‘You will like it!’ using open data to predict tourists' response to a tourist attraction

Abstract

The increasing amount of user-generated content spread via social networking services such as reviews, comments, and past experiences, has made a great deal of information available. Tourists can access this information to support their decision making process. This information is freely accessible online and generates so-called “open data”. While many studies have investigated the effect of online reviews on tourists’ decisions, none have directly investigated the extent to which open data analyses might predict tourists’ response to a certain destination. To this end, our study contributes to the process of predicting tourists’ future preferences via MathematicaTM, , software that analyzes a large set of the open data (i.e. tourists reviews) that is freely available on Tripadvisor. This is devised by generating the classification function and the best model for predicting the destination tourists would potentially select. The implications for the tourist industry are discussed in terms of research and practice.