ABSTRACT
Fully online tourist experiences remain a largely unexplored area of inquiry, as a valuable and meaningful traveling modality per se, beyond any connection with conventional tourism. This explorative study aims to advance knowledge on the role of human and technology dimensions in shaping the online tourist experience during the pandemic. A sample of 9,300 Airbnb Online Experience reviews of thirty-four online destination experiences was analyzed. A typology of four fully online tourism experiences is presented, such as individual escape and personalized learning, meeting the destination, meeting the host and social bonding. The research reveals the dynamic evolution of the fully online tourist experience during the pandemic, highlighting the strengthening role of the human dimension and the human-to-human interaction, despite the digital mediation of the in-remote destination visit. Avenues for destination management and marketing research and practice spring from the analysis of fully online tourist experiences as a form of virtual tourism. 完全在线的旅游体验仍然是一个很大程度上未被探索的领域, 作为一种有价值和有意义的旅游方式, 超越了传统旅游的任何联系. 这项探索性研究旨在增进对人类和技术维度在大流行期间塑造在线旅游体验中的作用的认识. 对34个在线目的地体验的9300个Airbnb在线体验评论样本进行了分析. 介绍了四种完全在线旅游体验的类型, 如个人逃生和个性化学习、与目的地见面、与主人见面和社会联系. 这项研究揭示了疫情期间完全在线旅游体验的动态演变, 突出了人的层面和人与人的互动的强化作用, 尽管远程目的地访问是数字媒介. 目的地管理和营销研究与实践的途径来源于对作为虚拟旅游形式的完全在线旅游体验的分析. © 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
ABSTRACT
Wine tourism has long been a strategic tool for Italian wineries. The Covid-19 outbreak jeopardised its dynamics on multiple levels, creating physical (e.g., social distancing, travel bans) and psychological barriers. Online wine experiences constitute one of the key resilience strategies adopted by wine tourism actors, being still a relatively unexplored phenomenon in the scientific literature. The current study tackles this gap by analysing the drivers of interest in online wine experiences on the demand side, i.e. among a sample of Italian wine tourists (n=408), through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Notably, the model considers long-term (involvement with wine) and short-term (Covid-19 fear and anxiety) factors, digitalisation and willingness to support local wineries by partaking in wine tourism. Results highlight that the interest in online wine experiences is driven by context-dependent factors like fear and anxiety linked to Covid-19, and the involvement with wine. Diversely, willingness to go on a wine holiday is not a significant antecedent, even with Covid-19 fear and anxiety as limiting factors. Practical and managerial implications are discussed. © 2022 Giulia Gastaldello, Elisa Giampietri, Elena Zaghini, Luca Rossetto. This is an open access, peer-reviewed article published by Firenze University Press (http://www.fupress.com/wep) and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
ABSTRACT
The present investigation takes a qualitative approach to explore Airbnb's Online Experience as a new virtual tourism initiative through the lens of attention restoration theory. Data were collected from tourist reviews at Airbnb's platform with an emphasis on touring services such as sightseeing and cultural immersion sessions. Our findings first point to a multitude of virtual tour experiences germane to deep immersion, authenticity, nostalgia, hedonism, past-present resonance, novelty, learning, social interaction, and escape. These stay-at-home virtual restorative experiences were infused by Airbnb's state-of-the-art platform with features such as a super host, storytelling, personalization, virtual connection, stay-at-home indulgence, and technology enablement, which ultimately transcend home as the center stage for virtual attention restoration under the COVID-19 new normal. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown pushed people to buy more online. With the increase in online shopping, there was also an increase in ethical issues with electronic retailers resulting from problems with products, misleading price practices, lack of customers' personal and financial data protection, non-delivery of goods, and misleading advertising. This study aimed to determine whether consumers' perceptions of e-retailers' ethics influence online customer experience and satisfaction when purchasing products and services. A research model was developed based on the literature on ethics in e-commerce. To fulfill the objective, a research model on consumer perceptions of ethics in online retailing was tested based on answers of 501 Brazilian online shoppers. Data were gathered through an online questionnaire and analyzed using structural equation modeling with an estimation of minimum least squares. The results indicated significant relations between the e-retailer's ethics, the online experience, and customer satisfaction with the mediation of ethical beliefs, suggesting that the e-retailer's ethics can potentially stimulate a good online consumer experience and satisfaction when purchasing on the internet and may contribute to the relationship between the consumer and the e-retailer. Furthermore, ethical beliefs can mediate these relations, collaborating with the effect of e-retailers' ethics on the consumer's experience and satisfaction. These results represent an advance in the study of new ethical dimensions in electronic retail, which currently are reduced to security and privacy issues. In practice, this study resulted in new knowledge about ethical practices that can guide electronic retailers in the adoption of new customer prospecting strategies. It also highlights the importance of improving regulations that prevent certain behaviors from happening. