La sentiment analysis a supporto della ricerca geografica. Un esempio applicativo per il turismo salentino

Sentiment Analysis to support geographical research. An application example for Salento tourism The thing that attracts tourists and determines their travelling choices is not the territorial attractivity itself, but its image. That image is the result of a subjective construction that becomes the experience interpretation key. From the perception of an experience descends the imagery related to the destination itself. Based on this imagery, tourists select a destination, then, they access and experience the imagery when they visit their chosen destination. In this context, the image conveyed about and from the territory, has to be in agreement with the tourists’ perception and, for the same reason, it is really important to investigate the tourists’ imagery. If it is impossible to analyze it ex ante, we can do it ex post. The instrument we present in this paper is Sentiment Analysis, an Opinion Mining methodology that uses systematic listening to the opinions on the Internet. It allows a qualitative survey of the perceptions of a specific object and it is the new basis of territorial communication strategies. The case of Salento, an Apulian subregion, demonstrates the potential of this new methodology.