Post-visit and pre-visit tourist destination image through eWOM sentiment analysis and perceived helpfulness

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (11) ◽  
pp. 2609-2627 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Rosario González-Rodríguez ◽  
Rocio Martínez-Torres ◽  
Sergio Toral

Purpose This paper aims to explore the image of travel destinations after the visit by analysing sentiment orientation of the online reviews, and how this orientation, as well as other electronic word of mouth (eWOM)’s credibility sources, can affect the perceived helpfulness of shared opinions measured through the helpfulness score. Design/methodology/approach Tourist destinations are increasingly affected by travel-related information shared through the Web. More and more people first check the previous travel experiences of other people to build their own destination image and to help them in their choice of destination. This paper analyses the shared opinions related to the city of Barcelona in a well-known eWOM website. The reviewers’ opinion and the credibility sources of eWOM are extracted from the web using a webscraper, while the sentiment score to analyse the discourse orientation (positive vs negative) is calculated using computer-based sentiment analysis techniques. Findings Online reviews’ users are reluctant to provide extreme polar opinions (very negative, very positive) to any travel subcategory (hotel, restaurant, attractions and night-life) of a tourist destination. The results obtained also reveal that eWOM’s perceived helpfulness grows with the expertise of the reviewer. However, the helpfulness score given to the reviews posted is not influenced by the sentiment orientation of the author’s opinion. Research limitations/implications This research is limited to the case study of Ciao, which is a well-known consumer platform, and the city of Barcelona, which is a top touristic destination. However, the approach proposed can be easily extended to other similar consumer platforms and cities using the same methodology. Practical implications Understanding the information posted in the media environment is a major concern in the field of marketing destination planning. Positive and negative eWOM offers potential consumers a clear picture on the tourist destination, and this information can be used by Destination Marketing Organisations to meet customers’ needs and expectations. The perceived helpfulness of reviews analysed in this paper can also help practitioners and scholars to understand those factors that make reviews more trustable. Originality/value From a methodological point of view, the main contribution of this research is the utilisation of an unstructured approach to the measurement of the destination image based on the sentiment analysis of shared opinions. From a theoretical point of view, the study relates the post-visit destination image with the pre-visit image formation process, using the sentiment orientation of the former and the perceived helpfulness of the latter.

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 406-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Micera ◽  
Raffaele Crispino

Purpose Grounded in destination web reputation, the purpose of this paper is to propose a methodological framework for the analysis of the destination image-building process, where the sentiment analysis (SA) is integrated with social network analysis (SNA) tools and social media analytics (SMA), making them accessible and functional for destination management choices. The outlined framework was successively tested through an empirical analysis carried out on the image and web reputation of Naples as a tourism destination. Design/methodology/approach Critical analysis of literature on web reputation has allowed the building of the conceptual framework applied to analyse the online reputation of the case study of the city destination of Naples. The empirical research was based on the use of a platform to listen to and analyse social media conversations that allowed one to collect the data on both the destination image and the online reputation of the city. Findings The paper conceptualises the theme of destination web reputation, proposing an online discourses classification, presenting and ranking destination dimensions, which might influence prospective tourist decision-making processes. Furthermore, this study can also be apt for all destination managers who need to monitor their destination online reputation and brand, and better manage their online presence. Originality/value From a theoretical perspective, through the integration of destination management principles with SA, SNA and SMA, this paper provides an original point of view for the analysis. The web reputation analysis of a destination is one of the instruments which – if systematically used – allows us to develop an effective policy to promote a destination in a tourist-centric way, in which the local offer system will be increasingly co-created and thus tailored to customers.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Usha Arora ◽  
Deepti Dabas Hazarika

Economies all over the world are moving towards a focus on services. Tourism has emerged as a major contributor to economies all over the world. This is why specific focus is being placed on tourism, as Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) concentrate their efforts on tourism. India has been one of the countries where the share of tourism in national income has steadily been increasing. As the national capital, the city of Delhi has a major role to play in the tourist inflow to the country, as well as within the country. Successful tourism marketing requires that the concepts of tourist destination and underlying factors are comprehended in detail. An analysis of the available, pertinent literature on the area shows the manner in which numerous factors come together to form the image of a tourist destination. In fact, it needs to be understood that image formation may be done differently for different consumers. This further necessitates a detailed study of the factors influencing tourist destination image.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Devin Cahya Triansya ◽  
Beta Budisetyorini

 AbstractThe continuous rapidly growth of tourism sector with the tight competition in the field of tourismmakes not all tourist destinations in the world always experience an increase in the number of tourist visits each year. Banjarmasin City, dubbed the “Kota Seribu Sungai” or "City of Thousand Rivers" and is known as the Thousand Rivers tourist destination has experiencedfluctuate number of tourist arrivals and tend to decline. The fluctuate number of tourist arrivalssourced from tourist visiting decisions can be influenced by various factors, including tourism destination productsand image. This study aims to see the effects of tourism destination products consisting of physical products, people, packages, and programsalsothe image of tourism destinations consisting of cognitive image and affective image on tourists visiting decision to the city of Thousand River Banjarmasin. The data obtained were taken by questionnaire to 123 tourists by accidental sampling. The results of the research were analyzed using multiple linear regression with two equations, namely (I) The influence of tourism destination products on tourist visiting decision and (II) The impact of tourism destination image on tourist visiting decision. The resultsfound the positive influence of tourism destination products to thetourist visiting decision of 54.5% and the image of tourism destination on the tourist visiting decision of 53.4% and the rest of 45.5% and 46.6% influenced by other factors not examined. The results of the analysis also showed the effect of tourism destination products variable partially consisting of physical products, packages, and programs have an effect on the decision of tourists while people have no influence. As for the variable image of tourism destinations in partial consisting of cognitive image and affective image affect the decision of tourists visiting to Kota Seribu Sungai Banjarmasin. 


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiago de Melo

Online reviews are readily available on the Web and widely used for decision-making. However, only a few studies on Portuguese sentiment analysis are reported due to the lack of resources including domain-specific sentiment lexical collections. In this paper, we present an effective methodology using probabilities of the Bayes’ Theorem for building a set of lexicons, called SentiProdBR, for 10 different product categories for the Portuguese language. Experimental results indicate that our methodology significantly outperforms several alternative approaches of building domain-specific sentiment lexicons.


Author(s):  
Tomas Lopez-Guzman ◽  
Jesús Claudio Pérez Gálvez ◽  
Guzmán Antonio Muñoz-Fernández ◽  
Miguel Jesús Medina-Viruel

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conduct an analysis of the relationships existing among three basic constructs in the visitor’s decision-making process (motivation and satisfaction) in a tourist destination that is a World Heritage Site, such as the city of Cordoba (Spain). Bearing in mind the perception of heritage by the foreign visitors, the following four types were determined: alternative tourists, cultural tourists, emotional tourists and heritage tourists. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses the multivariate technique of grouping cases (K-means clusters) to analyse the similarity existing among the surveyed persons. From the groups or segments obtained, statistics and measurements of association were applied that provide the information necessary to study the possible trends of association existing between variables from a table of bidimensional contingencies. In the same way, non-parametric statistical procedures were used (Kruskal–Wallis H test and the Mann–Whitney U test). Findings The results show the existence of four diverse motivational dimensions among the foreign tourists to visit it: hedonic, cultural, convenience and circumstantial. Of the four dimensions, the hedonic and the cultural are the most relevant. The results show the existence of a common cultural identity: the Arabic cultural identity. Originality/value This paper contributes to complete the academic literature existing on the links of the tourist with the historical and monumental heritage that he visits, and with the tourist’s behaviour.


2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Divya Mittal ◽  
Shiv Ratan Agrawal

PurposeThe current study employs text mining and sentiment analysis to identify core banking service attributes and customer sentiment in online user-generated reviews. Additionally, the study explains customer satisfaction based on the identified predictors.Design/methodology/approachA total of 32,217 customer reviews were collected across 29 top banks on bankbazaar.com posted from 2014 to 2021. In total three conceptual models were developed and evaluated employing regression analysis.FindingsThe study revealed that all variables were found to be statistically significant and affect customer satisfaction in their respective models except the interest rate.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is confined to the geographical representation of its subjects' i.e. Indian customers. A cross-cultural and socioeconomic background analysis of banking customers in different countries may help to better generalize the findings.Practical implicationsThe study makes essential theoretical and managerial contributions to the existing literature on services, particularly the banking sector.Originality/valueThis paper is unique in nature that focuses on banking customer satisfaction from online reviews and ratings using text mining and sentiment analysis.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-367
Author(s):  
Thara Angskun ◽  
Jitimon Angskun

