Competences that the new work in tourism requires

La irrupción de Internet en la sociedad está generando una nueva forma de trabajo, creado directamente por los individuos, que presenta características diferentes del trabajo tradicional. Este reciente modo de ofrecer y demandar servicios se da en distintas actividades propias del sector turístico. Partiendo de la literatura existente, se fundamenta que trabajar en un entorno tecnológico modifica el trabajo y las demandas a los trabajadores. Para comprobar los requisitos especiales del trabajo que se produce por parte de las personas al amparo de Internet se analizan, con una metodología cualitativa, diferentes sitios web dedicados a este mercado laboral. Partiendo de un enfoque de competencias, basado en comportamientos específicos que permiten lograr un alto rendimiento, los resultados describen un perfil de trabajador en el que, aparte de las habilidades necesitadas para cada trabajo, se requieren unas competencias interpersonales y cognitivas específicas. Tanto los trabajadores, como los futuros profesionales, y las instituciones responsables de la formación y el empleo deberían ser conscientes de esta realidad profesional.The growth of the Internet in society is creating a new type of work generated directly by individuals and that has different characteristics from traditional jobs. This new way of offering and demanding services appears in several activities of the tourism sector. From the existing literature, we prove that technological environments modify the tasks required from and the demands made to workers. To check the special requirements of the work produced by individuals taking advantage of the possibilities of the Internet, we analyze with a qualitative methodology different websites dedicated to this labor market. Drawing on a competence approach based on specific behaviors related with a high performance, the results describe a worker profile in which, apart from the skills needed for the job, specific interpersonal and cognitive competences are required. Both workers, as future professionals, and institutions responsible of training and employment should be aware of this professional reality

The emergence of language consensus - Intensifying language interaction in information systems development

The delivery of IS services is very resource consuming in all organizations. In an era in which management optimization is one of the bases for competitive advantage, sourcing options must be judged carefully. Traditionally, the dilemma has been considered in terms of make (insourcing) or buy (outsourcing). But both of these options have shown a certain amount of problems. Although outsourcing has allowed firms to concentrate on their core competencies, it has also shown several issues that prove it is not a panacea. Insourcing, on the other hand, does not allow a great deal of flexibility and we also find that it is every time more frequent that firms do not want their amount of staff to grow. Between both options, the internal mechanism has arisen. Its use entitles the creation of an intermediate society between the organization and the market. This article shows two cases of organizations from different environments in which the sourcing process involved the creation of an intermediate organization to act as the described buffering mechanism. Both processes were related to the IS/ICT function, one in Spain and another one in Italy. The study of the two cases has helped us identify and confirm empirically a number of features achieved by this internal mechanism use

The Properties of Polymeric Films and Their Influence on the Dimensional Stability of Woven Pile Constructions

Though it was realised that size pastes did not form true film layers on the back of the carpet, yet it was thought that evaluation of film characteristics might throw some light on the actual behaviour of protective coatings in carpet backing. For this reason, physical properties of films of various sizing mixes have been investigated. Thin films suitable for mechanical testing were obtained by evaporation of size pastes on "Perspex" trays. The methods used included the determination of tensile strength, extensibility, bending length, flexural rigidity and flexing strength of size films. In order to study the relationship between above characteristics of free films of sizing mixes and characteristics of size films when applied to carpets, various Spool Axminster structures were back-sized on a small scale back-sizing unit. The latter was especially designed and constructed in the Department to meet the requirements of the present work. The properties of the carpets investigated, as a measure of efficiency of back-sizing agents, included determination of tuft withdrawal force and stiffness characteristics in the unfinished and sized states. Determinations of these characteristics were also extended for sized worn carpets. For wear treatment of sized carpet samples "Booking Tetrapod" machine was employed. This was necessary because it was realised that true value of any sizing mix could not be evaluated until its resistance to wear was known. The property of increase in tuft withdrawal force with any particular mix after wear has been shown to have some bearing on both the tensile and flexing strength of free size films of that mix. In this respect, a new method of approach has been suggested. However, no relation has been found between stiffness characteristics of various sized carpets and those of free size films. In addition, viscosity characteristics of various sizing mixes have been studied under varied shear rate conditions and temperatures. For this purpose, "Ferranti Portable Viscometer" was employed. It has been shown that viscosity of the size mix changes with variation in shear rate conditions and temperatures. It has, therefore, been suggested that for process control, viscometer should be capable of providing reliable readings under varied shear conditions. The variation of viscosity with temperature established the importance of temperature control in the back-sizing process

