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- Algarve hotel price determinants: a hedonic pricing modelPublication . Soler, Ismael P.; Gemar, German; Correia, Marisol B.; Serra, FranciscoThis study sought to assess customers' willingness to pay for a wide variety of characteristics and attributes of hotels in Portugal's Algarve region. After collecting nearly all the information available on TripAdvisor for hotels in this region, a hedonic pricing model was developed using a database of 9992 cases. The results suggest that - after standardisation - the most important variable shaping Algarve hotel room rates is the previous day's prices. When associated with a family-friendly hotel, star category and services have a greater value than beaches or golf courses do. Customers also appreciate some types of hotels, such as boutique, quaint or trendy hotels, but view others negatively, such as family-friendly or business hotels. Only the specific location of Falesia Beach adds value, although the Algarve is a desirable destination overall. Both destination and hotel managers can use the proposed method to analyse data for their region on customers' propensity to pay.
- Understanding online reviews in all-inclusive hotels servicescape: a fuzzy set approachPublication . Rassal, C.; Correia, Antónia; Serra, FranciscoThe concept of all-inclusive (AI) hotel service is complex and multidimensional; grounded on the SERVQUAL model, this research aims to identify the main components of AI service that moderate online ratings. Aside from the dimensions comprised in the SERVQUAL model, this research discusses price, place, and experiences as essential components in AI hotel ratings. This research was applied in the Algarve, a mature sun and sea destination with more than thirty all-inclusive hotels in operation since 2008. A fuzzy set qualitative analysis (fsQCA) approach is used from 6742 validated reviews of four- and five-star all-inclusive hotels retrieved from TripAdvisor between August 2003 and April 2019. Single constructs in the AI ecosystem have no impact as a rating enhancer on TripAdvisor, with two or more constructs necessary to trigger the goal. This research also contributes by applying a fuzzy set approach to the extracted user-generated content (UGC) regarding AI hotels on TripAdvisor and revealing the necessary and sufficient conditions through the identified constructs that most contribute to high online ratings.
- Guest reputation indexes to analyze hotel’s online reputation using data extracted from OTAsPublication . Choupinha, R.; Correia, Marisol B.; Ramos, Célia M. Q.; Martins, Daniel; Serra, FranciscoNowadays many travelers use online travel agency (OTAs) to book flights, hotel rooms, rent-a-cars, cruises or entire vacation packages. Usually OTAs allow their users to give scores and to write reviews about what was used. Each OTA defines the terms and conditions for guest rating or review score and hoteliers are giving increasing importance to the scores and reviews their guests do in OTAs. This paper proposes two guest reputation index to help hoteliers to monitorize their presence in OTAs. The Aggregated Guest Reputation Index (AGRI), which shows the positioning of a hotel in different OTAs and it is calculated from the scores obtained by the hotels in those OTAs. Another one, the Semantic Guest Reputation Index (SGRI), which incorporates the social reputation of a hotel and that can be visualized through the development of word clouds or tag clouds. Examples of usage of these indexes are given with data extracted from 5-stars hotels in the Algarve, south region of Portugal, that are available on Booking and Expedia.
- Systems approach to model smart tourism ecosystemsPublication . Sedarati, Pooyan; Serra, Francisco; Jere Jakulin, TadejaThe tourism industry is inherently complex and a key player in sustainable development. This paper intends to discuss the path towards building a sustainable smart tourism ecosystem model by delving deep into the pivotal topics with interesting speculations on smart cities' perspectives that lay a broader foundation of smart tourism destinations. First, it discusses the interconnections and foundation of smart tourism ecosystems by proposing a general conceptual model describing traditional tourism transformation through ICTs. Second, by explicating each building block of smart tourism ecosystems and using systems methodology (systems thinking method and qualitative modeling in a frame of system dynamics) to break down the complex system of smart tourism's roles and components. Such methods are widely utilized in different fields of study to facilitate the decisionmaking process by furnishing a holistic view of the problem. For that matter, Causal Loop Diagramming (CLDs) was used as one of the powerful tools of systems thinking to depict smart tourism ecosystems. The proposed causal loop diagram considers sustainability as one of the main concerns and trying to shed some light on intricate networks of businesses, socioeconomic, and environmental subsystems in smart tourism destinations that are performing distinctively yet interdependent. This study is an ongoing process employing System Dynamics (SD) methodology for model testing and validation.
