Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical success factors of emblematic hotels from the perspective of the guest, by analysing the direct activities that make up the value chain of these types of establishments. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use the case study methodology to derive conclusions that contribute to the development of a theory about the success factors of emblematic hotels. The case selected is the Spanish Tourist Parador chain. The authors carried out over a period of two years a data mining analysis of the online comments posted by its guests. Findings: The results indicate that the attributes of location and facilities are critical success factors expected a priori given the nature of the business of such establishments, based on the singular nature of the buildings. Another critical success factor is personnel, which seems to indicate that the Paradors support their business model by employing highly qualified staff, but give less attention to restaurant services or the room, according to guest perceptions. Originality/value: The paper provides required evidence on the critical success factors of emblematic hotels adapting Porter’s value chain, for the tourism accommodation sector, through the analysis of direct value chain activities. In addition, the existing literature is broadened by taking a perspective scarcely studied, the guest perception of hotel establishments, online content posted by the user on the establishment’s website, rather than simply considering the traditional views of the experts/managers, through structures questionnaires. Besides, the results provide practical and useful implications for the managements of the emblematic hotels under study.

Recent changes in wine consumption have given rise to an evolution in production processes that render useless traditional cost systems. In order to face the complexity and variety of the winemaking process, we propose to use an adapted Activity-Based Costing (ABC) system for the cost calculation of winemaking. This system gets valuable information about winemaking costs to assist winery managers in improving their business competitiveness.

España ha centrado la mejora de la competitividad de sus destinos turísticos en la calidad del servicio, desarrollado a través de la marca «Q de calidad turística». En este trabajo, se contrasta si el esfuerzo realizado por los hoteles en alcanzar este estándar de calidad, es percibido por el turista que se aloja en el mismo de manera general o si se centra en alguna dimensión particular del servicio. Los resultados revelan que, para la muestra analizada, la calidad reconocida influye en la satisfacción que obtiene el cliente en ese establecimiento de forma diferente según la dimensión objeto de estudio.

The business dynamics of the agricultural sector generally call for a system of calculation and cost management that goes beyond output assessment and profit determination, and coordinates a tool that supports the decision-making process, thus facilitating the evaluation of different cultivation techniques, varieties and so on. Accordingly, this paper proposes using a cost model based on activities for calculating and managing production costs in multiproduct firms in the agricultural sector, using ornamental plant cultivation as a case in point. This particular case may be considered extremely difficult in terms of crop variety and likely destinations for the products (commercialization, self-supply, etc.). Consequently, the proposed model is transparent, flexible, simple to apply and understand, and easily adaptable to the peculiarities of firms in the agricultural sector in general.