ABSTRACT
The quality of services offered to customers in airports is important in today’s competitive culture. Passengers are more sophisticated these days and airport managers need to be better equipped to understand and meet their demands. The aim of this paper is to identify attributes associated with Incheon International Airport (ICN) as found in passengers’ online comments. Another aim is to explore how these comments relate to Seoul, as a smart city destination. Passenger comments were sampled using Google Reviews and a content analysis was implemented to build a conceptual model of the airport and destination attributes. Results show that some attributes are unique to Incheon Airport. Also, some same attributes refer to Seoul as a smart city, a title given to Seoul by Forbes along with other major cities in the world in 2017 and 2018.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to convey appreciation to Pham Le Hong Nhung, for her useful discussion and help. Also, the authors would like to thank Professor Chulmo Koo, the deputy director of Smart Tourism Research Center, for his support and guidance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Pari Molaei
Pari Molaei is a PhD candidate in Tourism Science, College of Tourism at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea.
Email: [email protected]
William C. Hunter
Dr. William C. Hunter is Professor in the Department of Convention Management, College of Hotel and Tourism Management at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Korea. He has lived as a world citizen in Asia for 20 years. His research focuses on destination imagery and problems related to cultural and touristic representations and subjectivity using visual research methodologies and Q method.
Email: [email protected]