Elisa Alén

University of Vigo | UVIGO · Department of Business Organisation and Marketing

The tourism industry has made significant efforts to adopt more sustainable practices in order to minimise environmental impacts. Despite the general recognition of these initiatives, there is a lack of studies investigating the perceptions of tourism companies in relation to the application of Sustainable Tourism Development (STD) principles. This...

Immersive experiences offered by virtual reality (VR) have the power to impact tourists' decision-making and on-site experiences. However, prior research has focused on explaining VR's acceptance by tourists as a function of technological capacity, rather than user characteristics, such as innovativeness. This research intends to fill the existing...

Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a powerful promotional tool in tourism, providing consumers immersive and engaging experiences. However, its specific impact on the wine tourism sector remains underexamined. This study aims to both investigate and convincingly highlight the promotional influence of VR on the intention to visit wine tourism desti...

Las relaciones entre los medios de comunicación y el turismo pueden abordarse atendiendo a los medios como documentosy como agentes. Se exponen, desde la reflexión teórica sobre los medios de comunicación, algunos temas que pueden ayudara desarrollar la investigación sobre los efectos de la ficción audiovisual en las imágenes de los destinos, las m...

One of the main objectives of a country’s fashion industry is to enable the consumer to identify the country as an indicator of how good the products are, because, from that perspective, they will prefer that country’s products and there may be the possibility of not paying more for a product that they believe to be of high quality. In this perspec...

We are increasingly confronted with external factors that affect or promote sustainable tourism development. The pandemic triggered by COVID-19 has shown that to effectively manage uncertainty, it is essential to include perceived risk as a predictor variable. This study analyses residents′ support for sustainable tourism development in low-density...

Purpose-This study investigates the barriers to the adoption of Virtual Reality (VR) in the tourism industry. Although VR has great potential to enhance the tourist experience, the adoption of this technology is still limited in the tourism sector. Building on the fundamental principles of the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) theory and it...

In the tourism sector, the hosting of events has been playing an increasingly significant role in attracting visitors and differentiating between competing destinations. Events play an important role in a destination’s marketing strategy. There are several motivational typologies that induce the growth in the number of participants in fashion event...

Quality of life is a construct that has been much debated and that has caused persistent challenges in the realization of a definition. Due to its multidimensional character, and because its nature comprises the physical, economic, mental, social, environmental, among others, and not least, because this construct depends on the values and perceptio...

Despite extensive research into the residents’ perceptions of sustainable tourism development (STD) over the past few decades, there has been little exploration of emerging destinations in low-density regions. This study uses a bidirectional analysis to segment the residents of a historic town in the north of Portugal (Lamego), which is part of the...

Virtual Reality (VR) has proven to be an important contribution to tourists' decision-making regarding a destination. This fact can be determinant, especially when tourists face some social limitation or restriction that conditions their participation in tourism activities. Therefore, we aim to understand whether the possibility of experiencing imm...

Virtual Reality (VR) has the capacity to increase tourists’ responses, compared with other marketing tools. In tourism, it can play a decisive role in its promotion, since it can generate impactful information that will increase the visit intention. However, there are few reviews that focus on VR as a promotional tool in tourism. To overcome this l...

Tourism business models have used several technologies in their development, such as Virtual Reality (VR). Previous studies show that VR allows tourism organizations to promote new types of relationships between tourists and destinations, to enhance the appeal and memorability of tourist experiences and to diversify consumption patterns, which coul...

In Portugal, as in other European countries, thermal activity was developed under the influence of the Roman people. In the fifteenth century, the first thermal hospital in the world was established in Portugal. In the centuries that followed, the practice of going to the baths to cure illness developed across the continent. In 1928, the first legi...

The image of a touristic destination is a complex construction based on different sources of information. Among them we can highlight the films and television series as they are an excellent tool for promoting tourism for the territories where they are filmed. The appearance of a particular area in a film or television series can have a huge effect...

Although scholars agree that the festival experience is multidimensional, there is still no consensus in terms of the dimensions of quality and perceived value, being the analysis of the utilitarian and socio-psychological perspectives of value in the musical context insufficient. This study uses a multidimensional analysis to investigate the predi...

The majority of studies about disability and the labour market tend to treat disabled people as a homogeneous group, without considering that their behaviour differs based on certain variables such as typology and degree of disability, education level, gender or age, particularly among those with intellectual disabilities. For this reason, the obje...

O enoturismo permite estabelecer vínculos emocionais com consumidores, melhorando a experiência dos turistas e podendo incentivar posterior revisita. Dada a sua natureza, as tecnologias de Realidade Virtual (RV) podem influenciar a perceção dos utilizadores sobre a experiência turística, pelo que nos propomos compreender se a possibilidade de viven...

Resumo | A Realidade Virtual (RV) pode influenciar a perceção dos utilizadores sobre um determinado local, através de experiências em ambientes imersivos. No contexto do turismo, a utilização desta tecnologia revela-se determinante na promoção de produtos e destinos, por melhorar a perceção do conteúdo turístico e gerar informações impactantes. Con...

The intercultural nature of tourism makes interpersonal communication a critical element that influences individuals’ experience and, in turn, their satisfaction. The existing research predominantly focuses on indirect communication (such as advertising). This study contributes to the literature by examining the effect of the reviews of language us...

Previous works that have analysed the efficiency of the management of professional football clubs have not paid much attention to the interaction between the sporting, social and economic dimensions of their activity. To bridge this research gap, a DEA model is developed and applied to determine the relative efficiency of clubs participating in one...

The aim of this paper is to relate innovation with the broadcasters' business model, by way of a bibliometric and review analysis. This comprises to study how they have incorporated the innovation and the effect of a disruptive innovation (as the Internet and other technologies) in their business model. To achieve these objectives a review of the s...

Over the last years, fashion events tourism has been increasing, namely through promotional events, in which designers and fashion companies present their new collections, attracting visitors that meet their needs of shopping experiences and attending fashion events. The objective of this research work is to identify the effects of the realization...

Tourism activities which have the highest environmental, economic, and social benefits are more sustainable. However, when the destination considers that it is still an emerging destination, it does not consider its sustainability at all levels, being only on the agenda little more than the environmental policies of solid waste and saving of natura...

The process of tourism destination governance should result from the link between local authorities, communities, and the business sector, aiming at the sustainable development of the region on the economic, environmental, and social levels. Another essential factor is the complementarity of tourism products, especially when combined with an innova...

In 2020, the world faced an unimaginable pandemic that has caused devastation and suffering all over the world and affecting the global economy and imposing the suspension of almost all economic activities including tourism. Many studies evaluating the effects of the pandemic on tourism have emerged since then, but with this work we want to analyze...

Nowadays tourist aspires to something differentiated, personalized, focused on quality, culture, and the environment. As this tourist is a more demanding one, it is crucial to provide an innovative offer bearing in mind that this type of tourist aspires to something more specific. This is exactly the case of literary tourists. By using a literary t...

Fashion events contribute to the enhancement of cities and regions as tourism destinations. The aim of this study is to understand the inuence of the individual prole and characteristics of the trip in the evaluation of the experience considering the participation in fashion events and understand the inuence of the experience of participation in th...

Fashion events have the particularity of adding recognition and value to host cities, which is reflected in a competitive advantage over competing destinations. However, the tourism of fashion events is not properly valued by the tourism industry, and therefore, this investigation aims to deepen scientific knowledge about this tourism segment. The...

This book analyses social tourism across the world, exploring the theoretical foundations of this type of tourism with examples of practical implementations. Part II is composed of case studies discussing the historical evolution of the concept and implementation of social tourism in different parts of the world. This discussion also results in the...

This book features a collection of high-quality research papers presented at the International Conference on Tourism, Technology & Systems (ICOTTS 2020), held at the University of Cartagena, in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, from 29th to 31st October 2020. The book is divided into two volumes, and it covers the areas of technology in tourism and th...

The continuous growth of e-commerce, combined with new trends in the tourism sector, creates an imperative to conduct analyses and establish suitable models for improving the experience of users who seek tourism products online, using search and metasearch engines. However, few studies analyze web design variables and their impacts on the user expe...

This book analyses social tourism across the world, exploring the theoretical foundations of this type of tourism with examples of practical implementations. Part II is composed of case studies discussing the historical evolution of the concept and implementation of social tourism in different parts of the world. This discussion also results in the...

