I Know What You Think About Your Last Vacation: A Topic Modelling Approach for Destination Online Reviews

Online reviews (ORs) have garnered interdisciplinary attention, notably in hospitality and tourism. Despite their significance, concerns about OR credibility persist. Destination Management Organizations increasingly recognize ORs as valuable sources of firsthand, authentic feedback from consumers. However, there remains a dearth of cross-continental investigations into ORs, particularly concerning themes discussed by local and international travelers across various destinations. To address this gap, we employ Latent Dirichlet Analysis—a probabilistic technique to extract topics from a given corpus—to examine 10350 TripAdvisor reviews from 12 destinations in Ghana and Indonesia. Our analysis reveals shared concerns among domestic and international travelers regarding activities, destination attractions, local staff attitudes, and positive visitor experiences. This study advances insights, highlights limitations, and lays the groundwork for future research.