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown pushed people to buy more online. With the increase in online shopping, there was also an increase in ethical issues with electronic retailers resulting from problems with products, misleading price practices, lack of customers’ personal and financial data protection, non-delivery of goods, and misleading advertising. This study aimed to determine whether consumers’ perceptions of e-retailers’ ethics influence online customer experience and satisfaction when purchasing products and services. A research model was developed based on the literature on ethics in e-commerce. To fulfill the objective, a research model on consumer perceptions of ethics in online retailing was tested based on answers of 501 Brazilian online shoppers. Data were gathered through an online questionnaire and analyzed using structural equation modeling with an estimation of minimum least squares. The results indicated significant relations between the e-retailer’s ethics, the online experience, and customer satisfaction with the mediation of ethical beliefs, suggesting that the e-retailer’s ethics can potentially stimulate a good online consumer experience and satisfaction when purchasing on the internet and may contribute to the relationship between the consumer and the e-retailer. Furthermore, ethical beliefs can mediate these relations, collaborating with the effect of e-retailers’ ethics on the consumer’s experience and satisfaction. These results represent an advance in the study of new ethical dimensions in electronic retail, which currently are reduced to security and privacy issues. In practice, this study resulted in new knowledge about ethical practices that can guide electronic retailers in the adoption of new customer prospecting strategies. It also highlights the importance of improving regulations that prevent certain behaviors from happening.
ABSTRACT
The onset of Covid-19 pandemic has compelled institutions of higher learning to experiment with various online learning management modes, in lieu of the traditional face-to-face mode of instruction. However, conclusions about the effectiveness and sustainability of these new learning modes are not well-established. This study explored experiences of mathematics education lecturers and students who were first time users of an online learning management system referred to as UEW vclass. The sample comprised 10 students pursuing the degree of Bachelor of Mathematics Education and four lecturers who taught them five different courses at the University of Education Winneba (UEW), Ghana. Data were collected via interviews, and a survey item created on Google forms and administered through WhatsApp pages of respondents. The results of SWOT analysis show that lecturers found the UEW vclass useful and amenable to their teaching and assessment practices. As first-time users, the lecturers found the course creation, online delivery and e-assessment practices exciting, though challenging in terms of their digital and pedagogical skillset. Internet connectivity and system errors affected lecturers’ real-time lesson delivery sessions while the trustworthiness of e-assessment scores was a serious concern. Students found the UEW vclass suitable, convenient, interesting, and user friendly. However, students’ challenges were login, network, timing, real-time feedback and typing mathematical symbols. The paper therefore recommends an upgrade of network bandwidth to improve access, a built-in math symbols app, training and orientation of lecturers and students. The hybrid mode of learning is also recommended to enhance learning outcomes. © 2022, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.
ABSTRACT
The present investigation takes a qualitative approach to explore Airbnb's Online Experience as a new virtual tourism initiative through the lens of attention restoration theory. Data were collected from tourist reviews at Airbnb's platform with an emphasis on touring services such as sightseeing and cultural immersion sessions. Our findings first point to a multitude of virtual tour experiences germane to deep immersion, authenticity, nostalgia, hedonism, past-present resonance, novelty, learning, social interaction, and escape. These stay-at-home virtual restorative experiences were infused by Airbnb's state-of-the-art platform with features such as a super host, storytelling, personalization, virtual connection, stay-at-home indulgence, and technology enablement, which ultimately transcend home as the center stage for virtual attention restoration under the COVID-19 new normal.
ABSTRACT
The main objective of this study is to explore various barriers preventing students in Pakistani universities from learning online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Applying a qualitative research design, twelve (12) in-depth interviews were conducted with business school students, selected at undergraduate and graduate levels from six (06) universities in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan. With thematic analysis, various themes emerged from the interview data. Based on the findings, students who live in rural areas are more affected by online le arning during the COVID-19 pandemic than students in urban areas due to identified barriers and, most importantly, lack of technology infrastructure. The findings of this study will be helpful for policy makers including government and educational community to conduct and deliver smooth online education in the country during the pandemic.