Urban destination loyalty drivers and cross-national moderator effects: The case of Barcelona

The objective of this paper is to analyze the loyalty of tourists to urban tourism destinations, studying the differences existing on the basis of nationality of origin. The review of the academic literature identified perceived value and satisfaction as antecedents of loyalty. A theoretical model was constructed which was tested empirically with a total of 927 surveys of Italian and American tourists in the city of Barcelona. In the study of the data, structural equation models (SEM) were used, by means of a multi-group analysis. The empirical results show that the causal relationships among perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty and the moderating effect of nationality are partially confirmed. This study contributes to better knowledge of the processes that lead tourists to be loyal to an urban tourism destination

How do Consumers' Gender and Rational Thinking Affect the Acceptance of Entertainment Social Robots?

In recent years, the rapid ageing of the population, a longer life expectancy and elderly people's desire to live independently are social changes that put pressure on healthcare systems. This context is boosting the demand for companion and entertainment social robots on the market and, consequently, producers and distributors are interested in knowing how these social robots are accepted by consumers. Based on technology acceptance models, a parsimonious model is proposed to estimate the intention to use this new advanced social robot technology and, in addition, an analysis is performed to determine how consumers' gender and rational thinking condition the precedents of the intention to use. The results show that gender differences are more important than suggested by the literature. While women gave greater social influence and perceived enjoyment as the main motives for using a social robot, in contrast, men considered their perceived usefulness to be the principal reason and, as a differential argument, the ease of use. Regarding the reasoning system, the most significant differences occurred between heuristic individuals, who stated social influence as the main reason for using a robot, and the more rational consumers, who gave ease of use as a differential argument

Does the personality of consumers influence the assessment of the experience of interaction with social robots?

In recent years, in response to the effects of Covid-19, there has been an increase in the use of social robots in service organisations, as well as in the number of interactions between consumers and robots. However, it is not clear how consumers are valuing these experiences or what the main drivers that shape them are. Furthermore, it is an open research question whether these experiences undergone by consumers can be affected by their own personality. This study attempts to shed some light on these questions and, to do so, an experiment is proposed in which a sample of 378 participants evaluate a simulated front-office service experience delivered by a social robot. The authors investigate the underlying process that explains the experience and find that cognitive-functional factors, emphasising efficiency, have practically the same relevance as emotional factors, emphasising stimulation. In addition, this research identifies the personality traits of the participants and explores their moderating role in the evaluation of the experience. The results reveal that each personality trait, estimated between high and low poles, generates different responses in the evaluation of the experience.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Online cheaters: Profiles and motivations of internet users who falsify their data online

The digital environment, which includes the Internet and social networks, is propitious for digital marketing. However, the collection, filtering and analysis of the enormous, constant flow of information on social networks is a major challenge for both academics and practitioners. The aim of this research is to assist the process of filtering the personal information provided by users when registering online, and to determine which user profiles lie the most, and why. This entailed conducting three different studies. Study 1 estimates the percentage of Spanish users by stated sex and generation who lie the most when registering their personal data by analysing a database of 5,534,702 participants in online sweepstakes and quizzes using a combination of error detection algorithms, and a test of differences in proportions to measure the profiles of the most fraudulent users. Estimates show that some user profiles are more inclined to make mistakes and others to forge data intentionally, the latter being the majority. The groups that are most likely to supply incorrect data are older men and younger women. Study 2 explores the main motivations for intentionally providing false information, and finds that the most common reasons are related to amusement, such as playing pranks, and lack of faith in the company's data privacy and security measures. These results will enable academics and companies to improve mechanisms to filter out cheaters and avoid including them in their databases

Online drivers and offline influences related to loyalty to airline websites

This paper explores users loyalty to airlines’ websites, by examining differences among users belonging to the Y, X and baby boomer generations. The results indicate that to obtain users loyalty to a company’s site, it is necessary to first, affective e-loyalty, through e-trust, which is also positively influenced by offline perceived value, e-satisfaction, and indirectly by e-quality. We also demonstrates that significant differences exist among the various generations, implying airlines need to fine-tune their online strategies retain customer loyalty

What's on the horizon? A bibliometric analysis of personal data collection methods on social networks

