STOCHASTIC CHOICE ANALYSIS OF TOURISM DESTINATIONS

The analysis of tourist destination choice, defined by intra-country administrative units and by product types "coastal/inland and village/city", permits the characterisation of tourist flow behaviour, which is fundamental for public planning and business management. In this study, we analyse the determinant factors of tourist destination choice, proposing various research hypotheses relative to the impact of destination attributes and the personal characteristics of tourists. The methodology applied estimates Nested and Random Coefficients Multinomial Logit Models, which allow control over possible correlations among different destinations. The empirical application is realised in Spain on a sample of 3,781 individuals and allows us to conclude that prices, distance to the destination and personal motivations are determinants in destination choice.Tourism Marketing, Intra-country destination, Coastal/inland, Village/city, Nested and Random Coefficients Logit Models.

ANALYSING THREE BASIC DECISIONS OF TOURISTS: GOING AWAY, GOING ABROAD AND GOING ON TOUR

This study analyses determinant factors in the taking of three basic decisions on the part of holidaymakers: going on holiday, foreign holidays and multi-destination holidays. We propose various research hypotheses relating to the impact on these decisions of various personal characteristics. The methodology used estimates various Binomial Logit models. The empirical application carried out in Spain on a sample of 3,781 individuals allows us to conclude that personal characteristics related to the chosen destination, personal restrictions and socio-demographic and psychographic characteristics are determinants of these decisions. This study analyses determinant factors in the taking of three basic decisions onthe part of holidaymakers: going on holiday, foreign holidays and multi-destinationholidays. We propose various research hypotheses relating to the impact on thesedecisions of various personal characteristics. The methodology used estimates variousBinomial Logit models. The empirical application carried out in Spain on a sample of3,781 individuals allows us to conclude that personal characteristics related to thechosen destination, personal restrictions and socio-demographic and psychographiccharacteristics are determinants of these decisions.Tourism Marketing, Choice Behaviour, Probabilistic Choice Models Marketing Turístico, Comportamiento de Elección, Modelos Probabilísticos de Elección.

HECKIT MODELLING OF THE TWO-STAGE TOURIST CHOICE PROCESS: GOING ON HOLIDAY AND TOURISM EXPENDITURES

The objective of this paper is to decompose the process of tourist choice into two stages: taking a holiday and tourism expenditures, using the Heckit model, which avoids the problems of the methodologies applied to date. We propose hypotheses on the effect on the above decisions of tourist characteristics relating to the destination, personal restrictions and socio-demographic and psychographic characteristics. The empirical application, which is carried out in Spain on a sample of 3,781 individuals, finds a two-stage tourist choice process as the expenditure decision is correlated with that of taking a holiday. In addition, these decisions are also explained by individual tourist characteristics. El objetivo de esta investigación consiste descomponer el proceso de elecciónturístico en dos etapas, salir de vacaciones y gasto turístico, utilizando la modelizaciónHeckit que evita los problemas de las metodologías aplicadas hasta la fecha. Para ello,se proponen hipótesis de investigación acerca del efecto en las decisiones anteriores delas características de los turistas relacionadas con el destino, las restriccionespersonales, las características socio-demográficas y psicográficas. La aplicaciónempírica, efectuada en España sobre una muestra de 3.781 individuos, evidencia unproceso de elección turística bietápico ya que la decisión de gasto está correlacionadacon la de salir de vacaciones. Además, estas decisiones vienen explicadas por lascaracterísticas individuales del turista.Proceso de elección turística bietápica, salir de vacaciones, gastos en turismo, modelo Heckit. Two-stage tourist choice process, going on holiday, tourism expenditures, Heckit model.

