Visualizing and Comparing Online Travel Reviews of the Great Walls: A Data Mining Approach

This research employs two samples of heritage sites of the Great Wall of China (Ba daling Great Wall and Mu tianyu Great Wall) and their 21000 reviews on TripAdvisor to visualize and induce feature-related comparisons. Word2vec and D3.js are applied for statistical computing and graphing Minimal Spanning Tree (MST) and ThemeRiver. The applications of MST and ThemeRiver are used to delineate outstanding features and clearer feature relationships. In terms of methodology, we applied an innovative research route to combine MST with ThemeRiver to visualize travellers’ online comments. At the same time, the visual results obtained are combined with qualitative analysis to generate valuable, intuitive summaries that can be used for reference in future research. Practically, the results disclose that although both sites are highly enjoyed by tourists, they are significantly different in terms of service, infrastructure and scenery. This article has implications for policymakers and practitioners with regard to making use of online reviews to gather authentic visitor comments on the Great Wall.

Use and Impact of Online Travel Reviews for Planning Free and Easy Holidays

Online travel reviews (OTRs) are used by travelers to plan and book their holiday particular by the free and easy traveler. Hence, it is essential for hoteliers to understand the factors that affect and empower travelers when using OTRs to plan their holidays. This study has adopted three theories: dual-process theory, psychological empowerment (PE) and TPB. These theories were used to test additional dimensions of the informational and normative social influence, its links with perceived empowerment, and their impact on the intention to use OTRs. Using SmartPLS to analyze the data collected from 392 Malaysian, the results show that PE is significantly affected by informational and normative social influence, from travelers’ perception of PE positively affects their attitude toward using OTRs, and attitude significantly influences intention to use OTRs when plans for travel. Furthermore, the research findings contribute to the literature on travelers’ behavioral intention; this study also has direct implications for online travel providers.

Social Network Analysis on Tourists’ Perceived Image of Tropical Forest Park: Implications for Niche Tourism

Tourists’ perceived image is the core of destination marketing. As an important niche tourist destination, the analysis of tourists’ perceived image of tropical forest parks has great value. This study takes the Yalong Bay Tropical Paradise Forest Park as a case site and collects a total of 1,44,022 words from online travel reviews on Ctrip.com via the Python web crawler technology. Firstly, through high-frequency word analysis, we identified 77 core elements and a total of five image themes, which are attraction image, emotional image, service facility image, crowd image, and activity image. Secondly, building on Net Draw analysis, a network structure diagram of the tourist’ perceived image of the Yalong Bay Tropical Paradise Forest Park is constructed. Finally, the overall network and individual network of tourists’ perceived image are analyzed. The results indicate that low overall network density is in possession of core and periphery. Guojianglong Cable Bridge, battery car, and glass path enjoy both high degree centrality and betweenness centrality. They also show significant advantages of structural holes. Therefore, they are on the top of the network. The academic and practical value of tourism image projection and development in tropical forest park is discussed.

Antecedents and Impacts of the Pilgrimage Destination Personality in the Tibetan Region: Case from Larong Wuming Buddhist Academy

The present research aims to explore the perceived destination personality of the Larong Wuming Buddhist Academy, a site that is a pilgrimage destination in the Tibetan region of China, and to examine the influence of involvement as an antecedent on the destination personality. This study further investigates the direct and indirect impact of a destination personality on loyalty. A total of 2454 online travel reviews and a convenience sample of 348 usable surveys were analyzed. The personalities of the pilgrimage destination in three specific dimensions were revealed, namely, the religious, agreeable, and ethereal dimensions. The findings verified the positive effect of tourist involvement on the pilgrimage destination personality. Furthermore, in the context of a pilgrimage, the mediating role of self-congruity and satisfaction between the destination personality and loyalty has been confirmed.

Value Co-creation in Non-profit Accommodation Platforms

Value co-creation, in the sharing accommodation sector, has been extensively analyzed but mainly with Airbnb as a reference and focusing mostly on guests’ perceptions. The aim of this study is to analyze the value co-created for users (guests and hosts) in the non-profit sharing accommodation platforms Couchsurfing and HomeExchange. This study also aims to analyze whether the co-created value of these platforms differs from that of for-profit platforms, along with how the outcomes, resources, and practices of the value co-creation process can help create wellbeing for individuals involved in the accommodation experience. Given that most of the existing literature on value co-creation in sharing accommodation platforms is based on Airbnb and guest perspectives, this study is a pioneer in analyzing how guests and hosts co-create value in the context of non-profit accommodation platforms using online travel reviews (OTRs) from non-profit platforms, and how the co-created value contributes to the wellbeing of the individuals involved. Results show that a set of tangible and intangible resources, such as the home and its amenities, helps users on non-profit platforms co-create value and that interaction and social practices between guests and hosts help co-create value for both groups. This implies that non-profit accommodation platforms may contribute more to the social dimensions of wellbeing of their users than for-profit platforms such as Airbnb where the host is typically absent from the experience. In addition, this study demonstrates that the co-created value in non-profit platforms depends on the modus operandi of each platform. On Couchsurfing, guests and hosts co-create more value from their social practices, and on HomeExchange, value co-creation depends more on tangible and intangible resources.

