Consumer Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment Analysis involves harvesting trip reviews from social media platforms such as Facebook, Tripadvisor, and Twitter. With the use of algorithms, the ‘big data’ from these sources are scanned for the purpose of identifying the most frequently used words to describe a visitor experience at a tourist destination. This quantitative analysis is capable of grouping these keywords into ‘emotion clusters’ and also attaching a polarity to the emotion (negative or positive). The technique can yield valuable insights into what factors influence positive consumer experiences, with the aim of improving the quality of tourism products and major events.

Netnography is a related, but different technique. It differs in that it uses qualitative analysis of sentiment data (as opposed to quantitative analysis). The technique involves an analysis of reflexive narratives (or informal verbatims) that people publish online about their tourist experience. Netnography is becoming a common tool for market research as it has the potential to uncover additional insights that cannot be gained through formal interviews and focus groups, which can suffer from respondent inhibition. Netnography treats online communities (e.g Facebook, Tripadvisor, Twitter etc) like fieldwork sites. Through immersion into these virtual communities, one can draw insights from the exchanges between users (User Generated Content).

Synergies has successfully used these techniques to evaluate sentiments of those who have previously experienced the tourism region (before additional investment), then repeated the analysis for new visitors to the region after completion of the tourism investments. Sentiment analysis has also been used to benchmark tourism projects in the region of interest against similar tourism infrastructure or events in other regional areas in Australia that are regarded as highly successful.