Destination image analytics through traveller-generated content

The explosion of content generated by users, in parallel with the spectacular growth of social media and the proliferation of mobile devices, is causing a paradigm shift in research. Surveys or interviews are no longer necessary to obtain users' opinions, because researchers can get this information freely on social media. In the field of tourism, online travel reviews (OTRs) hosted on travel-related websites stand out. The objective of this article is to demonstrate the usefulness of OTRs to analyse the image of a tourist destination. For this, a theoretical and methodological framework is defined, as well as metrics that allow for measuring different aspects (designative, appraisive and prescriptive) of the tourist image. The model is applied to the region of Attica (Greece) through a random sample of 300,000 TripAdvisor OTRs about attractions, activities, restaurants and hotels written in English between 2013 and 2018. The results show trends, preferences, assessments, and opinions from the demand side, which can be useful for destination managers in optimising the distribution of available resources and promoting sustainability

Destination image online analyzed through user generated content: a systematic literature review

Destination Image is a concept that has been studied for a long time in tourism research. The question of how a destination is perceived by tourists and potential new guests is an important insight, especially for local tourism managers, in order to evaluate the implemented strategies and to plan further tactics. Since the last two decades, due to a drastic digitalization, tourism research is now increasingly examining the Destination Image online. This creates new challenges in the selection of sources, methods, and in data collection. The aim of the present study was to systematically capture the approach to analyze the online Destination Image through User Generated Content using studies from the last ten years. Therefore, a Systematic Literature Review on primary research from academic databases was conducted. As a summary of the findings, a conceptual model was developed, based on the insights of the studies in the dataset, to contribute a guidance for the preparation phase of future online Destination Image research. In short, the main findings are: TripAdvisor.com is the main source for online Destination Image analysis. Researchers recommend using the help of software and programming languages to collect and analyzed the data. Equally to earlier Destination Image studies, the main methods applied in online Destination Image analysis are quantitative content analysis, qualitative content analysis and sentiment analysis. In combination with the examination of cognitive and affective factors, co-occurrence analysis, and correlation analysis. The present study has several limitations, which are: the loss of detail information due to reducing the studies to comparable key parameters, the absence of Anglo-American studies, due to the database selection as well as the lack of quality testing of the studies included.A Destination Image é um conceito que tem sido estudado há muito tempo na investigação turística. A questão de como o destino é visto pelos turistas e pelos potenciais novos hóspedes é uma perspectiva importante, especialmente para os gestores de turismo da região, a fim de avaliar as estratégias implementadas e de planear novas tácticas. Desde as últimas duas décadas, ocorreu uma digitalização drástica, a investigação turística adaptou-se a este fenómeno e está agora a estudar cada vez mais a imagem do destino online. Esta alteração criou novos desafios na selecção de fontes, métodos, e na recolha de dados. O objetivo do presente trabalho foi o de captar, de forma sistemática, as abordagens consideradas para analisar a imagem do destino online utilizando estudos dos últimos dez anos. Para este efeito, os estudos primários dos anos 2010-2020 das bases de dados académicos Web of Science, ProQuest e b-on, foram recolhidos utilizando palavras-chave de pesquisa pré-definidas. O grupo de artigos obtidos como resultado foram subsequentemente sujeitos a avaliação de eligibilidade, como recomendado por Moher et al. (2009). Isto significa que os estudos que não cumpriam os critérios pré-definidos foram excluídos. Os critérios de inclusão foram: O trabalho académico tinha de ser uma referência primária de uma revista científica, escrita em inglês e a amostra analisada tinha de ter uma origem associada à comunicação nas social media online. Posteriormente, os restantes 35 artigos foram transferidos para uma base de dados utilizando uma matriz de codificação. A matriz de codificação foi concebida para capturar os parâmetros-chave de cada estudo primário de uma forma padronizada e, portanto, comparável. Foi considerada informação geral, como o ano, localização e revista publicada, bem como informação temática específica, como o campo do turismo pesquisado e os meios analisados, juntamente com as categorias referentes à metodologia considerada, as ferramentas utilizadas e os resultados obtidos. A base de dados resultante foi então utilizada para obter declarações sobre a abordagem metodológica utilizada na análise da imagem de destinos online. Como resumo dos resultados, foi desenvolvido um modelo conceptual, baseado nos conhecimentos obtidos a partir do grupo de artigos, que constituiu o conjunto de dados para análise, para contribuir com um guião para a fase de preparação de uma futura investigação sobre imagem dos destinos online. Em resumo, as principais conclusões são: TripAdvisor.com é a principal fonte para a análise da imagem de destinos online. Os investigadores recomendam a utilização da ajuda de software e linguagens de programação para a recolha e análise dos dados. À semelhança de estudos anteriores de Destination Image, os principais métodos aplicados na análise imagem dos destinos online são a análise quantitativa do conteúdo, a análise qualitativa do conteúdo e a análise dos sentimentos. Em combinação com a análise dos fatores cognitivos e afectivos, análise de co-ocorrência, e análise de correlação. O presente estudo tem várias limitações. Que são: a perda de informação detalhada devido à redução dos estudos a parâmetros-chave comparáveis, a ausência de estudos anglo-americanos, devido à selecção do banco de dados, bem como a falta de testes de qualidade dos estudos incluídos.(TurExperience - Tourist experiences' impacts on the destination image: searching for new opportunities to the Algarve”)

