Papers by Marianna Sigala
ICT paradox lost? A stepwise DEA methodology
Gallipoli: an analysis of website language patterns and motivation to visit
Management and Marketing of Wine Tourism Business, 2018
Emotional language for image formation and market segmentation in dark tourism destinations: findings from tour operators' websites promoting Gallipoli
This study aims to understand the language patterns that are used on websites for influencing tra... more This study aims to understand the language patterns that are used on websites for influencing travelers to visit Gallipoli by analysing emotive language and categorising it according to different segmentations of Gallipoli visitors. Websites promoting Gallipoli were identified through Google. Wordle software was used for conducting a website content analysis. The results show that the language used in websites represents a commemorative experience. The findings suggest a good fit between the descriptive language used to represent the dark tourism destination attributes of Gallipoli and the emotive language used to motivate visitors to the site. Moreover, the imagery of thanatourism marketed online was categorised by emotive language to identify discreet market segments. However, as the emotive language used online can influence the visitors’ expectations, it is suggested that the former may result in visitor dissatisfaction.
Journal of Services Marketing, 2017
Purpose This paper aims to propose that the literature on customer engagement has emphasized the ... more Purpose This paper aims to propose that the literature on customer engagement has emphasized the benefits of customer engagement to the firm and, to a large extent, ignored the customers’ perspective. By drawing upon co-creation and other literature, this paper attempts to alleviate this gap by proposing a strategic framework that aligns both the customer and firm perspectives in successfully creating engagement that generates value for both the customer and the bottom line. Design/methodology/approach A strategic framework is proposed that includes the necessary firm resources, data, process, timeline and goals for engagement, and captures customers’ motives, situational factors and preferred engagement styles. Findings The authors argue that sustainability of data-driven customer engagement requires a dynamic and iterative value generation process involving customers recognizing the value of engagement behaviours and firm’s ability to capture and passing value back to customers. O...
Tourism Management, 2016
Social value through tourism enterprise is co-created. A service-dominant logic explains the co-c... more Social value through tourism enterprise is co-created. A service-dominant logic explains the co-creation process. Resource needs and mobilisation strategies are identified.
Electronic Markets, 2015
Smart tourism is a new buzzword applied to describe the increasing reliance of tourism destinatio... more Smart tourism is a new buzzword applied to describe the increasing reliance of tourism destinations, their industries and their tourists on emerging forms of ICT that allow for massive amounts of data to be transformed into value propositions. However, it remains ill-defined as a concept, which hinders its theoretical development. The paper defines smart tourism, sheds light on current smart tourism trends, and then lays out its technological and business foundations. This is followed by a brief discussion on the prospects and drawbacks of smart tourism. The paper further draws attention to the great need for research to inform smart tourism development and management.
The Journal of Hospitality Leisure Sport and Tourism, 2002
Technologies (ICT) applications in tourism and hospitality operations, strategy and education as ... more Technologies (ICT) applications in tourism and hospitality operations, strategy and education as well as performance and quality measurement. Her work has been published in several journals and international conferences. She is the co-chair of the Euro-CHRIE Special Interest Group in ICT in Hospitality and a member of the International Technology Think Tanks organised by the International Hotel & Restaurant Association (IH&RA).
Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education, 2006
Tourism (Zagreb), 2006
Geographic information systems (GIS) are now recognized widely as a valuable tool for managing, d... more Geographic information systems (GIS) are now recognized widely as a valuable tool for managing, decision making, analysing, and displaying large volumes of diverse data pertinent to many local and regional planning activities. However, the number of GIS applications for regional tourism planning and education has not mushroomed as in other fields. This is also reflected in the field of sustainable tourism where the adoption of new technologies has been rather slow. Nonetheless, sustainable tourism decision-making ...
As more and more travelers wish to create their personalised trip itineraries, the provision of g... more As more and more travelers wish to create their personalised trip itineraries, the provision of geographical information and services on travel websites is an unavoidable necessity. The evolution of geoportals, geocollaborative portals and web 2.0 present numerous opportunities and services for making the trip planning process less complex and time consuming, more efficient and more social and collaborative for travelers and their travel companions. This paper aimed at exploring the use and impact of geocollaborative ...
Abstract: During the last years, we are experiencing the mushrooming and increased use of web too... more Abstract: During the last years, we are experiencing the mushrooming and increased use of web tools enabling Internet users to both create and distribute content (multimedia information). These tools referred to as Web 2.0 technologies-applications can be considered as the tools of mass collaboration, since they empower Internet users to actively participate and simultaneously collaborate with other Internet users for producing, consuming and diffusing the information and knowledge being distributed through the ...