Purpose This paper aims to introduce a hierarchical fuzzy system for an online review analysis named FLORA. FLORA enables tourists to decide their destination without reading numerous reviews from experienced tourists. It summarizes reviews and visualizes them through a hierarchical structure. The visualization does not only present overall quality of an accommodation, but it also presents the condition of the bed, hospitality of the front desk receptionist and much more in a snap. Design/methodology/approach FLORA is a complete system which acquires online reviews, analyzes sentiments, computes feature scores and summarizes results in a hierarchical view. FLORA is designed to use an overall score, rated by real tourists as a baseline for accuracy comparison. The accuracy of FLORA has achieved by a novel sentiment analysis process (as part of a knowledge acquisition engine) based on semantic analysis and a novel rating technique, called hierarchical fuzzy calculation, in the knowledge inference engine. Findings The performance comparison of FLORA against related work has been assessed in two aspects. The first aspect focuses on review analysis with binary format representation. The results reveal that the hierarchical fuzzy method, with probability weighting of FLORA, is achieved with the highest values in precision, recall and F-measure. The second aspect looks at review analysis with a five-point rating scale rating by comparing with one of the most advanced research methods, called fuzzy domain ontology. The results reveal that the hierarchical fuzzy method, with probability weighting of FLORA, returns the closest results to the tourist-defined rating. Research limitations/implications This research advances knowledge of online review analysis by contributing a novel sentiment analysis process and a novel rating technique. The FLORA system has two limitations. First, the reviews are based on individual expression, which is an arbitrary distinction and not always grammatically correct. Consequently, some opinions may not be extracted because the context free grammar rules are insufficient. Second, natural languages evolve and diversify all the time. Many emerging words or phrases, including idioms, proverbs and slang, are often used in online reviews. Thus, those words or phrases need to be manually updated in the knowledge base. Practical implications This research contributes to the tourism business and assists travelers by introducing comprehensive and easy to understand information about each accommodation to travelers. Although the FLORA system was originally designed and tested with accommodation reviews, it can also be used with reviews of any products or services by updating data in the knowledge base. Thus, businesses, which have online reviews for their products or services, can benefit from the FLORA system. Originality/value This research proposes a FLORA system which analyzes sentiments from online reviews, computes feature scores and summarizes results in a hierarchical view. Moreover, this work is able to use the overall score, rated by real tourists, as a baseline for accuracy comparison. The main theoretical implication is a novel sentiment analysis process based on semantic analysis and a novel rating technique called hierarchical fuzzy calculation.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ángel Borrego ◽  
Maite Comalat Navarra

PurposeGoogle Maps is a web platform that allows users to review businesses and services, including libraries. Given the impact of online reviews on the corporate reputation of companies and institutions, it is important to understand how library users disseminate and process reviews on online sites. This study explores whether Google Maps is being used by users of public libraries in the city of Barcelona (Spain) to share their views on libraries' facilities and services and what perception of the library they transmit.Design/methodology/approachRecords corresponding to the 40 public municipal libraries in Barcelona were retrieved from Google Maps. For each library, the average “rating” (a quantitative assessment of the library) and a sample of the ten most recent “reviews” (a text and/or photograph(s) that accompanies the rating) were analysed. Reviews were categorised into eight categories: “children's areas”, “collections”, “location”, “facilities”, “general reviews”, “opening hours”, “staff” and “technology”.FindingsAll of the city's 40 public libraries are present in Google Maps and have been reviewed by users, usually with high ratings. The number of replies to users' reviews by library managers is negligible. Reviews with low ratings tend to be longer than those with high ratings. In the reviews, children's areas, collections and library location are given positive ratings. Facilities also receive positive reviews, although to a lesser extent, and two issues receive criticism: noise and lack of seating space for studying. Three aspects of the libraries attract similar numbers of positive and negative reviews: staff, opening hours and technology. The study concludes that Barcelona's public libraries should devote more resources for keeping the information in their profiles updated. They should also monitor users' opinions and create guidelines to offer feedback, especially to negative reviews.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is limited by being restricted to a single platform (Google Maps) and a single city (Barcelona). Those writing reviews in Google Maps may not constitute a representative sample of library users. “Local guides”, who tend to award higher ratings than other users, participate in a programme that allows them to earn points that may be exchanged for benefits. Therefore, it is possible that at least some “local guides” publish reviews on public libraries they hardly know (if at all) just to obtain benefits. Similarly, the large number of users commenting on study spaces suggests that young people may be over-represented.Originality/valueMany studies have analysed transaction data in online library settings, including visits, searches, downloads, etc. but there are no examples of analyses of user-generated content such as texts or photos uploaded to review sites and social media. The results of this study will help to improve the understanding of how library patrons see public libraries and to design effective strategies to respond to and generally manage their suggestions and complaints.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-09-2019-0291