A systematic literature review on the use of big data for sustainable tourism

Sustainable tourism research focuses on mitigating or remediating environmental, social and economic impacts on tourism. In the past years, Big Data approaches have been applied to the field of tourism allowing for remarkable progress. However, there seems to be little evidence to support that such approaches are an inspiration to sustainable tourism and are being implemented. In this context, we aim to obtain a comprehensive overview of the use of Big Data in sustainable tourism to address various issues and understand how Big Data can support decision-making in such scenarios. To that end, this paper reports on the results of a literature review via a combination of a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) in Software Engineering, and the use of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method. In summary, we investigated four facets: (a) sources of big data, (b) approaches, (c) purposes, and (d) contexts of application. The results suggest that the use of various approaches have impacted practices in sustainable tourism. The findings provide a thorough understanding of the state of the art of Big Data application in sustainable tourism and provide valuable insights to foster growth both in terms of research and practice

Sustainable tourism development : a critique

Sustainable tourism has become an increasingly popular field of research since the late 1980s. However, the sustainable tourism debate is patchy, disjointed and often flawed with false assumptions and arguments. This paper is a brief critique of some of the weaknesses in the sustainable tourism literature. In particular, it explores six issues that are often overlooked but must be addressed in research: the role of tourism demand, the nature of tourism resources, the imperative of intra-generational equity, the role of tourism in promoting sociocultural progress, the measurement of sustainability, and forms of sustainable development. Finally, it is argued that in order to transform research on sustainable tourism to a more scientific level, a systems perspective and an interdisciplinary approach are indispensable

Using sentiment analysis in tourism research: A systematic, bibliometric, and integrative review

Purpose: Sentiment analysis is built from the information provided through text (reviews) to help understand the social sentiment toward their brand, product, or service. The main purpose of this paper is to draw an overview of the topics and the use of the sentiment analysis approach in tourism research. Methods: The study is a bibliometric analysis (VOSviewer), with a systematic and integrative review. The search occurred in March 2021 (Scopus) applying the search terms "sentiment analysis" and "tourism" in the title, abstract, or keywords, resulting in a final sample of 111 papers. Results: This analysis pointed out that China (35) and the United States (24) are the leading countries studying sentiment analysis with tourism. The first paper using sentiment analysis was published in 2012; there is a growing interest in this topic, presenting qualitative and quantitative approaches. The main results present four clusters to understand this subject. Cluster 1 discusses sentiment analysis and its application in tourism research, searching how online reviews can impact decision-making. Cluster 2 examines the resources used to make sentiment analysis, such as social media. Cluster 3 argues about methodological approaches in sentiment analysis and tourism, such as deep learning and sentiment classification, to understand the user-generated content. Cluster 4 highlights questions relating to the internet and tourism. Implications: The use of sentiment analysis in tourism research shows that government and entrepreneurship can draw and enhance communication strategies, reduce cost, and time, and mainly contribute to the decision-making process and understand consumer behavior

Tourism in contemporary cities. Proceedings of the International Tourism Studies Association Conference: University of Greenwich, London, UK 17–19 August 2016 Conference Proceedings

The 6th International Tourism Studies Association (ITSA) Biennial conference was held at the University of Greenwich, London, England from 17‐19 August 2016. This was the first time that the conference had been held in Europe and it provided a unique opportunity to meet, hear from and network with tourism scholars and professionals from across Europe, Asia, Australasia, and North and South America. ITSA has a mission to encourage interaction and cooperation between developing and developed countries and the conference was successful in attracting 130 delegates from 29 countries. The main theme of the conference was 'Tourism in Contemporary Cities' with four conference sub‐themes of ‘Tourism Cities and Urban Tourism’, ‘The Chinese Market for European Tourism’, ‘River, Cruise and Maritime Tourism’, and ‘Heritage Tourism in Cities’, The subthemes were chosen to reflect the unique location of the conference on the UNESCO Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, and London which is Europe’s most visited tourist destination. The conference also presented ‘Dark Tourism and Cities’ and ‘Tourism and Communist Heritage’ as special sessions