Exploring tourist sentiments and emotions: an analysis of social media engagement in urban and rural areas in Spain
(A2024-119778)

AUTHORS

Elisa Baraibar-Diez, University of Cantabria; María Bernal Salazar, University of Cantabria; Jesús Collado Agudo, University of Cantabria

ABSTRACT

In an era where the digital environment plays a pivotal role in shaping consumer choices, sentiment analysis emerges as a crucial tool for unravelling tourists experiences. This study employs sentiment and emotion analyses to delve into tourist reviews in rural and urban areas in Spain. Employing advanced text mining techniques with Python programming, we scrap 173,369 reviews from rural areas and 347,040 reviews in urban areas from the website TripAdvisor from the period 2012-2022. Results show significant differences in sentiments and emotions by area and by review category (environmental, social, economic, technological and cultural), offering valuable insights for destination management and strategic tourism development.