Sentiment analysis applied to tourism: exploring tourist-generated content in the case of a wellness tourism destination

Figures & data

Table 1. Wellness tourism dimensions/categories and words associated.

Categories	Words associated	Sources
Hot springs	Mineral and thermal waters; hot springs establishments/hotel; thermal springs/centre/ complex/; health preservation bath	Dini and Pencarelli (2021); Rodrigues et al. (2020); Brandão et al. (2021).
Spas	Hotels-spa; spas; spa tourism; spas destination; luxury spa	Lemi (2021); Brandão et al. (2021); Dini and Pencarelli (2021).
Care of body and mind	Sauna and beauty service; fitness; cosmetics; massages; rhythmic movement therapy (RMT); gyms	Dini and Pencarelli (2021); Plzáková and Stupková (2019).
Medical tourism	Medical tourism; healthy; tourists with cancer and other chronic diseases; aged nursing; babymoon destination; healthcare and wellness tourism	Plzáková and Stupková (2019); Brandão et al. (2021); Dini and Pencarelli (2021).
Natural environment	Nature; environment; rural; therapeutic landscapes; social value; coastal areas; lakes; adventure tourism/ ecotourism; arboretum	Dini and Pencarelli (2021).
Spirituality	Spiritual; spiritual revolution; yoga; new age	Dini and Pencarelli (2021); Zhang et al. (2021); Han et al. (2020); Pan et al. (2019); Plzáková and Stupková (2019); Stará and Peterson (2017); Valentine (2016).
Culture	China wellness culture; longevity in Chinese culture; local culture; local way of life.	Dini and Pencarelli (2021).
Enogastronomy	Food quality and/or food service fresh and local; nutritional foods; healthy food; indigenous food; dietary	Madeira et al. (2019); Dini and Pencarelli (2021).
Sports	Sports tourism; sports and recovery; horse riding; golf	Dini and Pencarelli (2021).
Events	Festival and events; savonlinna opera festival	Dini and Pencarelli (2021).

Source: Adapted from Dini and Pencarelli (2021, pp. 339–340).

Figure 1. Process of opinion mining in multiple aspects.

Source: Muthukrishnan et al. (2021, p. 5185).

Description of the opinion mining process, from the collection of reviews, which convey the opinion of tourists, then the features are extracted to analyse the extracted phrases and obtain the result.

Figure 2. Semantic pattern model. Source: Rodrigues et al. (2020, p. 652).

Description of the semantic pattern model, from word analysis to obtaining associated themes.

Figure 3. Sentiment analysis process on product reviews.

Source: Adapted from Medhat et al. (2014, p. 1094).

Description of the sentiment analysis process on product reviews, which ends with obtaining the polarity associated with the sentiment.

Table 2. Algarve destination TripAdvisor.

ID	Name	City	Country	Category	Star	No. of Reviews
1	Caldas de Monchique	Faro	Portugal	Hot springs	4.0	156
2	Zensation – Body & Soul	Albufeira	Portugal	Care of body and mind	4.5	142
3	Mercado de Loulé	Loule	Portugal	Enogastronomy	4.5	160
4	Moinhos Velhos Juice Detox & Yoga Retreat	Lagos	Portugal	Spirituality	4.5	50
5	Old Town Faro	Faro	Portugal	Culture	4.0	160
6	Pinetrees Horse Riding	Almancil	Portugal	Sport	5.0	156
7	Ria Formosa Natural Park	Abufeira	Portugal	Natural environment	4.5	160
8	Swan Day Spa	Alvor	Portugal	Spas	5.0	160
9	Zoomarine Algarve	Albufeira	Portugal	Event	4.5	150
Total						1294

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Table 3. Popular hotels and its category visited by tourists.

Entity	Caldas de Monchique	Swan Day Spa	Zensation – Body & Soul	Ria Formosa Natural Park	Moinhos Velhos Juice Detox & Yoga Retreat	Old Town Faro	Mercado de Loulé	Pinetrees Horse Riding	Zoomarine Algarve
Category	Hot springs	Spas	Care of body and mind	Natural environment	Spirituality	Culture	Enogastronomy	Sport	Event
Thermal	11
Health	30
Spa		248
Luxury		4
Massage			199
Sauna			18
Healthy
Medical
Nature				55
Landscape				9
Spiritual					9
Yoga					35
Culture						8
Wellness						2
food							127
Nutrition							9
Sport								6
Golf								5
Festival									4
Event									9
Count	41	252	217	64	44	10	136	11	13

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Figure 4. Sentiment by author country.

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Presents the average review rating compared to the average normalised sentiment (on a scale of 1–5) for each country of review authors.

Figure 5. Sentiment by Entity.

Source: Author’s elaboration.

It presents the average review rating compared to the average normalised sentiment (on a scale of 1–5) by entity that represents each type of health and well-being tourism considered in the study.

Figure 6. A word cloud of all comments.

Source: Author’s elaboration.

It presents the word cloud of all comments where the words “love”, “great”, “visit”, “ride,” and “place” stand out.

Figure 7. Destination Sentiments versus year with winters effect.

Source: Author’s elaboration.

It presents the average review rating compared to the average normalised sentiment (on a scale of 1–5) over the months of the year.

Figure 8. Sentiment with Covid effects.

