Abstract:
– Many websites have generated different platforms for the travelers to consult
and review on different tourism service providers, attractions, activities, infrastructure and
experience gained subject to the guidelines of the respective websites. The researchers,
therefore, have identified these platforms as effective tools to understand the tourists’
motives, trends, experience, destination image, and tourist gaze. Thus, the purpose of this
study is to identify the most preferred languages, words among the online reviewers in
developing User Generate Content (UGC) and to identify different research methods and
tools used by the tourism scholars in analyzing them. The study identified 42 research papers
published during the last two years (2019 and 2020) through key research databases in the
world: Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, ResearchGate.net and Academia.edu.
Content analysis was carefully performed using NVivo (v.12) software to reach the research
objectives. The study identified that English is the most preferred language among the online
content writers followed by Chinese, Spanish and Russian languages. Word frequency
analysis and word cloud analysis derived the results of the content of the language used in
tourism and hospitality research. The study forwards implications for destination marketers,
user generated content developers and policy makers to take effective decisions on selecting
the most appropriate language/s in online destination promotions based on different tourist
generating areas and recommends best research tools to analyze the user generated content.