A collective risk dilemma for tourism restrictions under the COVID‑19 context

This work is jointly supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Andalusian Government, ERDF and University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria under grants EXASOCO (PGC2018-101216-B-I00), SIMARK (P18-TP-4475), AIMAR (A-TIC-284-UGR18), and COVID-19-04.The current COVID-19 pandemic has impacted millions of people and the global economy. Tourism has been one the most affected economic sectors because of the mobility restrictions established by governments and uncoordinated actions from origin and destination regions. The coordination of restrictions and reopening policies could help control the spread of virus and enhance economies, but this is not an easy endeavor since touristic companies, citizens, and local governments have conflicting interests. We propose an evolutionary game model that reflects a collective risk dilemma behind these decisions. To this aim, we represent regions as players, organized in groups; and consider the perceived risk as a strict lock-down and null economic activity. The costs for regions when restricting their mobility are heterogeneous, given that the dependence on tourism of each region is diverse. Our analysis shows that, for both large populations and the EU NUTS2 case study, the existence of heterogeneous costs enhances global agreements. Furthermore, the decision on how to group regions to maximize the regions’ agreement of the population is a relevant issue for decision makers to consider. We find out that a layout of groups based on similar costs of cooperation boosts the regions’ agreements and avoid the risk of having a total lock-down and a negligible tourism activity. These findings can guide policy makers to facilitate agreements among regions to maximize the tourism recovery.Grant EXASOCO (PGC2018-101216-B-I00)SIMARK (P18-TP-4475)AIMAR (A-TIC-284-UGR18)COVID-19-0

DO GENDER, AGE AND FREQUENCY OF INTERNET ACCESS MATTER ON THE PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF HOTEL WEBSITE FEATURES?

Purpose – This study measures the relative importance of hotel website features based on users’ perceptions and analyses the impact of gender, age, and frequency of Internet access on the given importance of features. Our study includes ten features and three hypotheses. Design/methodology/approach – A research questionnaire was developed and distributed to hotel guests. A total of 406 responses were collected. Statistical analysis included paired t-tests and one-way ANOVA. Findings – Results showed that users prioritized information about products and services, bookings and reservations, an easy-to-use website, and contact information. Privacy, design, and information on the surroundings were also important features. Customer feedback options, corporate information, and links to social media sites were ranked as significantly less important. Moreover, age and frequency of Internet access have a significant impact on the perceived importance of features, while no differences were found with regard to gender. Originality – Many studies have used web performance tools to measure the performance of hotel websites. However, these studies have not provided guests’ preferences and perceived importance of website features. To our knowledge, no previous research has examined the effect of gender, age, and frequency of Internet access on the perceived importance of hotel website features

CAN DIGITAL MARKETING ON INSTAGRAM HELP TO PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL? Abstract

The contribution of digitalization and digital platforms to tourism sustainability is a timely topic. In this research we analyze if a digital platform such as Instagram could contribute and be used as a tool to promote sustainability by destinations and by travelers. To this aim, we implement a methodology comprised of four steps: identifying the most recognized sustainable destinations in the world (i.e. Slovenia, New Zealand and Costa Rica), downloading and analyzing the last posts from the official accounts of the DMOs of these destinations, identifying the most frequently used hashtags related to sustainable tourism (#ecoturismo, #ecotourism, #sustainabletravel, #ecotravel and #sustainabletourism), and downloading and analyzing 500 posts from these accounts. Our results are mixed, and show some opportunities but also significant challenges and puzzling outcomes. In general, there does not seem to be a consistent use of sustainability concepts in the publications analyzed

