Blog Map of Experiences: Extracting and Geographically Mapping Visitor Experiences from Urban Blogs

The prevalence of weblogs (blogs) has enabled people to share the personal experiences of tourists at specific locations and times. Such information was traditionally unavailable, except indirectly through local newspapers and periodicals. This paper describes a method of spatially and temporally obtaining specific experiences by extracting association rules from the content of blog articles. For example, we can read about visitors’ activities and evaluations of sightseeing spots. By geographically mapping their experiences, the proposed system enables observation of tourist activities and impressions of specific locations, which can often be more diverse than local guidebooks and more trustworthy than advertisements.