0000000000130244

AUTHOR

Furio Urso

Model selection procedure for mixture hidden Markov models

This paper proposes a model selection procedure to identify the number of clusters and hidden states in discrete Mixture Hidden Markov models (MHMMs). The model selection is based on a step-wise approach that uses, as score, information criteria and an entropy criterion. By means of a simulation study, we show that our procedure performs better than classical model selection methods in identifying the correct number of clusters and hidden states or an approximation of them

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Exploring User Behavior in Destination Websites: An Application of Web Mining Techniques

The development of the Internet has so strongly affected the way a tourist destination can be promoted that portals now play an important role in defining the marketing strategies of tourist destinations. Hence, investigating website surfing behavior has become crucial to understanding the needs of potential tourists. Using Web Mining techniques, our study explores the information-seeking behavior of those who log on to a website promoting the island of Sicily, a well known tourist destination in the South of Italy. The study explores whether a tourist’s country of origin affects their information needs and surfing behavior. Actually, our results do show differences in behavior between user…

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Analysis of clickstream data with mixture hidden markov models

clickstream data sono un’importante fonte di informazioni per l’ecommerce, sebbene non siano semplici da gestire e convertire queste informazioni in un reale vantaggio competitivo non e un compito banale. In questo articolo, consid- ` eriamo l’applicazione dei mixture hidden Markov model a dati relativi al flusso di clickstream estratti dal portale e-commerce di un’azienda di servizi turistici. Sono stati individuati cluster relativi al comportamento di navigazione degli utenti e alla loro posizione geografica che forniscono indicazioni importanti per lo sviluppo di nuove strategie di business. Clickstream data is an important source of information for businesses, however it is not easy to …

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Sustainable tourism: Measures, evidence and future prospects.

The Chapter aims to provide a critical review of the quantitative approaches so far introduced in literature to measure the sustainable tourism. We focus on both variables and methods employed to obtain synthetic indicators of sustainable tourism and aim to provide some critical insights on potential new challenges caused by the current pandemic. For example, some dimensions of tourism sustainability may become more relevant in future due to the increasing attention by people on health and safety. Finally, a focus on the studies on measurement of sustainable tourism in the Mediterranean area will be provided.

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Clickstream Data Analysis: A Clustering Approach Based on Mixture Hidden Markov Models

Nowadays, the availability of devices such as laptops and cell phones enables one to browse the web at any time and place. As a consequence, a company needs to have a website so as to maintain or increase customer loyalty and reach potential new customers. Besides, acting as a virtual point-of-sale, the company portal allows it to obtain insights on potential customers through clickstream data, web generated data that track users accesses and activities in websites. However, these data are not easy to handle as they are complex, unstructured and limited by lack of clear information about user intentions and goals. Clickstream data analysis is a suitable tool for managing the complexity of t…

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