Destination Web reputation: Combining explicit and implicit popularity to build an integrated monitoring system

Reputation is an essential component of destination competitiveness. The analysis of UGC (“explicit” popularity) and of the engagement generated by these comments (“implicit” popularity”) is usually conducted separately. Monitoring the online performance of a destination require a more comprehensive approach, which combines the capacity to attract tourists’ reviews and to enhance potential visitors’ engagement. The paper presents a prototype of an integrated monitoring system, PlaceRank, aimed at analyzing both explicit and implicit reputation. Built on the database of the PaesiOnLine tourist community, the system transforms qualitative information into quantitative indices and map destinations according to the combined intensity they take on a three-level scale. A preliminary test with a set of popular European cities confirms the validity of the methodology, showing the cities that are highly appreciated and/or whose reviews are shared by many people and, viceversa, those that are less appreciated and/or characterised by a low virality of their contents.