Semantic Icons: A Sentiment Analysis as a Contribution to Sustainable Tourism

Abstract

The construction of this research was developed to reflect the way information and communication technologies (ICT) have transformed the tourist distribution channel. This phenomenon has caused, in the first place, the direct interaction between tourists and tourism operators and, second, the appearance of real virtual intermediation actors, a situation that disadvantages the activity of traditional travel agencies and causes immersions in reintermediation processes at risk of compromising its permanence in the market. On the other hand, in a sustainable tourism context, this work represents an opportunity for intermediation agencies in terms of a value management practice as they can develop sustainable promotion processes that promote, for example, the protection of the territory, the conservation of resources, and cultural rescue. Therefore, according to travel agencies, to directly influence the distribution chain, we verified this work to demonstrate the use of digital language as a benefit in the design of sustainable tourism products. Thus, from the methodological discipline of discourse analysis, we created sets of words with semantic content that were valued through the sentiment scales of the Facebook social media network. The results showed that digital promotion favors airline companies and hostels more than a sustainable tourism environment as such. Finally, from the study of probability and density equations, predictive models were used to configure linguistic icons in promoting sustainable tourism.