The Effect of Multimedia Technologies on Employment Patterns in Small and Medium Tourism and Hospitality Enterprises in UK
This paper reports on the findings of a study conducted by the University of Surrey for DIME, a p... more This paper reports on the findings of a study conducted by the University of Surrey for DIME, a project funded by the European Social fund (ESF). The purpose of the study was to investigate the owners' or managers' perceptions of Small and Medium Tourism and Hospitality Enterprises (SMTHEs) in UK regarding the impact of multimedia in the following aspects of employment: employment levels; nature and content of work as well as amount of workload; work satisfaction; skill requirements; and work status and remuneration. Overall 233 responses were received, broken down as follows: tourist information centres (n=151), 3* hotels (n=40), and B&B's (n=42). Research findings revealed that multimedia technologies are increasingly being adopted and used by tourism and hospitality businesses. The adoption is "system-wide" affecting the operations and competitiveness of all players. However, it appears that multimedia use has caused limited changes in the structure of organizations as well as in the employment levels and activities
Journal of Services Marketing, 2017
Purpose This paper aims to propose that the literature on customer engagement has emphasized the ... more Purpose This paper aims to propose that the literature on customer engagement has emphasized the benefits of customer engagement to the firm and, to a large extent, ignored the customers’ perspective. By drawing upon co-creation and other literature, this paper attempts to alleviate this gap by proposing a strategic framework that aligns both the customer and firm perspectives in successfully creating engagement that generates value for both the customer and the bottom line. Design/methodology/approach A strategic framework is proposed that includes the necessary firm resources, data, process, timeline and goals for engagement, and captures customers’ motives, situational factors and preferred engagement styles. Findings The authors argue that sustainability of data-driven customer engagement requires a dynamic and iterative value generation process involving customers recognizing the value of engagement behaviours and firm’s ability to capture and passing value back to customers. O...
Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 2013
Through a review of sustainability research, this paper offers a framework for studying the custo... more Through a review of sustainability research, this paper offers a framework for studying the customer’s role in managing sustainability throughout a hospitality or tourism firm’s supply chain. With advances in social media that have empowered customers and their social communities to actively participate in sustainable practices, the role of the customers in achieving sustainability in all supply chain operations within the tourism industry has grown. Social media also constitute a force that encourages customers to support sustainability practices. This paper proposes an overall framework that identifies and synthesizes the various roles and impact of the customers’ involvement in implementing sustainable supply chain management in tourism. This involves the following four dimensions: factors motivating customer involvement in sustainability, the degree of customer involvement, management strategies for customer involvement, and outcomes of customer involvement. The paper offers exa...
Tourism and hospitality management
Research into tourism and hospitality training field has been focused on the subjects of training... more Research into tourism and hospitality training field has been focused on the subjects of training need assessments, training evaluation models, training within organizational frameworks and useful training techniques. Despite the significance of the above aspects, less afford has been made in the field of training quality and particularly in defining those factors that the quality of a training program consists of. Taking into account that training is a service which the organization, the producer, delivers to its employee, the consumer, this research is going one step further and not only exams SERVQUAL in the training field, but tries to examine inductively at distinctive training quality dimensions from the perspective of trainees point of view that are not subject of other service industry. The definition of training quality dimensions can lead those who develop a new training program to use those dimensions as a framework for greater training outcomes. Moreover, this research t...
Information Technology & Tourism
Technology and information and communication technology (ICT) have been gaining importance in tou... more Technology and information and communication technology (ICT) have been gaining importance in tourism and hospitality with a booming research interest during the last years and specifically recently due to the disruptions of the COVID-19 crisis. Hence it is useful to structure the existing knowledge in this field to better guide directions for future research. To that end, this study synthesizes the academic literature about ‘technology and ICT’ in tourism and hospitality by carrying out a bibliometric analysis. The study identified 2424 documents, including the words ‘technolog*’ and/or ‘ICT’ combined with ‘touris*’, ‘hospitality’, ‘hotel’, and/or ‘travel’ that were published in the period 1988–2021 and collected from tourism and hospitality journals indexed in the Web of Science (WOS) and SCOPUS databases. The analysis was carried out by using SciMAT software, which offers different bibliometric tools and methods in order to achieve consistent results through a keyword co-occurren...
Tourismos : An International Multidisciplinary Journal of Tourism, Mar 15, 2009
Marketers have been working tirelessly to determine the factors that lead to customer satisfactio... more Marketers have been working tirelessly to determine the factors that lead to customer satisfaction presuming that customer satisfaction automatically leads to repeated customers. Service quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and repeat business are issues well recognized and investigated by researchers. Recent theory however suggests that service quality alone doesn't necessarily encourage customers to repeat their choices, but rather, "complete" customer satisfaction does Thus, the main research question addressed in this paper is how to complete the relationship between "complete" customer satisfaction and repeat business. The customer's emotions have been proved to be a key determinant to turn a satisfied customer into a repeated one. The research was conducted in 2009, addressed to customers of agrotourism businesses on Lesvos Island and Florina-Greece.
DMS are interorganisational information systems aiming to support the development and management ... more DMS are interorganisational information systems aiming to support the development and management of tourism destinations through the facilitation and fostering of collaboration practices amongst the numerous destination stakeholders. As the various destination stakeholders usually have different and sometimes conflicting aims and goals, the agreement of the aims of DMS and the development of DMS functionality to support the achievement of their goals is not always an easy process. In this vein, the goal of this paper is to first identify the roles of DMS and then discuss the functionalities and services that DMS should develop for achieving the former roles. Specifically, the first section adopts a multi-stakeholder approach for analysing the roles of DMS that meet the needs of the totality of the stakeholders found in the destination. The second section of the paper delineates the functionalities and services that DMS should develop for meeting their roles by providing several examples from effective DMS projects. Finally, the last section analyses the future trends and challenges faced by DMS developers.
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Papers by Marianna Sigala