Customização da oferta turística de destinos tendo em vista a intenção de escolha: um experimento com aplicativo

Abstract

The tourist activity is a dynamic and complex activity that involves several social agents, which are integrated and interconnected. The tourist destination can offer attractions and tourist experiences for the individuals who arrive at the location. With information technologies and the spread of tourist applications, consumers have greater access to tourist information, contributing to travel decision making that meet their desires and expectations. Thus, the present study has as main objective to analyze how the customization of the tourist offer on the destinations of Aracaju/SE and Salvador/BA, through the availability of a technological application, can interfere in the consumption behavior, leading to the preference of the tourist or visitor. The following hypotheses were outlined to the destinations Aracaju and Salvador cities: Information technology, mediated by the proposed tourist application, can influence the perception/consumption behavior of tourists and visitors about the destinations; The customization of tourist attractions interferes with consumption behavior and the preference of choosing destinations; The pressure of time, accessing information about the tourist attractions of the cities, when adjusted to my personal preferences, influences my interest in going to these destinations. In this sense, the scope of this research was of a quantitative nature with an explanatory and causal character, using the experimental method. In order to achieve the proposed general objective, a tourist application and a scale were developed, with the intention of the interviewed going to the destination, which took into account the motivational constraints of the Swarbrooke and Horner model (2016), and the variables that constitute the scale of values proposed by Schwarz (1994). The experiment covered three different moments and the same respondents. One moment, without technological stimuli; a second moment with access to TripAdvisor; and a third moment accessing the developed application. The sample was non-probabilistic, with 215 people being surveyed in the city of Aracaju and 240 in the city of Salvador, with an interest in leisure travel. Descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, analysis of variance, multiple linear regression and binary multiple logistic regression methods were used for data analysis. In addition to the construction of the scale, the main results or findings stand out that Cutaneous and Personal Development Motivations did not represent the Motivation construct; that certain profiles of the interviewees are influenced by the customization of tourist attractions; there was a difference in the respondents' positions in relation to technological stimuli; there was similar behavioral characteristics between cities when considering Status Motivations, Physical Motivation, Hedonism Value and Realization Value, the influence that these variables have on the intention to go to the destination; and that the interviewees from Aracaju, were more influenced by time pressure, accessing tourist information, in comparison with the interviewees from Salvador.