex Web sites do not always serve end-users' needs properly; in other words, Web site complexity is not directly related with good user experience. This research may help destination managers to foster their online communication if they have fewer content and functionalities but are better focused and clearly user-oriented. © 2014 Taylor & Francis