The segment of the elderly population has taken on a heterogeneous character due to the various economic and social policies and reforms that have been implemented by the governments of the various countries. This is the baby-boom generation, that is, individuals who were born between 1946 and 1964, and who currently have greater purchasing power t...

RESUMO Dada a sua natureza, as tecnologias de Realidade Virtual (RV) têm potencial para influenciar a perceção dos utilizadores sobre um determinado local, através de experiências em ambientes imersivos. No contexto do turismo, podem exercer um papel determinante na promoção de produtos e destinos, uma vez que, estes mecanismos prometem melhorar a...

Various initiatives have been undertaken in recent years to improve the accessibility of tourism in a large number of countries. One of the areas in which work has been done has been the inclusion and accessibility of information for all, especially for people with disabilities and other users with access needs. A focus of this work has been to the...

The development of tourism in cross-border regions has been attracting the interest of several international researchers in this area. This article aims to evaluate the tourist experience in the Eurocity Chaves-Verín region, in particular, to identify the relationships between the characteristics of the trip, the individual profile and the experien...

The dry border between the North of Portugal and Galicia presents structural, demographic and economic problems that must be overcome, but also natural, cultural and touristic resources that must be enhanced. From a more critical perspective, tourism must be discussed as an important strategic sector for the economy of Galicia-North of Portugal Eur...

In this article we intend to show the importance of the work of Camilo Castelo Branco in the promotion of literary tourism in Porto. Literary tourism, being focused on the lifestyle and identity of local communities, local tourism will be a tourism that proposes activities based on local identity and memory and takes into account the preservation o...

This book features a collection of high-quality research papers presented at the International Conference on Tourism, Technology & Systems (ICOTTS 2019), held at the Universidad Abierta Interamericana, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 5th to 7th December 2019. It covers the areas technology in tourism and the tourist experience, generations and tec...

In this article, we intend to present literary tourism as a growing trend of cultural tourism. In fact, tourism and literature have a common element, the trip. Travelling, as an activity of making journeys, is an element of connection between different places and peoples and, therefore, it plays a crucial role in the tourism activity. Literature ma...

The Eurocity Chaves-Verín, as an European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), will be the central region to address in this work, focusing particularly on the issue of good practices taken into account in the existing cooperation link in these two cross-border regions, regarding the Thermal and Water Route Verín-Chaves-Vidago, as a leading...

The growth of the elderly population is a transversal phenomenon to almost all the countries in the world. In recent years we have seen a growing elderly desire to improve their quality of life and well-being, while increasing interest in this segment of life by governments and, especially, by tourism companies [15]. Studies developed by [9,10,19,2...

The Paiva Walkways, in Portugal, opened in 2015, gave an important impulse to the tourism dynamic of Arouca municipality. This tourist attraction lacks scientific studies, in the context of tourism. Thus, it was developed a study about the tourist motivation of international visitors of this infrastructure, in the year 2018. The main goal of this r...

A Festa do Boi is a festive celebration linked to the Catholic liturgical calendar, which is celebrated in Allariz (Galicia-Spain). This festival reappears in the 1980s and like other popular festivals, it collects traditional elements and re-builds them into a new festive ritual, more in line with the new temporal and spatial configuration of the...

Consumer behavior models in recent years have been strongly influenced by the predictive power of emotions. This has resulted in an increasing tendency to include them in the construction of overall global models. In parallel, theories extracted from positive psychology have begun to be applied to the planning and management of events. This article...

Border regions have been targeted areas for some EU-level investment interventions in order to allocate infrastructure and equipment considered key to boosting the territory, attracting investment in order to establish residents. The dry border between the North of Portugal and Galicia presents structural, demographic and economic problems that mus...

The tourism travel industry has achieved higher growth rates than growth in the global economy (WTTC, 2017). For this growth, the wellness tourism segment has contributed a lot. Over the years, we have witnessed a growing concern on the part of the individual in improving their quality of life, manifested, essentially, by the demand for spas and th...

Tourism is a major export industry for many countries and cities (Romão, Leeuwen, Neuts & Nijkamp, 2015), a context in which the city of Porto is increasingly included as an anchor destination in the Northern Region of Portugal. Also, the city of Porto has been reinforcing its position as a smart tourist destination by betting on the digital channe...

