Management of Tourist Destinations: The Expectations of Guests on eWOM Generation in Maldonado (Uruguay)

María Dolores Sánchez-Fernández, Daniel Álvarez-Bassi and José Ramón-Cardona
Additional contact information
María Dolores Sánchez-Fernández: Department of Business, University of A Coruña, Campus de Elviña, 15071 A Coruña, Spain
Daniel Álvarez-Bassi: Center for Marketing and Tourism Research, Catholic University of Uruguay, Av. Roosevelt y Florencia, parade 7 y 1/2, Punta del Este 20100, Uruguay
José Ramón-Cardona: Ibiza Island Council Uni. College of Tourism (Associated with the Uni. of the Balearic Islands), C/Bes, 9, 07800 Eivissa-Balearic Islands, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 17, 1-18

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of exceeding the expectations of guests to generate greater satisfaction, in order to offer an unforgettable experience and generate more comments on the Web 2.0 in the context of tourism. Structural equation models were used. The data for the analysis were obtained from a sample of residents of the Maldonado-Punta del Este conurbation (Uruguay), who were asked about their last overnight stay. The proposed structural equation model was tested using the partial least square (PLS) technique. The results show that exceeding the expectations of guests is essential for the clients’ experience and very important for the satisfaction with the stay at the hotel. The generation of online comments (electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM)) is also strongly influenced by emotional experiences. Exceeding the expectations of trained clients and surprising them with new services and experiences is the essence of luxury offers. The main practical implication is that exceeding expectations is the key to eWOM, and this means that managers must be involved in a perpetual process of service innovation.

Keywords: eWOM; management of tourist destinations; strategic planning; Uruguay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/6825/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/6825/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:17:p:6825-:d:402686

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().