Automated Content Analysis of Destination Image: a Case Study

Abstract

Automated content analysis has become one of the most used approaches to extract “hidden” dimensions from text corpora over the last years. One of the data analysis techniques belonging to this approach is topic modeling, which can be fruitfully used to analyse complex phenomena like tourist destination image. With this aim in mind, this paper discusses the use of topic modeling to identify the main components of the image of cruise holidays spread through a specific type of visual text, i.e. the Television commercial. In order to achieve this goal, the paper presents the methodology and main results of a study carried out over a sample of TV commercials, which have recently been broadcast on Television by four of the major cruise lines operating in Italy.