The study intends to show the business opportunities generated through the use of technology in the tourism sector by identifying its key elements, with the aim of improving the user's experience. In order to achieve this, the Way of St James has been taken as the object of analysis, given its relevance at a national level as a tourist attraction,...

Travel patterns are becoming more differentiated, influenced by new variables resulting from changes in lifestyle. The relevance of the senior segment for this industry, with the continuous aging population and their economic status, made this segment a very attractive group for the sector, and even more so in a country that is characterized by its...

Resumo O turismo é muitas vezes questionado pelas comunidades autóctones pelos impactos negativos que cria, apesar de ser generalizadamente entendido como uma atividade que promove o desenvolvimento dos territórios dado o seu potencial económico. Daqui o pressuposto de que o sucesso das atividades turísticas, no sentido da sua sustentabilidade, aco...

O termalismo, no passado, foi associado a tratamentos ao nível da saúde baseados em recursos naturais caracterizados por elementos específicos, relativamente aos quais lhes era atribuída a função curativa. O termalismo evoluiu quer no que respeita ao tipo de clientela que foi captando quer no tipo de tratamentos, produtos e serviços que passou a of...

The paper published in 2007 develops a model that increases understanding of the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction and treats behavioral intentions as an outcome of both constructs. The proposed model identifies some appropriate measures for these constructs using a questionnaire distributed to consumers visiting spa re...

In most service activities, customer satisfaction depends largely on the direct interaction with service providers. In the case of tourism, this interaction often occurs between people from different countries and whose mother tongues are different. In this context, concepts such as cultural proximity, linguistic accommodation, expectations and lan...

New teaching methodologies with a more active participation of the students are increasingly present in the educational field. One of the best known is gamification, which refers to learning through play. A tool used in this methodology are the LEGO blocks. In this paper, an analysis of the students’ skills developed by learning using LEGO blocks i...

Increasing market opportunities have been identified for accessible tourism as a result of improved quality of life. Disabled tourists tend to be loyal, spend more and enjoy longer stays in their destinations, although their behaviour obviously differs from one country to another. This situation is strongly influenced by the welfare policies that d...

There are several obstacles to establish tourism governance policies in a border area and to improve the conceptualization of tourism in border territories transcending the transnational level, using territorial delimitation at Euroregional level. At borders, tourism usually works as a strategic policy tool to strengthen the regional image, shape c...

Publicación derivada da mesa de debate organizada polo Foro Económico de Galicia

Los seniors constituyen una nueva y rentable oportunidad de mercado para el sector turístico, a causa del continuo envejecimiento de la población mundial. Concretamente, las nuevas generaciones de senior con un estilo de vida más orientado al ocio y disfrute del tiempo libre, mayor poder adquisitivo y mejores condiciones de salud que las generacion...

In this article, we present the literature review on the influence of LGBT consumers on tourism. Several authors demonstrate the clear relationship between countries progressive policies towards LGBT people and the economic benefits for their tourism sector, and the increasing social benefits as a result from the associated brand image of tolerance...

In this article we present the literature review on the influence of Generation Y on tourism and its relationship with the supply of hyper personalized products. Also seeks to reflect on the changes in tourism in the digitalization era. Also known as Generation Me, this generation are digital natives, multicultural, able to change, descendants of g...

This article aims to emphasize the importance of cross-border regions as tourism destinations, due to the application of streamlined designs by different stakeholders initiative, generating growth and development opportunities for these territories, based on appreciation of endogenous resources. Concerning visitors/tourists, the main objective of t...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the increasing importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in smart tourism destinations, in their integration in the activity of the tourism companies, and in their interaction with visitors/tourists. In summary, it is intended to evaluate in the city of Porto how the use of te...

This article seeks to reflect on the changes in tourism in the digitalization era. Regarding the tourism industry, the development of technology and the internet have been an asset. The adoption of information and communication technologies has led to changes in the way of communication with the individual or institutional clients and enables the a...

The internet has become the main tool to search for information. This is particularly the case for the tourism industry, where online searches are becoming increasingly popular. The ongoing growth of e-commerce has ruptured the existing relationship with the old management information systems and products. Given the vast range of available informat...

