Good Taste: Expanding Profits and Geographic Horizons through Social Responsibility

Ilusión+, otherwise known as Ilusión Más, is a socially-responsible wine enterprise founded by Pau and Gina Torres, a couple from Tarragona, Spain. In 2013, Pau was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a motor neuron disease which causes muscles to weaken over time and eventually atrophy (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke). In Spanish, Ilusión signifies hope and wishful thinking, serving as an optimistic name which embodies the resilient attitude of its owners (Word Reference). Ilusión+ selects wine from Spanish vineyards and distributes them in restaurants throughout the country under their brand and story. The company donates a portion of the proceeds to partner foundations dedicated to research related to neurodegenerative diseases, such as Fundación Esclerosis Múltiple (FEM) and Fundación Luzon. Based in Tarragona, a city in the autonomous region of Catalonia, Ilusion+ has additional distribution channels in Barcelona, Girona, and Leida. They also have an online presence where their wine and cava, a Spanish sparkling wine, are available for domestic purchase. The company has successfully sold over 9,000 bottles of wine (Ilusión+). The owners have current dreams of expanding to the U.S marketplace, and implementing a similar business model, utilizing Napa Valley vineyards as a means of sourcing. Due to the smaller, family oriented nature of the company, as well as the unpredictability of illness, the best way to finance expansion is increasing profits. This is accomplished by examining ways to reduce costs and expand revenue generation, while monitoring external factors (ex: economic, political/legal, industry, etc.) and the influence they may wield on company operations. Spain continues to make slow strides in its recovery from the European and global financial crises, and interest rates have maintained their long-term trend of decline, increasing the affordability of borrowing funds if the company is able to take on the burden of debt. A decreasing, yet high youth unemployment rate keeps to cost of labor low in the event that Ilusión+ needs more employees to divvy out operational tasks. Although Catalonia faced a large independence crisis, the intervention of the Spanish government and the subsequent arrest of movement leaders, dilute the threat of economic repercussions. The largest domestic strategy recommendation is to enter new markets and to increase resources devoted to advertising—more specifically to millennial-targeted, influencer marketing campaigns. Geographically, the company has not expanded far beyond the autonomous region of Catalonia, leaving one of the largest cities in the EU—Madrid—untapped. Ilusión+ should devote operational efforts to develop new business relationships with retail establishments in the capital city. In the United States, Ilusión+’s target market of consumers is made up of millennials. Their preferences for cause-related goods, or goods with a philanthropic purpose, as well as alcoholic beverages with unique origins position Ilusión+ for greater success if it imports Spanish wine and cava instead of selling wine sourced from California. The special connection of the owner to both the curation and cause of the product sets the company apart in the eyes of consumers. It is recommended that Ilusión+ adopts the sale of additional nonperishable items, such as branded T-shirts and stemless wine glasses to extend their product mix and marketability. To reach its millennial market, it is recommended Ilusión+ distributes its product through upscale wine bars with chain locations around the country. Additionally it can aid promotional efforts by launching social media marketing campaigns which use branded hashtags and by encouraging branded events with the exclusive use of its products. In the U.S it will rebrand its product mix under the name, ‘Half Full’ to represent the owners’ attitudes of optimism in times of adversity and the visualization of a filled wine glass. This is primarily an effort to avoid confusion between the connotations of its name in English, as a philanthropic company named ‘Ilusion’ is at best an oxymoron. It is important to note that Ilusión+ is a private company with limited financial reports available to utilize for analysis and future projections. Due to this constraint, it is not feasible to make specific predictions regarding the required capital for an international expansion. It is recommended that Ilusión+ works with an established importer within the United States in order to avoid extra legal fees and business expenses which can eat away at the company’s margins. Furthermore, capital projections are largely dependent upon fees which vary greatly among importation companies, retail distribution outlets, transportation methods, and the quantity of goods imported internationally. In the following report, I will go in further in-depth to expand upon strategies aimed at increasing domestic profits, as well as propose a U.S rebranding, marketing, and distribution strategy that is suitable to the size and age of the company