The stability and recovery of rib fabrics produced from bulked nylon yarns

With the introduction of bulked synthetic yarns, investigations into the disensional properties of plain fabrics knitted from those yarns have been made and a certain amount of information obtained. In the present work an attempt has been made to extend that investigation to the 1 x 1 rib structure, which in addition to being of considerable commercial importance, is also the basic knitted ribbed structure. For fabrics knitted from bulked yarns, it is not sufficient that they should be only dimensionally stable but that they should process also the properties of case of extensibility and subsequent recovery from that extension. Therefore, the work was designed so as to cover the broad aspect of the properties and performance of rib fabrics. The first part of this thesis is concerned with the dimensional properties of 1 x 1 rib fabrics, whereas the second part deals with the load-strain and clastic recovery charactaristics of those fabrics. All the fabrics used in this work were knitted on a Universal Power Plat Machine without employing any positive feeding device. The influence of various yarn and machine variables such as yarn denier, crisp rigidity, filament denier, method of yarn bulking and alteration of stitch can setting on the dimensional and elastic recovery properties of 1 x 1 rib fabrics have been investigated. The work is concerned with the properties of fabrics knitted from bulked nylon yarns which were processed by false twist crimping and stuffer box bulking methods. The influence of three relaxation processes, steam relaxation, wet relaxation and city tumbling, upon the dimensional stability of fabrics has been investigated. A detailed assement has been made of the various methods of measuring yarn collapsing properties of the bulked yarne used in this work. Explanations have been given for different results obtained when the measurement were made in air after the yarns were given relaxation treatment and those obtained when the measurement were made in water by the standard H.A.T.R.A. crimp rigidity test. The yarn collapsing results have been compared with the performance of those yarns when knitted into fabrics. It has been found that a number of methods used in this work for measuring yarn collapsing properties predict reasonably well the behaviour of yarns comprised of lower denier filaments when in fabric form, but none of these methods appear suitable to predict the performance of yarns composed of higher denier filaments when knitted into fabrics. For such yarns, therefore, a method is required to measure their collapsing properties which would correlate with the actual collapse of these yarns in fabric form. From the geometry of plain knitted fabrics it is known that the length of yarn in a loop and the number of loops per unit area in the fabric are the predominant factors which affect the dimension of a fully relaxed fabric. The effect of yarn and knitting variables on the loop length and stitch density of 1x1 rib fabrics is discussed in the first part of this thesis, which also deals with other fabric properties such as fabric length to width ratio, area shrinkage, thickness, fabric bulk and fabric air permeability measurements. The limited use of the air permeability test as a measure of fabric bulk is shown. In order to calculate the relationship between relaxed and measured stitch length for 1x1 rib fabric, the same method has been used as that for plain knitted fabric and it is observed that the theory developed for the latter fabric is also generally applicable to 1x1 rib fabric. From the measurement of various fabric properties, it has been found that dry tumbling causes maximum collapse of the fabric and that steam relaxation is an ineffective process in this respect

WHAT DRIVES SATISFACTION AND DISSATISFACTION OF HOTEL GUESTS? AN EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS BASED ON TRIPADVISOR

Understanding the drivers of hotel guest satisfaction and dissatisfaction is basic for hotel managers. In this research, we use a large database of more than 30,000 reviews that were posted on TripAdvisor to investigate this issue. We use Power BI to assign a sentiment score to each review and to extract the main phrases from them. This allows us to create two datasets of words and phrases (one derived from the reviews of satisfied guests and one derived from the reviews of dissatisfied guests) in order to compare them. In order to compare both datasets, we perform a quantitative analysis. We find that some of the concepts are mentioned almost equally by both types of guests (the staff, the room, the food options and the infrastructure of the hotel, mainly the pool area), while others appear more predominantly in one of the cases (e.g. the bathroom and prices are mentioned much more frequently by dissatisfied guests). These results allow us to draw some conclusions for hotel managers

The Intracellular Domain of Dumbfounded Affects Myoblast Fusion Efficiency and Interacts with Rolling Pebbles and Loner

Drosophila body wall muscles are multinucleated syncytia formed by successive fusions between a founder myoblast and several fusion competent myoblasts. Initial fusion gives rise to a bi/trinucleate precursor followed by more fusion cycles forming a mature muscle. This process requires the functions of various molecules including the transmembrane myoblast attractants Dumbfounded (Duf) and its paralogue Roughest (Rst), a scaffold protein Rolling pebbles (Rols) and a guanine nucleotide exchange factor Loner. Fusion completely fails in a duf, rst mutant, and is blocked at the bi/trinucleate stage in rols and loner single mutants. We analysed the transmembrane and intracellular domains of Duf, by mutating conserved putative signaling sites and serially deleting the intracellular domain. These were tested for their ability to translocate and interact with Rols and Loner and to rescue the fusion defect in duf, rst mutant embryos. Studying combinations of double mutants, further tested the function of Rols, Loner and other fusion molecules. Here we show that serial truncations of the Duf intracellular domain successively compromise its function to translocate and interact with Rols and Loner in addition to affecting myoblast fusion efficiency in embryos. Putative phosphorylation sites function additively while the extreme C terminus including a PDZ binding domain is dispensable for its function. We also show that fusion is completely blocked in a rols, loner double mutant and is compromised in other double mutants. These results suggest an additive function of the intracellular domain of Duf and an early function of Rols and Loner which is independent of Duf