Methods of studying mental tourist-recreation space basing on tourist reviews (case study of the Kirov region)

Impressions become a key criterion of the effective organization of recreation and tourism in the modern world. The efforts of organizations of the tourist and recreational complex are directed at forming impressions, scenarios of tourist products are being built, and tourists share their impressions on the Internet. The relevance of studying the mental tourist and recreational space using new methods of digital analysis is increasing. The method of text analysis is advisable to assess the mental tourist and recreational space, because the feedback of tourists fixes the emotional state and the impressions of interaction with the real component of tourist and recreational space. The paper presents an analytical review of scientific approaches to the study of mental tourist and recreational space, the application of methods for its assessment and the analysis of digital trail of tourists, as well as the experience of applying text analysis to study the tourist reviews. The information base of the study was compiled from the reviews of tourists and recreants downloaded from the Tripadvisor platform. Feedback base processing and text analysis was carried out using the PolyAnalyst program. The database consisted of 6,300 reviews. The sentiment index was calculated, keywords were extracted, and the relationship of terms was determined to find the key attributes of the mental tourist and recreational space. A component-bycomponent analysis of the sentiment index and the analysis of its changes from 2013 to 2021 were carried out. Additionally, a geographical analysis was carried out with the identification of territorial features of the perception of tourist and recreational space of the cities of the Kirov region. Conclusions are made about the negative perception of transport infrastructure, natural objects and recreational areas, as well as the improvement of the territory of settlements of the Kirov region. The increasing share of negative reviews was recorded over time. The results of the investigation could be useful to eliminate the problems of interaction between the population and the components of the real tourist and recreational space and to adjust the regional tourism policy. The proposed methodology could be applied to assess the mental tourist space in other regions of Russia and the world.

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