Source: Author’s elaboration.

It presents the average review rating compared to the average normalised sentiment (on a scale of 1–5) over the year, highlighting the effect of the economic crisis in 2010 and COVID in 2021.

Figure 9. Author country versus sentiment.

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Presents the sentiment for each country of review authors considered in the study.

Figure 10. Number of the reviews by entities.

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Presents the number of reviews per entity from 2009 to 2022.

Figure 11. Average of sentiment and average of review ratings by wellness category.

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Compare the average of sentiment and average of review ratings by wellness category.

Figure 12. Average of sentiment and average of review ratings by words of wellness category.

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Compare the average of sentiment and the average of review ratings by the words associated with the wellness category.

Figure 13. Average of sentiment and average review ratings by country of the author’s review considered by the wellness category.

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Table 4. Sentiment comments and keyword analysis about the wellness tourism destination.

ID	Average ReviewRating	Average of sentiment normalised (1–5)	Sentiment Average (−1 to +1)	Keywords of positive comments	Positive words most used in negative sentiments	Negative words most used in negative sentiments
1	3.94	4.29	0.67	Nice Place spa	Spa Place Nice	Place Spa water
2	4.97	4.94	0.93	Massage Spa Relax	Massage Spa Relax	Massage Spa Relax
3	4.73	4.66	0.82	Fish Massage Spa	Fish Massage Spa	Massage Back time
4	4.35	4.25	0.67	Park Bird Walk	Park Bird Walk	See Walk Visit
5	4.66	4.76	0.89	Experience Time Great	Experience Great Place	Staff Time
6	4.28	4.28	0.67	Old Town Faro	Old Town Faro	Town Old Faro
7	4.77	4.83	0.90	Ride Horse Pinetree	Ride Horse Pinetree	Day Ride Park
8	3.79	4.03	0.59	Day Ride Park	Day Ride Great	Ride People Park
9	4.3	4.51	0.75	Market Fish Visit	Market Fish Visit	Market Visit Local
Total	4.40	4..48	0.76	Visit love great	Love Great Visit	Time Place Visit

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Table 5. Wellness tourism category and keywords about wellness tourism destination.

Category	Features	No of reviews	Minimum	maximum	Average	Standard Deviation
Hot springs	Thermal health	41	0.3	5	4.5	1.1
Spas	spa luxury	251	0.6	5	4.6	0.8
Care of body and mind	massage sauna	210	0.2	5	4.7	0.6
Natural environment	nature landscape	63	2.7	5	4.7	0.4
Spirituality	spiritual yoga	36	0.1	5	4.7	1.1
Culture	culture welness	10	0.3	5	4.1	1.7
Enogastronomy	food nutrition	135	0.1	5	4.3	1.1
Sport	sport golf	11	4.2	5	4.7	0.3
Event	festival event	13	0.4	5	3.2	1.9

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Table 6. Average of sentiment and average of review ratings by wellness category.

Category	Average of sentiment	Average of ReviewRating
Hot Springs	4,6	4,1
Spas	4,7	4,6
Care of Body and mind	4,8	4,9
Natural Environment	4,8	4,6
Spirituality	4,7	4,6
Culture	4,2	4,3
Enogastronomy	4,4	4,2
Sport	4,7	4,5
Event	3,2	3,2

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Table 7. Average of sentiment and average of review ratings by words considered in the wellness category.

	Word	Average of sentiment	Average of ReviewRating
Hot Springs	Thermal	4,5	3,7
	Health	4,6	4,3
Spas	Spa	4,7	4,6
	Luxury	5,0	5,0
Care of Body and mind	Massage	4,8	4,9
	Sauna	4,9	4,8
Natural Environment	Nature	4,8	4,6
	Landscape	4,7	4,9
Spirituality	Yoga	4,7	4,6
	Spiritual	4,4	4,4
Culture	Culture	4,0	4,1
	Welness	5,0	5,0
Enogastronomy	Food	4,4	4,2
	Nutrition	5,0	4,4
Sport	Sport	4,7	4,2
	Golf	4,8	4,8
Event	Festival	4,5	4,5
	Event	2,7	2,7

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Table 8. Average of sentiment by country of the author’s review considered by the wellness category.

	Belgium	Canada	France	Germany	Ireland	Netherlands	Other	Portugal	Spain	UK	Unknown	USA
Hot Springs	5,0				5,0	5,0	5,0	5,0		4,3	5,0	5,0
Spas	4,0	4,0	4,0	4,2	5,0	4,0	4,9	4,6	5,0	4,6	4,9	4,5
Care of Body and mind	5,0	5,0	5,0	4,5	5,0	5,0	4,3	4,9	5,0	4,8	4,9	4,5
Natural Environment	5,0	5,0	4,0	4,0	5,0	4,3	4,7	5,0		4,8	5,0	5,0
Spirituality	5,0						5,0	5,0		4,5	5,0	5,0
Culture	5,0							4,0		3,3	5,0
Enogastronomy		5,0	5,0	4,5	4,0	4,5	3,7	4,7	5,0	4,4	4,5	4,3
Sports					4,0	5,0		5,0		4,8
Event	5,0						5,0	1,0	3,0	3,0	2,7	5,0

Source: Author’s elaboration.

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