A Methodological Workflow for Deriving the Association of Tourist Destinations Based on Online Travel Reviews: A Case Study of Yunnan Province, China

Insights into the association rules of destinations can help to understand the possibility of tourists visiting a destination after having traveled from another. These insights are crucial for tourism industries to exploit strategies and travel products and offer improved services. Recently, tourism-related, user-generated content (UGC) big data have provided a great opportunity to investigate the travel behavior of tourists on an unparalleled scale. However, existing analyses of the association of destinations or attractions mainly depend on geo-tagged UGC, and only a few have utilized unstructured textual UGC (e.g., online travel reviews) to understand tourist movement patterns. In this study, we derive the association of destinations from online textual travel reviews. A workflow, which includes collecting data from travel service websites, extracting destination sequences from travel reviews, and identifying the frequent association of destinations, is developed to achieve the goal. A case study of Yunnan Province, China is implemented to verify the proposed workflow. The results show that the popular destinations and association of destinations could be identified in Yunnan, demonstrating that unstructured textual online travel reviews can be used to investigate the frequent movement patterns of tourists. Tourism managers can use the findings to optimize travel products and promote destination management.

Comparing online travel review platforms as destination image information agents

Online travel reviews have been extensively used as an important data source in tourism research. Typically, data for online travel review research is collected only from one platform. However, drawing definite conclusions based on single platform analyses may thus produce biases and lead to erroneous conclusions and decisions. Therefore, this research verifies whether or not there are discrepancies and commonalities between different travel review platforms. In this study, five native Chinese travel review platforms were selected: Ctrip; Qyer; Mafengwo; Tuniu; and Qunar. Using a mixed content analysis method, the destination image of Finland was extracted from 10,197 travel reviews in Simplified Chinese as the destination image is a popular topic in online review research. Results show Finland’s destination image representation varies between Chinese travel review platforms. This discrepancy is especially prominent in the dimension of functional and mixed functional-psychological destination attributes. Significant theoretical contributions and managerial implications for the analysis of online travel reviews and destination image research are discussed.

Guest satisfaction in relation to food services at resorts in the Caribbean and Brazil

A satisfação com os serviços de alimentação compõe parte importante das Online Travel Reviews (OTRs) de resorts. Estes serviços podem tanto atrair e fidelizar os hóspedes quanto afastá-los, além de influenciar a percepção de satisfação para com o meio de hospedagem propriamente. O objetivo deste estudo é analisar a satisfação de hóspedes em hotéis resort, com relação aos serviços de alimentação oferecidos durante a hospedagem. A metodologia deste estudo quali-quantitativo consistiu na análise da satisfação dos serviços de alimentação, a partir de 1.600 OTRs feitas por hóspedes, no site TripAdvisor, de 10 resorts localizados no Brasil e no Caribe. A análise compreendeu os serviços de café da manhã, almoço, jantar e de bar, em relação à satisfação geral com a alimentação. As OTR foram analisadas por meio de 4 categorias que compreendem a satisfação com a alimentação: os aspectos físicos do estabelecimento, os aspectos de qualidade dos alimentos, os aspectos de qualidade do serviço e os aspectos de qualidade dos prestadores. A análise demonstrou que não existem diferenças nos aspectos observados por hóspedes em resorts no Caribe e no Brasil. As OTRs não apresentam variação nas respostas destas duas regiões, sendo os serviços de bar, de jantar e de almoço os mais lembrados pelos hóspedes. Tanto aspectos físicos quanto de qualidade da alimentação e dos prestadores são relevantes nas OTRs. Os gestores de resorts devem estar atentos sobretudo aos serviços de bar, os resultados indicaram que grande parte da percepção de satisfação com a alimentação está relacionada ao bar. Para aumentar as chances de uma OTR positiva, o serviço de bar deve ser de excelência.

Botequins que são “patrimônio cultural carioca”: um estudo baseado em Online Travel Reviews

A gastronomia é um bem cultural para o turismo. Na cidade do Rio de Janeiro existem 29 botequins reconhecidos como “patrimônio cultural carioca” pelo Instituto Rio Patrimônio da Humanidade (IRPH), entre 2011 e 2017. O botequim é um estabelecimento que nasce na sociabilidade e na comensalidade, e na cidade do Rio de Janeiro representa parte da alma e do jeito de ser carioca. Este estudo exploratório, descritivo e amostral faz uma análise da relação entre turismo e gastronomia com base em cinco botequins patrimonializados da cidade do Rio de Janeiro (RJ), utilizando Online Travel Reviews (OTRs), disponíveis no website TripAdvisor. A pesquisa utiliza os softwares ParseHub e Iramuteq para, respectivamente, coletar e realizar a análise textual dos comentários on-line dos botequins. O corpus textual foi composto por 1.699 comentários compreendendo o período de oito anos, desde a existência do primeiro decreto que chancela alguns botequins como patrimônio cultural imaterial. Os resultados foram avaliados por meio da análise de similitude e de nuvem de palavras. O estudo permite compreender atributos (tipo e quantidade de comida servida, qualidade da comida e do serviço prestado), fatores que podem impactar diretamente na satisfação do consumidor e, portanto, na sua experiência gastronômica no destino turístico.