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 544-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Ghasemaghaei ◽  
Seyed Pouyan Eslami ◽  
Ken Deal ◽  
Khaled Hassanein

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to identify and validate reviews’ length and sentiment as correlates of online reviews’ ratings; and second, to understand the emotions embedded in online reviews and how they associate with specific words used in such reviews. Design/methodology/approach A panel data set of customer reviews was collected for auto, life, and home insurance from January 2012 to December 2015 using a web scraping technique. Using a sentiment analysis approach, 1,584 reviews for the auto, home, and life insurance services of 156 insurance companies were analyzed. Findings The results indicate that, since 2013, consumers have generally had more negative emotions than positive ones toward insurance services. The results also show that consumer review sentiment correlates positively and review length correlates negatively with consumer online review ratings. Furthermore, a two-way ANOVA analysis shows that, in general, short reviews with positive sentiment are associated with high review ratings. Practical implications The findings of this study provide service companies, in general, and insurance companies, in particular, with important guidelines that should be considered to increase consumers’ positive attitude toward their services. Originality/value This paper highlights the importance of sentiment analysis in identifying consumer reviews’ emotions and understanding the associations and interactions of reviews’ length and sentiment on online review rating, which can lead to improved marketing strategies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-264
Author(s):  
Tingting Miao ◽  
Hao Ju

PurposeOver the past several decades, there has been an increasing trend towards inter-city cooperation, which is an efficient policy option to deal with the challenges from globalization, regionalization and the externalities resulting from urban entrepreneurialism. Specific to China, the city governments, which mainly refer to prefecture-level and county-level governments, have also made many attempts to cooperate with respect to their local economic development and public affairs. Nevertheless, the results of these initiations to cooperate vary to a great extent. Based on a review of regional pollution governance in the Xiaoqing River area, tourism cooperation initiatives at Weishan Lake and transport integration between Jinan and Laiwu. The findings demonstrate that China's idiosyncratic institutional background has a significant impact on the shaping of inter-city cooperation. For the most part, leading small groups (LSGs) and their leadership property tend to determine the effectiveness of inter-city cooperation.Design/methodology/approachTo examine the effect of the LSGs, we categorize them into three types, groups with strong leadership, weak leadership and self-forming leadership. Through reviewing regional pollution governance in the Xiaoqing River area, tourism cooperation initiatives at Weishan Lake and transport integration between Jinan and Laiwu, we try to probe the role of leading groups in the settlement of cross-administrative border issues.FindingsBased on these three cases, the conclusion can be drawn that the leadership type of the LSG can exert an important influence on the efficiency of inter-city cooperation. If there is a leader with a higher administrative rank or authority, the cooperation can be quite efficient. Otherwise, the cooperative ending might be very negative. In terms of the operation principle, we can infer that even though the cities are always self-development oriented, the leader with higher authority or a strong coordinating capacity can convince and persuade the city leaders to overcome their self-centered behavior template and boost the cooperation to March on smoothly. Also, it means that the LSG is constrained by its personalistic characteristic. Key command derives from the person who chairs the LSG other than specific rules and norms. If the lead of the LSG leaves his position, the cooperation might just become paralyzed. From this point of view, the lack of legal basis remains to be the LSGs' significant deficiency and the future reform should attach more importance to the legalization of the LSGs so the operation of LSGs can be more standard and stable.Originality/valueMany scholars have proposed their own theoretical models to explain the reason some cities successfully and effectively form cooperative relations, while the other cities do not. However, their models do not consider the idiosyncratic context of China or, how and to which extent LSGs can promote cooperation. Therefore, this paper seeks to probe which path in the context of China cities usually follows in the formation of joint efforts, and what role LSGs play in enabling cities to cooperate.


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