The current trend towards short-term travelling and reduced spending on accommodation has had a significant impact on the hotel sector. However, the hotel industry is becoming increasingly interested in the senior tourist segment, a population group that prefers hotel-type accommodation to other more inexpensive alternatives, even in periods of eco...

Purpose: To analyze the accessibility of official national tourism organization websites of countries around the world, in order to establish possible common patterns and rankings of those with exemplary practice through to those with the highest number of issues. The purpose for undertaking such an analysis is to provide a quasi-indicator of inclu...

Manuscript type: Research paper Research aims: This paper examines the impact of transformational leadership on salespersons in India by focusing on how transformational leadership affects their creative performance, intrinsic motivation as well as trust towards their supervisors. Design/ Methodology/ Approach: This study analyses the dyadic data o...

This chapter aims to analyze the different tourism search and metasearch engines for online booking based on supplier perspective (accommodation, flights, leisure and package deals) and taking into account the possible relations generated by the structure and content variables of web offers. A literature review is carried out to study user experien...

Research question: The most common result in the analysis of efficiency in multisport competitions like the Olympic Games using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a ranking of the participating countries. However, this approach does not consider the role played by sports federations, who administer sports at the national level, nor the intermed...

A global demographic shift is leading to an increasing number of older citizens, particularly in the most developed regions, and social tourism is becoming growingly relevant throughout Europe, especially in Spain, where it has been successfully developed by the Institute for Elderly and Social Services (IMSERSO) programs. The aim of this study is...

Global demographic changes and the increasing participation of senior citizens in leisure tourism activities have prompted governments and tourism providers in many developed regions to identify seniors as a priority market. Yet the lack of theory related to senior tourism poses a major hurdle to continued research in this field, especially with re...

Current demand for tourism is characterized by more frequent, shorter trips throughout the year. Such trends may have adverse effects on the hospitality industry but benefit the travel industry. Most current literature assumes that the variables that determine travel participation are identical to those that influence travel frequency, though there...

The first decade of XXI Century has been challenging for traditional tourist destinations such as Spanish islands and seaside areas. In recent years, these traditional destinations have been involved in an intense competition with the new destinations that offer similar attractions. All this within the context of a global tourism market defined by...

Recently, there have been numerous innovations in the field of education. Teaching methodology is one of the areas that have received the most attention. Given that context, this paper focuses on academic debate as an activity that fulfils the short-term objectives of individual and collective learning, comprehension, and stimulation, along with lo...

The elderly population presents a market of particular relevance to a large number of industries for its high purchasing power, comparatively higher than younger groups. Specifically, the tourism sector is emerging as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the aging process as a result of changes in the lifestyle of the population currently, more leis...

O interese pola poboación maior en diversas áreas da economía e da sociedade foi en au-mento nos últimos anos a raíz do proceso de avellentamento demográfico que están experimen-tando as rexións máis desenvolvidas a nivel mundial, especialmente o vello continente e particu-larmente España. Máis alá dos custos asociados á vellez, a poboación maior p...

Este traballo aborda unha tipoloxía turística que está en auxe na actualidade: o turismo LGTB (lesbianas, gays, transexuais e bisexuais). Inicialmente, preténdese identificar os desexos, necesidades e expectativas concretas do mercado turístico homosexual, analizando os estudos existentes para, poste-riormente, analizar a situación de Galicia en re...

Interest in tourism market segmentation of seniors has been increasing in recent years as the tourism industry has begun to be aware of their importance for the sector. This is a very heterogeneous group, with greater purchasing power and lifestyle-oriented entertainment and enjoyment of leisure time by performing travel than previous generations....

The study intends to show the business opportunities generated through the use of technology in the tourism sector by identifying its key elements, with the aim of improving the user's experience. In order to achieve this, the Way of St James has been taken as the object of analysis, given its relevance at a national level as a tourist attraction,...

Accessible tourism represents a segment with high potential and generator of a competitive advantage for the tourism sector. This profit is a result of all people beneficiary of accessibility as elderly people, who is increasing, families, people with temporary disabilities and pregnant women. Their representatively over the total of the Spanish to...

The introduction of sports activities in the tourist sector has expanded and diversified touristic offers and has given these offers a distinct character. Among all the activities that make up sports tourism, sports events have been increasingly used to promote the venues where they take place. Sports events offer the opportunity to promote the des...