Supporting tourism planning by using social media-related geographic information: the case of Alghero

This contribution offers a discussion concerning the use of Social media geographic information (SMGI), in the context of the tourism planning at regional and local level. The widespread diffusion of social media platforms is playing an increasingly important role as information source both for tourists, who gather reliable information supporting destinations’ choice and services from peers, and for businesses, who can use the same information for improving their marketing strategies. The use of SMGI can also offer new opportunities for decision-support in tourism planning. However, this kind of information is often neglected by planners. The study proposes an integrated approach in order to investigate, qualitatively and quantitatively, the relationships between tourists’ satisfaction, geographic locations and tourist enterprises in supporting decision-making processes. The methodology implemented includes data collection from Booking and TripAdvisor.com and their integration with authoritative territorial data. Spatial and statistical analysis techniques are applied in order to assess tourists’ perceptions on success factors, which may be used as planning support tools.