Giuseppe Melis

Conceptualizing the Value Co-Creation Challenge for Tourist Destinations: A Supply-Side Perspective

To date, most studies on value co-creation processes in tourism have thus far focused on the company–customer relationship. Tourism experiences are produced by a number of firms and organizations collaboratively. Hence, there is a need to further develop knowledge about co-creation issues also adopting the perspective of the network of relationships between local stakeholders (both public and private) which are involved in tourism development within a certain tourist destination. This conceptual study applies the theoretical approaches of Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004a) and Ramaswamy and Gouillart (2010) in an attempt to identify a set of constructs that could influence the way local stakeholders can co-create the tourism offer. Specifically, the contribution of this chapter is placed on the development of a possible empirical application of the DART model to analyse the co-creation paradigm by adopting a supply-side perspective, which is still a quite non-common approach in tourism literature.

Residents’ Perceptions of the Impact of Ship Tourism and their Preferences for Different Types of Tourism

Abstract This study aims to investigate how residents in Cagliari (a port of call in the island of Sardinia, Italy) perceive the economic, environmental and socio-cultural impacts (both positive and negative) of cruise tourism and to what extent they would like to support the idea of further cruise tourism development within the destination, also making a comparison with other types of tourism. Findings show that residents have overall a positive attitude towards cruise tourism development, and also very little concern when negative impacts are considered. However, cruise tourism is not the most preferred when compared with other types of tourism. Further, they highlight that significant differences based on socio-economic and demographic characteristics exist in residents’ perceptions and attitudes towards cruise tourism development and in their preferences for different types of tourism development. Implications for policymakers are discussed and suggestions for further research are given.

Driving First-Time and Repeat Spectators to Cultural Events

This chapter examines the differences in expenditure, satisfaction and behavioral intentions between first-time and repeat spectators to a cultural event. A structured questionnaire was developed and data were collected on-site during the “Sa Sartiglia” Carnival (Sardinia, Italy) via 262 interviews. A series of descriptive analyses, independent t-tests, and regression analysis were run for the purposes of the study. Findings show repeaters expressing higher satisfaction, more positive behavioral intentions and higher average economic expenditure than first-time spectators. However, repeaters scored significantly higher in term of intention to return to the event, intention to return to the destination and intention to recommend it to others. Findings add to the body of knowledge highlighting an inconsistent relationship between travel experience, travel expenditure and post-trip evaluation and behavioral intentions. Contributions to the body of knowledge and managerial implications are discussed and suggestions for further research are given.

Turismo crocieristico e percezioni della popolazione residente: i risultati di un’analisi cluster

Purpose of the paper: This study profiles a sample of residents in Cagliari based on their perceptions toward the impacts of cruise activity, and investigates whether significant differences among clusters exist based on socio-demographic characteristics of respondents. Methodology: This study applies a factor-cluster analysis approach to profile a stratified sample (district of residence, age and gender) of 1,034 residents in the city of Cagliari. Findings: Five clusters of residents were identified, namely: “indifferents”, “critics”, “cautious”, “supporters” and “cultural lovers”. Findings show that there are significant differences between the five clusters, based solely on level of education, occupation and geographical proximity to tourist areas. Research limitations: This study is highly site specific, thus rendering the findings hardly generalizable. Further, it does not investigate the role that other intrinsic factors and psychographic variables may exert in discriminating residents’ perceptions. Pratical implications: This study provides useful information for destination marketers and policymakers attempting to plan and implement internal marketing strategies aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the messages they deliver with the aim of highlighting the beneficial balance between positive and negative impacts of cruise tourism in the city. Originality of the paper: Recently academic literature has started to devote attention to analyse residents’ perceptions toward cruise development. Despite this, little attention has been devoted to cruise tourism destinations in the Mediterranean area, and even less in Italy. Further, to the best of our knowledge none of existing studies have been carried out considering an area sample.

Le emozioni come variabile di segmentazione e fattore di moderazione della soddisfazione in ambito museale

Negli ultimi anni, nei musei si e progressivamente affermato un approccio manageriale maggiormente market-oriented. In questo contesto, l’analisi della soddisfazione dei visitatori e diventata un’attivita di fondamentale importanza. L’obiettivo di questo lavoro e capire se le emozioni possano considerarsi come variabili di segmentazione in ambito museale, se ad un diverso vissuto emozionale corrisponda oppure no un diverso grado di soddisfazione dei visitatori e, infine, se tale soddisfazione dipenda anche dalle caratteristiche socio-demografiche dei visitatori. A tale scopo, lo studio presenta e discute i risultati di un’analisi statistica (cluster analysis, gerarchica e non gerarchica, e chi-square test) effettuata su un campione di 487 osservazioni raccolte tramite questionario somministrato face-to-face ai visitatori del Museo Archeologico di Cagliari. Il lavoro contribuisce ad approfondire la conoscenza in tema di soddisfazione nella fruizione dei servizi museali e fornisce informazioni di supporto alle politiche di marketing museali. .

Learning from a Wrong Consumer Perception: Bridging the Gap Between Created Value and Perceived Value

In the light of the development of E-CRM, the right customer perception of web site can improve management and customer relationships and better orients web site goals. This is true particularly in a specific market as well as the online tourism. The aim of this work is to underline how a wrong consumer perception may affect goals of a web site and consequently what management have to learn from this misunderstanding. The theoretical analysis is established on a tourism site web called Terremobili (Italy) through a learning approach that shows the misinterpretation between management and customer perception about the offer of this web site. Interviewing management and analyzing information, we demonstrated that the web site initially did not meet consumer needs and beliefs, and, moreover, its structure generated a wrong perception of consumer observation. The study offers useful details about which consequences firms may suffer because of a wrong customer perception of the web site generating opportunistic behaviors. Conclusion underlines the need of a perceptive concordance between management and customer perception as a way for the businesses to aim their goals.