EXPLAINING SATISFACTION IN DOUBLE DEVIATION SCENARIOS: THE EFFECTS OF ANGER AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

Research has shown that more than half of attempted recovery efforts only reinforce dissatisfaction, producing a ‘double deviation’ effect. Surprisingly, these double deviation effects have received little attention in service marketing literature. Yet no study has specifically investigated which are the main determinants of the formation of customer satisfaction judgments in double deviation contexts. To fill this gap, we develop and empirically test a model based on the existing service recovery literature. Specifically, we focus on two theoretical frameworks: social justice theory and theories of emotion. We examine the effect of anger with service recovery on satisfaction with service recovery, as well as the role of distributive justice on the elicitation of the specific emotion of anger with service recovery and satisfaction with service recovery. Results support the model and highlight the important role of specific recovery-related emotions in double deviation contexts. Implications for practice and future research are discussed. La investigación previa ha mostrado que más de la mitad de los esfuerzos de recuperación sólo refuerzan la insatisfacción, produciendo un efecto de desviación doble. Sorprendentemente, estos efectos de desviación doble han recibido muy poca atención en la literatura de marketing de servicios. Hasta la fecha, ningún trabajo ha investigado empíricamente cuáles son los principales determinantes en la formación de los juicios de satisfacción en contextos de desviación doble. Para cubrir este hueco, desarrollamos y analizamos empíricamente un modelo basado en la literatura de recuperación de servicios existente. Específicamente, nos basamos en dos esquemas conceptuales: la teoría de la justicia social y las teorías sobre emociones. Examinamos el efecto del enfado con la recuperación del servicio en la satisfacción con la recuperación del servicio, así como el papel de la justicia distributiva como activador de emociones específicas de enfado y como antecedente de la satisfacción con la recuperación del servicio. Los resultados confirman el modelo propuesto y ponen de manifiesto el importante papel de las emociones específicas relacionadas con la recuperación en contextos de desviación doble. Finalmente, se discuten las implicaciones de gestión y las líneas futuras de investigación.enfado con la recuperación del servicio, justicia distributiva, satisfacción con la recuperación del servicio, desviación doble, industria bancaria anger with service recovery, distributive justice, satisfaction with service recovery, double deviation, banking industry

THIRD-PARTY COMPLAINTS AND FIRM PERFORMANCE: AN APPLICATION IN SPANISH BANKING

This article focuses on the impact of third-party complaints on firm performance. We propose two research hypotheses, which are developed from the literature of dissatisfaction, emotions, and economics. The methodology is based on an event study to estimate variation in firm share returns in the stock market due to the publication of the Annual Complaints Service Report by the Bank of Spain; as well as a regression analysis to examine the impact of the number of complaints per branch on the variation obtained. The empirical focus is on a sample of eleven banks to which complaints were made and which were quoted on the Spanish Stock Exchange between 1992 and 2001. The results show a negative impact of the publication of these annual complaint reports on the share returns of the banks concerned. Additionally, these returns have a negative relationship with the number of complaints per branch. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar el impacto de las quejas a terceras partes sobre losresultados empresariales. Para ello, se proponen dos hipótesis de investigación, argumentadassiguiendo la literatura de insatisfacción, emociones, y economía. La metodología se apoya en elevent study para estimar la variación de la rentabilidad de las acciones de las empresas generadaen la Bolsa por la publicación de la Memoria Anual del Servicio de Reclamaciones del Bancode España; así como en el análisis de regresión para examinar el impacto del número de quejaspor oficina en dicha variación. La aplicación empírica se lleva a cabo para una muestra de oncebancos sobre los que se efectúan las quejas y que cotizan en la Bolsa de Madrid entre 1992 y2001. Los resultados obtenidos ponen de manifiesto un impacto negativo de la publicación dedichas memorias anuales de quejas sobre la rentabilidad de las acciones de los bancosimplicados, y que dicha rentabilidad mantiene una relación negativa con el volumen de quejaspor oficina.Quejas a terceras partes; Resultados empresariales; Banca Third-party complaints; Firm performance; Banking industry

Data Reduction in the String Space for Efficient kNN Classification through Space Partitioning