In Digital Marketing, the capture of consumers' personal data from social networks is essential for better targeting of commercial actions. The methods for collecting this information are arousing growing interest among the scientific community. This paper offers a comprehensive review of the literature on the issue and its management. To this end, a bibliometric study of 866 publications on the Web of Science between 1997 and 2022 was conducted to identify the most relevant trends through analysis of the most significant articles, keywords, authors, institutions and countries. In addition, visualisation software (VOS) was used to illustrate the relationships established through bibliographic coupling, keyword co-occurrence, authors and co-citation. The results indicate that the USA and Australia are the countries that publish the most in this field, while Finland and Australia have the highest number of publications per capita. Finally, the progress of research is discussed and future research directions are suggested

Motivation and attachment to a diving destination: the case of Medes Islands (Catalonia, Spain)

Motivations and place attachment constructs have been previously used as antecedents of behavioral intentions regarding a destination. Nevertheless, previous studies investigating behavioral intention models have paid little attention to the influence of motivations on place attachment and the influence of place attachment on behavioral intentions within the same structural model. This article develops an integrated model to investigate these relationships. Data were collected from recreational scuba divers in Catalonia, Spain. The results suggest that personal escape and personal seeking are the main motivations, and these factors influence place dependence and place identity. Other findings indicate that place dependence influences behavioral intentions more than place identity. In addition, the level of involvement in the activity moderates the links between constructs in some of the relationships

Efecto del diseño conjunto en la capacidad cognitiva y el rendimiento. Una propuesta de diseño basado en bloques incompletos balanceados

La utilización del análisis conjunto para estudiar procesos de decisión estratégica se considera un avance respecto a los métodos habituales post-hoc. Pero, dado que los experimentos conjuntos evalúan percepciones sobre perfiles del entorno descritos por frases, en lugar de preferencias, surge el problema de que la carga informativa que generan estos escenarios puede superar la capacidad del entrevistado, dificultando su evaluación y delimitando su uso a pocos factores. Este trabajo investiga cómo el diseño (el número de atributos) afecta a la complejidad de la evaluación y el rendimiento del experimento. Además, se propone un diseño mixto basado en bloques incompletos balanceados y, mediante un experimento, se compara su rendimiento frente a un diseño de bloques estándar. Los resultados muestran que la complejidad derivada del número de atributos tiene un efecto moderado en la variación explicada pero mayor en el peso de los factores, vislumbrando el uso de heurísticas distintas de los encuestados en el proceso de evaluación

La netnografía como herramienta de investigación en contextos on-line: una aplicación al análisis de la imagen de los servicios públicos de transporte

La netnografía es una nueva metodología de investigación cualitativa que adapta técnicas de investigación etnográficas al estudio de culturas y comunidades emergentes a través de la comunicación mediada por ordenador, y surge como respuesta al fenómeno cultural del crecimiento de Internet y al creciente número de consumidores que utilizan la Red para mantenerse informados y para crear relaciones y comunidades con otros consumidores que tienen similares estilos de vida y que consumen productos y/o servicios similares. Si bien, desde finales de los noventa la netnografía está tomando mayor protagonismo, se hace necesario un mayor número de trabajos que desarrollen aspectos relacionados con esta metodología; especialmente, en el contexto de la literatura de marketing, donde existen pocos trabajos centrados en la netnografía como herramienta de investigación comercial. Dada la escasez de trabajos, este estudio pretende analizar a nivel teórico la utilidad de la netnografía como herramienta de investigación en contextos on-line. Adicionalmente, se ilustra dicha utilidad a partir de un estudio desarrollado para el análisis de la imagen del servicio de autobuses de la ciudad de Madrid

User acceptance of mobile apps for restaurants: an expanded and extended UTAUT-2

This paper examines the adoption of mobile applications for restaurant searches and/or reservations (MARSR) by users, as part of their experiential quality. Following an extended and expanded version of UTAUT-2, this research proposes eight determinants of intentions to use: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, price-saving orientation, habit, social influence, and perceived credibility. The data were collected from Spanish users of MARSR applications (n = 1200), and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings confirm the need to extend and expand UTAUT-2 by incorporating perceived credibility and the social norm approach. The results gathered from SEM indicate that the drivers of intentions to use MARSR are, in order of impact: habit, perceived credibility, hedonic motivation, price-saving orientation, effort expectancy, performance expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. Habit, facilitating conditions, and intentions to use are significantly related to use. Additionally, the moderating effects of gender, age, and experience were tested by means of a multi-group analysis. The users' experience was seen to exert a moderating effect in some of the relationships hypothesized in the model, while gender and age did not play a significant role. The findings have both research and practical implications