An analysis of destination brand personality and emotions: a comparison study

Abstract

In order to capture a strong position in the highly competitive tourism market, tourism destinations need to better understand the technological dynamics and develop proactive strategies. Social media spaces provide new opportunities for destination marketing organizations to reach out to consumers and learn about tourists’ opinion regarding the destination. Moreover, positioning a destination around the feelings it generates, and its ability to offer visitors unique experiences, relationships, meanings and self-expressions is a strong competitive advantage nowadays. Hence, this study analyzes the concept of destination brand personality and emotions reflected in TripAdvisor reviews among the different service settings (restaurants, hotels, and sights). Comparing the results with a survey-based method reveals interesting differences. In particular, the dimensions of excitement, sophistication and competence are significantly more represented in social media than in the conventional survey. Furthermore, feelings of anger, disgust and sadness are significantly more present in social media. Hence, this paper illustrates how tourists connect themselves in an emotional manner to a city and how this varies among the different touristic settings. Marketers can hereby modify and/or steer the experience developing new experience based upon UGC knowledge.