The Cycling route trip planning APP

Treballs Finals del Màster en Creación y Gestión de Empresas Innovadoras y de Base Tecnológica, Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2022-2023, Tutor: Adriana EspinetThe fitness industry has experienced significant growth in recent years. As research continues to grow, it is increasingly recognized that physical activity is essential for the well-being of individuals. Moreover, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, outdoor physical activities have become more prevalent than ever before, which has led to an increase in bicycle sales and cycling as a mode of transportation. For example, in the United Kingdom, bicycle sales increased by 63% (Reid, 2020), and cycling levels rose by as much as 300% on some days during the lockdown period (2019-2021) (Sutton,2020). Furthermore, in recent years there has been a noticeable trend towards promoting sustainable practices and eco-tourism. One form of eco-tourism that has gained significant attention worldwide is cycle tourism. Cycle tourism, also known as bicycle tourism, is any type of tourism that entails travelling by bicycle and encompasses many different forms such as long-distance cycling trips, guided tours, and self-guided rides. Expedite by the COVID-19 pandemic and consumer-driven ventures to explore nature, the demand for cycle tourism is growing across the globe (Grand View Review, 2022). In 2019, Europe had the largest share of the cycling tourism market, accounting for approximately 40% of the global market (Global View Research, 2022)

Business and editorial practices in digital native media in Mexico: an investigation into media routines

The current Mexican news market for online news is composed of legacy media companies that migrated to the internet, as well as media outlets that were born on the internet, known as digital native media. This new generation of news sites currently rank among the top read media in the country, exemplifying the evolution of the journalism environment and raising questions about the strategies they applied to become profitable news companies in a highly competitive industry. This research interviewed 10 decision makers from 10 of the 15 most read digital native media in Mexico to document their organizations' business practices and how these ultimately impact the news they produce, under the perspective of the Hierarchy of Influences Model from Shoemaker and Reese. The study focused on the Organizations and Routines levels of influence, contributing to mass media research from the perspectives of media funding, and Mexican digital journalism.Includes bibliographical references

Advertising appeals and cultural values in social media brand posts: a comparison between Finland and Spain

Social media offers companies new opportunities for marketing and investments in social media marketing are continuously growing. Brands are balancing between standardizing and adapting their traditional media marketing in different countries and often social media brand content is partially made by their global corporate headquarters, thus limiting the possibilities for adaptation of social media content. The purpose of this study is to analyze social media brand posts and compare them in two countries: Finland and Spain. Albers-Miller and Gelb’s framework that combines Pollay’s advertising appeals framework and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions framework is used to create the structure for this study. Content analysis is used as a research method in this study. A mixed method design is applied, as the posts are first categorized into appeals and the differences in frequencies of used appeals is analyzed quantitatively. Then the posts are studied more in-depth qualitatively. Altogether, 480 posts from the most valuable brands in the world were gathered from their Finnish and Spanish Facebook brand pages. The quantitative findings show that only six out of 30 appeals were used to a significantly different extent in Finland and Spain: affiliation, family, distinctive, popular, community and safety. Of those, only the two first were used accordingly with the proposed cultural dimensions. The results show also only some slight qualitative differences in the use of appeals. Some appeals, especially affiliation, were used to take advantage of the opportunities that social media offers as a platform. Thus, few differences in social media marketing of global top brands in Finland and Spain were found.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Website speed testing analysis using speedtesting model

Page load speed reflects the website´s performance. It has a significant influence on user experience and satisfaction. In this work we study and analyze the reasons cause the slowness of webpages load speed. By the deep investigation of the related literature and the review of websites speed testing services from different perspectives such as functions, interface and additional settings. We present a detailed recommendations that can be followed to optimize site's performance. Our hypotheses about reliability of website speed testing has been tested and conformed experimentally. 378 individual speed tests with various combinations of settings experiments have been performed to confirm out hypotheses, and recommendations have been provided based on our results. We believe that following these rules would ensure significantly more reliable website speed testing in comparison with a common practic

5th International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics (CARMA 2023)

Research methods in economics and social sciences are evolving with the increasing availability of Internet and Big Data sources of information. As these sources, methods, and applications become more interdisciplinary, the 5th International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics (CARMA) is a forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas and advances on how emerging research methods and sources are applied to different fields of social sciences as well as to discuss current and future challenges.Martínez Torres, MDR.; Toral Marín, S. (2023). 5th International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics (CARMA 2023). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2023.2023.1700

Sentiment Analysis of Textual Content in Social Networks. From Hand-Crafted to Deep Learning-Based Models

