Bucharest cultural heritage through the eyes of social media users

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the use of social media to underline the tourism cultural heritage of Bucharest. The authors examine the history of the city, dating back from its settlement during the Ottoman Empire and passing through a series of radical changes: the period of Phanariot rulers, the golden age as the “Little Paris” of the Balkans, the Communist period, and the current democratic regime. The paper is based on the reviews’ study from the Tripadvisor.com platform and investigates tourists’ emotions during their travel experiences. Sentiment analysis of Bucharest as a tourist attraction was developed based on the emotion criteria (anger, anticipation, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise, trust). The findings revealed that visitors have favourable emotional responses towards the tourist attractions.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural heritage
• social media
• travel experiences
• emotional responses
• Bucharest

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Camelia Surugiu

Camelia Surugiu is a professor at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Administration and Business, Romania, and senior researcher at the National Institute for Research and Development in Tourism, Bucharest, Romania. The area of interest concerns statistics and econometrics in the tourism field.

Doru Marian Tudorache

Doru Marian Tudorache is a senior researcher at the National Institute for Research and Development in Tourism, Bucharest, Romania. He is interested in tourism economics and statistics.

Roxana Maria Aștefănoaiei

Roxana Maria Aștefănoaiei is a senior researcher at the National Institute for Research and Development in Tourism, Bucharest, Romania. She is interested in tourism economics and statistics.

Marius-Răzvan Surugiu

Marius-Răzvan Surugiu is a senior researcher at the Institute of National Economy, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania. His research interests, among others, are tourism, statistics, and econometrics.