Within the Pattern Recognition field, two representations are generally considered for encoding the data: statistical codifications, which describe elements as feature vectors, and structural representations, which encode elements as high-level symbolic data structures such as strings, trees or graphs. While the vast majority of classifiers are capable of addressing statistical spaces, only some particular methods are suitable for structural representations. The kNN classifier constitutes one of the scarce examples of algorithms capable of tackling both statistical and structural spaces. This method is based on the computation of the dissimilarity between all the samples of the set, which is the main reason for its high versatility, but in turn, for its low efficiency as well. Prototype Generation is one of the possibilities for palliating this issue. These mechanisms generate a reduced version of the initial dataset by performing data transformation and aggregation processes on the initial collection. Nevertheless, these generation processes are quite dependent on the data representation considered, being not generally well defined for structural data. In this work we present the adaptation of the generation-based reduction algorithm Reduction through Homogeneous Clusters to the case of string data. This algorithm performs the reduction by partitioning the space into class-homogeneous clusters for then generating a representative prototype as the median value of each group. Thus, the main issue to tackle is the retrieval of the median element of a set of strings. Our comprehensive experimentation comparatively assesses the performance of this algorithm in both the statistical and the string-based spaces. Results prove the relevance of our approach by showing a competitive compromise between classification rate and data reduction.This research work was partially funded by “Programa I+D+i de la Generalitat Valenciana” through grant ACIF/2019/ 042 and the Spanish Ministry through HISPAMUS project TIN2017-86576-R, partially funded by the EU

Hand Tracking and Gesture Recognition for Human-Computer Interaction

The proposed work is part of a project that aims for the control of a videogame based on hand gesture recognition. This goal implies the restriction of real-time response and unconstrained environments. In this paper we present a real-time algorithm to track and recognise hand gestures for interacting with the videogame. This algorithm is based on three main steps: hand segmentation, hand tracking and gesture recognition from hand features. For the hand segmentation step we use the colour cue due to the characteristic colour values of human skin, its invariant properties and its computational simplicity. To prevent errors from hand segmentation we add a second step, hand tracking. Tracking is performed assuming a constant velocity model and using a pixel labeling approach. From the tracking process we extract several hand features that are fed to a finite state classifier which identifies the hand configuration. The hand can be classified into one of the four gesture classes or one of the four different movement directions. Finally, using the system's performance evaluation results we show the usability of the algorithm in a videogame environment

Fuel loading and flammability in the Mediterranean Basin woody species with different post-fire regenerative strategies

12 páginas, 5 figuras, 3 tablas.The flammability and combustibility of plant communities are determined by species features related to growth-form, structure and physiology. In some ecosystems, such as the Mediterranean ones, these characteristics may contribute to the existence of fire-prone species. We measured several parameters associated with the flammability and fuel loading of dominant woody species with different post-fire regenerative strategies ( seeders and non-seeders) in shrublands in the western Mediterranean Basin. Overall, seeder species show lower fuel load but are more prone to burning owing to a higher dead-to-live fuel ratio, live fine-fuel proportion and dead fine-fuel proportion. Moreover, they burst into flame at lower temperatures than non-seeders. In the Mediterranean Basin, most seeder species emerged mainly during the Quaternary, under a highly fluctuating Mediterranean climate and during recurrent fires. We propose that properties related to the combustibility and flammability of seeders may be the result of selective pressures associated with both fire and climate. These results suggest that ecosystems dominated by seeder species are more susceptible to fire risk than those dominated by non-seeder species in the Mediterranean Basin. Therefore, the proportion of these types of species resulting from previous fire or management history is likely to determine the characteristics of future fire events.We thank M. Jané, E. Martí, A. Vilà-Cabrera, J. Garcia, B. Moreira, S. Ribeiro and C. Beseler for helping in the field and in the laboratory work. Also, special thanks are due to J. Piñol for his advice and suggestions, and to J. Peñuelas and G. Alessio for supporting the flammability tests. This study was funded by the Department of Universities, Research and Information Society of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the European social funds, and the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (MCYT) projects REN 2003–07198 and CGL2006–01293/BOS. It also contributes to the European research group (GDRE) ‘Mediterranean and mountain ecosystems in a changing world’ funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya and CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). CEAM (Fundación Centro de Estudios Ambientales del Mediterráneo) is supported by the Generalitat Valenciana and Bancaixa.Peer reviewe