Automated Topic Modeling of Negative Tourist Reviews

Authors

  • Andrei P. Kirilenko Department of Tourism, Hospitality, and Event Management College of Health and Human Performance University of Florida
  • Svetlana Stepchenkova Department of Tourism, Hospitality, and Event Management College of Health and Human Performance University of Florida

Keywords:

Traveler satisfaction, Latent Dirichlet allocation, Anna Karenina effect, TripAdvisor, Social media.

Abstract

Automated content analysis of online travel reviews allows analysis of topics of travelers’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction, yet its domain is not well researched. We suggest that the “Anna Karenina principle” positing a greater variability of the factors leading to business failure as opposed to those leading to its success results in limitations of topic modeling applied to dissatisfied visitor reviews. We test our hypothesis using TripAdvisor reviews of the Museum of Terracotta Warriors (China). Our findings confirm the hypothesis; we also report the main themes of satisfaction and dissatisfaction of visitors from mainland China and industrialized English speaking countries.

Author Biographies

Andrei P. Kirilenko, Department of Tourism, Hospitality, and Event Management College of Health and Human Performance University of Florida

Dr. Andrei P. Kirilenko (andrei.kirilenko@ufl.edu) is Associate Professor in the Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and held positions at the Center for Ecology & Forest Productivity, Russia, European Forest Institute, Finland, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency laboratory, OR, Purdue University and University of North Dakota. His research interests include big data analysis, data mining, tourism analytics, climate change impacts, and sustainability issues.

Svetlana Stepchenkova, Department of Tourism, Hospitality, and Event Management College of Health and Human Performance University of Florida

Dr. Svetlana Stepchenkova (svetlana.step@ufl.edu) is Associate Professor at the Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management at the University of Florida. Her research interests are in the area of marketing communications, branding, and positive image building. She studies tourism behavior and the effectiveness of destination promotion in situations of strained bilateral relations between nations. She is also interested in usability of user-generated content for managerial decision making in destination management.

Downloads

Published

2019-12-20

How to Cite

Kirilenko, A. P. and Stepchenkova, S. (2019) “Automated Topic Modeling of Negative Tourist Reviews”, e-Review of Tourism Research, 17(4). Available at: https://ertr-ojs-tamu.tdl.org/ertr/article/view/538 (Accessed: 28 March 2024).

Issue

Section

Articles