Aquesta tesi proposa diversos mètodes avançats per analitzar automàticament el contingut textual compartit a les xarxes socials i identificar les opinions, emocions i sentiments a diferents nivells d’anàlisi i en diferents idiomes. Comencem proposant un sistema d’anàlisi de sentiments, anomenat SentiRich, basat en un conjunt ric d’atributs, inclosa la informació extreta de lèxics de sentiments i models de word embedding pre-entrenats. A continuació, proposem un sistema basat en Xarxes Neurals Convolucionals i regressors XGboost per resoldre una sèrie de tasques d’anàlisi de sentiments i emocions a Twitter. Aquestes tasques van des de les tasques típiques d’anàlisi de sentiments fins a determinar automàticament la intensitat d’una emoció (com ara alegria, por, ira, etc.) i la intensitat del sentiment dels autors a partir dels seus tweets. També proposem un nou sistema basat en Deep Learning per solucionar el problema de classificació de les emocions múltiples a Twitter. A més, es va considerar el problema de l’anàlisi del sentiment depenent de l’objectiu. Per a aquest propòsit, proposem un sistema basat en Deep Learning que identifica i extreu l'objectiu dels tweets. Tot i que alguns idiomes, com l’anglès, disposen d’una àmplia gamma de recursos per permetre l’anàlisi del sentiment, a la majoria de llenguatges els hi manca. Per tant, utilitzem la tècnica d'anàlisi de sentiments entre idiomes per desenvolupar un sistema nou, multilingüe i basat en Deep Learning per a llenguatges amb pocs recursos lingüístics. Proposem combinar l’ajuda a la presa de decisions multi-criteri i anàlisis de sentiments per desenvolupar un sistema que permeti als usuaris la possibilitat d’explotar tant les opinions com les seves preferències en el procés de classificació d’alternatives. Finalment, vam aplicar els sistemes desenvolupats al camp de la comunicació de les marques de destinació a través de les xarxes socials. Amb aquesta finalitat, hem recollit tweets de persones locals, visitants i els gabinets oficials de Turisme de diferents destinacions turístiques i es van analitzar les opinions i les emocions compartides en ells. En general, els mètodes proposats en aquesta tesi milloren el rendiment dels enfocaments d’última generació i mostren troballes apassionants.Esta tesis propone varios métodos avanzados para analizar automáticamente el contenido textual compartido en las redes sociales e identificar opiniones, emociones y sentimientos, en diferentes niveles de análisis y en diferentes idiomas. Comenzamos proponiendo un sistema de análisis de sentimientos, llamado SentiRich, que está basado en un conjunto rico de características, que incluyen la información extraída de léxicos de sentimientos y modelos de word embedding previamente entrenados. Luego, proponemos un sistema basado en redes neuronales convolucionales y regresores XGboost para resolver una variedad de tareas de análisis de sentimientos y emociones en Twitter. Estas tareas van desde las típicas tareas de análisis de sentimientos hasta la determinación automática de la intensidad de una emoción (como alegría, miedo, ira, etc.) y la intensidad del sentimiento de los autores de los tweets. También proponemos un novedoso sistema basado en Deep Learning para abordar el problema de clasificación de emociones múltiples en Twitter. Además, consideramos el problema del análisis de sentimientos dependiente del objetivo. Para este propósito, proponemos un sistema basado en Deep Learning que identifica y extrae el objetivo de los tweets. Si bien algunos idiomas, como el inglés, tienen una amplia gama de recursos para permitir el análisis de sentimientos, la mayoría de los idiomas carecen de ellos. Por lo tanto, utilizamos la técnica de Análisis de Sentimiento Inter-lingual para desarrollar un sistema novedoso, multilingüe y basado en Deep Learning para los lenguajes con pocos recursos lingüísticos. Proponemos combinar la Ayuda a la Toma de Decisiones Multi-criterio y el análisis de sentimientos para desarrollar un sistema que brinde a los usuarios la capacidad de explotar las opiniones junto con sus preferencias en el proceso de clasificación de alternativas. Finalmente, aplicamos los sistemas desarrollados al campo de la comunicación de las marcas de destino a través de las redes sociales. Con este fin, recopilamos tweets de personas locales, visitantes, y gabinetes oficiales de Turismo de diferentes destinos turísticos y analizamos las opiniones y las emociones compartidas en ellos. En general, los métodos propuestos en esta tesis mejoran el rendimiento de los enfoques de vanguardia y muestran hallazgos interesa.This thesis proposes several advanced methods to automatically analyse textual content shared on social networks and identify people’ opinions, emotions and feelings at a different level of analysis and in different languages. We start by proposing a sentiment analysis system, called SentiRich, based on a set of rich features, including the information extracted from sentiment lexicons and pre-trained word embedding models. Then, we propose an ensemble system based on Convolutional Neural Networks and XGboost regressors to solve an array of sentiment and emotion analysis tasks on Twitter. These tasks range from the typical sentiment analysis tasks, to automatically determining the intensity of an emotion (such as joy, fear, anger, etc.) and the intensity of sentiment (aka valence) of the authors from their tweets. We also propose a novel Deep Learning-based system to address the multiple emotion classification problem on Twitter. Moreover, we considered the problem of target-dependent sentiment analysis. For this purpose, we propose a Deep Learning-based system that identifies and extracts the target of the tweets. While some languages, such as English, have a vast array of resources to enable sentiment analysis, most low-resource languages lack them. So, we utilise the Cross-lingual Sentiment Analysis technique to develop a novel, multi-lingual and Deep Learning-based system for low resource languages. We propose to combine Multi-Criteria Decision Aid and sentiment analysis to develop a system that gives users the ability to exploit reviews alongside their preferences in the process of alternatives ranking. Finally, we applied the developed systems to the field of communication of destination brands through social networks. To this end, we collected tweets of local people, visitors, and official brand destination offices from different tourist destinations and analysed the opinions and the emotions shared in these tweets

