Revealing the tourist image of an archaeological city: a comparative analysis of tourist experiences and travel agencies’ promotions using data mining

Guillen N.K.; Barreda A.; Sotomayor S.; Esparza Huamanchumo R.M. · International Journal of Tourism Cities (2026) · DOI: 10.1080/20565607.2026.2644568

Resumen

This research aims to explore how the image of a leisure attraction is formed from the perspectives of tourists who had a previous cultural leisure experience at the Moray Archaeological City in Cusco and to contrast this with the image projected by travel agencies. The study employed various software tools to process the contents of 1049 comments made on TripAdvisor by tourists who visited Moray between January 2022 and August 2023. Additionally, 15 websites of travel agencies offering tourist visits to Moray for cultural, leisure, and recreation purposes were analysed. The research utilised cluster network, textual network, and qualitative analyses with different software, including Leximancer for TripAdvisor reviews and tour agency websites. By examining and contrasting the similarities and differences between content generated through social media platforms and travel agency content, stimulating results are presented with critical implications for destination branding and advertising. Given the content available on travel-related social media platforms, travel agencies and tourism marketers must attend to social media, analyse and examine various perceptions and leisure-based traveller behaviours, and align their marketing and branding approaches for superior success. This research contributes to a new methodology model process in which a tourist image of a cultural destination could be better understood deeply through data mining, from the perceptions of many stakeholders, in this case, the tourists who previously visited the destination and the companies that promote the image of these places.

Instituciones: Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola