Eleonora Pantano

Tourists’ acceptance of advanced technology-based innovations for promoting arts and culture

Advanced technologies are able to influence tourists decisions. They can be exploited for attracting touristic flows towards cultural destinations. In particular, virtual tours are new tools based on advanced 3D graphics that can be useful for promoting arts and culture. In this paper, we test users acceptance of virtual tours as a tool supporting their decision to visit a touristic destination. A new virtual tour has been developed for promoting a site with a high archaeological value in the south of Italy. Acceptance of this system has been tested on a sample of 100 interviewees. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). All the hypotheses were supported indicating the robustness of TAM model for explaining the intention to use virtual tours while deciding on touristic destinations. Results also showed the importance of enjoyment while using the tool to explain acceptance.

Improving the quality of technology-based innovations selection: a quality function deployment approach for retailers

Current advances in technology provide new tools for enhancing the quality of retail service and the subsequent consumers shopping experience. The large availability of advanced systems, the speed of diffusion and the uncertainty involved in the process force retailers to reconsider how and when introduce these innovations for achieving an advantage over competitors. Hence, selecting the best system for their needs plays a critical role for the business profitability. Despite the importance of technology selection, there are still few works proposing decision support tools for retailers for enhancing this process. This paper suggests a new framework based on the quality function deployment (QFD) approach in order to figure out the best technologies according to retailers expectations, consumers needs and technical features, with benefits for the whole retail process.