Essays on efficiency and international tourism

RESUMEN: Esta tesis doctoral consta de tres ensayos sobre la economía del turismo. En el primer y tercer ensayo se realiza un análisis de eficiencia turística de las regiones españolas y de los factores que pueden estar determinando su evolución. En el segundo ensayo se hace una profunda revisión bibliográfica sobre la literatura que analiza la eficiencia turística a nivel mundial. El período de análisis abarca desde la última mitad del siglo XX (entre 1978 en el caso del estudio de la bibliografía turística, año en el que Charnes, Cooper y Rhodes introducen el Análisis Envolvente de Datos) hasta el periodo más reciente de nuestra economía (2018 en el tercer ensayo). En los dos ensayos que analizan la eficiencia turística en España el periodo comprende desde inicios del siglo XXI (2008 en el caso de la eficiencia de los destinos turísticos españoles) hasta los datos más actuales disponibles en este momento.ABSTRACT: This doctoral thesis consists of three essays on the economics of tourism. In the first and third essay an analysis of tourist efficiency of the Spanish regions and of the factors that may be determining their evolution is carried out. In the second essay, an in-depth bibliographical review is done on the literature that analyzes tourism efficiency worldwide. The analysis period covers from the last half of the twentieth century (between 1978 in the case of the study of the tourist bibliography, year in which Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes introduce the Data Envelope Analysis) until the most recent period of our economy ( 2018 in the third essay). In the two essays that analyze tourism efficiency in Spain, the period ranges from the beginning of the 21st century (2008 in the case of the efficiency of Spanish tourist destinations) to the most current data available at this time

Claves, oportunidades y desafíos del turismo adaptado al segmento musulmán

Algunos destinos turísticos, en su intento de evitar la masificación y la estacionalidad, optan por diversificar sus mercados emisores y administrar la llegada de los visitantes a lo largo del año, entre los que se encuentra el turista musulmán. El objetivo general de esta tesis, es analizar el potencial del segmento musulmán y sus necesidades, condicionadas por sus creencias religiosas, en destinos de mayoría no musulmana como España. Se trata de averiguar cómo afecta su religiosidad, a la hora de viajar, la oferta disponible para ellos, y determinar los factores claves a la hora de atraerles y atenderles de la manera más eficiente, dando respuesta a los desafíos que puedan surgir. Para abordar los objetivos de la investigación, se utiliza un método de triangulación, combinando revisión de literatura, entrevistas a expertos y observación de campo, para generar el debate y la conclusión. Los principales hallazgos de esta investigación, revelan que, el segmento musulmán tiene un gran potencial económico y que sus normas religiosas, determinan e influyen a la hora de elegir un destino, un hotel o un restaurante, Ser un destino Muslim-Friendly ayuda a la cohesión social. Por ello, la oferta digital Muslim-Friendly, es un medio eficaz, como canal exclusivo de comunicación con el segmento musulmán. El reto es adaptarse a cada cliente musulmán, según su grado de religiosidad y, al mismo tiempo, esquivar las campañas de boicot a los productos y servicios hala