- Big data warehouse framework for smart revenue managementPublication . Ramos, Célia M. Q.; Correia, Marisol B.; Rodrigues, J. M. F.; Martins, Daniel; Serra, FranciscoRevenue Management’s most cited definitions is probably “to sell the right accommodation to the right customer, at the right time and the right price, with optimal satisfaction for customers and hoteliers”. Smart Revenue Management (SRM) is a project, which aims the development of smart automatic techniques for an efficient optimization of occupancy and rates of hotel accommodations, commonly referred to, as revenue management. One of the objectives of this project is to demonstrate that the collection of Big Data, followed by an appropriate assembly of functionalities, will make possible to generate a Data Warehouse necessary to produce high quality business intelligence and analytics. This will be achieved through the collection of data extracted from a variety of sources, including from the web. This paper proposes a three stage framework to develop the Big Data Warehouse for the SRM. Namely, the compilation of all available information, in the present case, it was focus only the extraction of information from the web by a web crawler – raw data. The storing of that raw data in a primary NoSQL database, and from that data the conception of a set of functionalities, rules, principles and semantics to select, combine and store in a secondary relational database the meaningful information for the Revenue Management (Big Data Warehouse). The last stage will be the principal focus of the paper. In this context, clues will also be giving how to compile information for Business Intelligence. All these functionalities contribute to a holistic framework that, in the future, will make it possible to anticipate customers and competitor’s behavior, fundamental elements to fulfill the Revenue Management
- Framework for a Hospitality Big Data Warehouse: The Implementation of an Efficient Hospitality Business Intelligence SystemPublication . Ramos, Celia; Martins, Daniel; Serra, Francisco; Lam, Roberto; Cardoso, Pedro; Correia, Marisol; Rodrigues, Joãoorder to increase the hotel's competitiveness, to maximize its revenue, to meliorate its online reputation and improve customer relationship, the information about the hotel's business has to be managed by adequate information systems (IS). Those IS should be capable of returning knowledge from a necessarily large quantity of information, anticipating and influencing the consumer's behaviour. One way to manage the information is to develop a Big Data Warehouse (BDW), which includes information from internal sources (e.g., Data Warehouse) and external sources (e.g., competitive set and customers' opinions). This paper presents a framework for a Hospitality Big Data Warehouse (HBDW). The framework includes a (1) Web crawler that periodically accesses targeted websites to automatically extract information from them, and a (2) data model to organize and consolidate the collected data into a HBDW. Additionally, the usefulness of this HBDW to the development of the business analytical tools is discussed, keeping in mind the implementation of the business intelligence (BI) concepts.
- Factors affecting the decision-making process when choosing an event destination: a comparative approach between Vilamoura (Portugal) and Marbella (Spain)Publication . Houdement, Julie; Santos, José António C.; Serra, FranciscoBusiness travel is nowadays a key component of tourism industry and an important instrument for reducing seasonality. Literature has identified several attributes that affect the decision-making process when choosing a destination to hold an event. The main objective of this research is to determine their importance and how they influence the decision-making process. Vilamoura in Portugal and Marbella in Spain are the destinations under analysis, as they are important seaside destinations where business travel has contributed to a successful meeting industry. In order to achieve the study's aim, a qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews both to event organisers and suppliers has been conducted. The findings confirm the hypothesis that underpinned the study, demonstrating that destination image is the main determining site-selection factor. This investigation, proposed as an exploratory examination for further research, could constitute a useful resource for event professionals to improve their destination promotion and their positioning.
- New forecasting methods for hotel revenue management systemsPublication . Pereira, Luis; da Silva, Joana Marques; Serra, FranciscoAn accurate forecasting module is a key element of any revenue management system. This module includes demand forecasting, which involves tasks of forecasting complex seasonal time series. The challenge of producing accurate demand forecasts requires the application of suitable forecasting methods to address that complexity. The aim of this paper is to evaluate a new innovation state space modeling framework, based on innovations approach, developed for forecasting time series with complex seasonal patterns. This modeling framework provides an alternative to existing models of exponential smoothing, since it is capable of tackling seasonal complexities such a multiple seasonal periods and high frequency seasonality.
- Software as a service: an effective platform to deliver holistic Hotel Performance Management systemsPublication . António, Nuno; Serra, FranciscoThis study main objective was to assess the viability of development of a Performance Management (PM) system, delivered in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS), specific for the hospitality industry and to evaluate the benefits of its use. Software deployed in the cloud, delivered and licensed as a service, is becoming increasingly common and accepted in a business context. Although, Business Intelligence (BI) solutions are not usually distributed in the SaaS model, there are some examples that this is changing. To achieve the study objective, design science research methodology was employed in the development of a prototype. This prototype was deployed in four hotels and its results evaluated. Evaluation of the prototype was focused both on the system technical characteristics and business benefits. Results shown that hotels were very satisfied with the system and that building a prototype and making it available in the form of SaaS is a good solution to assess BI systems contribution to improve management performance.
- Modelización del sector turístico y simulación de estrategias mediante dinámica de sistemas : aplicación al Algarbe portuguésPublication . Serra, Francisco; García González, Santiago; Silva, João AlbinoLa administración de los destinos turísticos es una tarea cada vez más compleja. La investigación tradicional relativa a este tema ha usado preferentemente el enfoque reduccionista para estudiar o medir relaciones lineales entre variables. Las limitaciones del uso de este enfoque están siendo evidentes, una vez que el desarrollo turístico ejerce una influencia decisiva sobre diversos elementos sensibles que caracterizan un destino, lo que recomienda que se cambie de enfoque en el estudio de esta problemática. En esta tesis se parte de la consideración del sistema turístico como un sistema abierto, evolucionando para un estado de complejidad cada vez mayor. Así, el esfuerzo de modelización y simulación a emprender tiene como objetivo contribuir para un mejor entendimiento de la complejidad que caracteriza el sistema turístico y ofrecer a las administraciones una herramienta para la toma de decisiones estratégicas, basadas en una representación aproximada del funcionamiento del sistema real.