Exploring tourists’ discourse on sustainability and its impact on satisfaction: Insights from online reviews of rural and urban tourist attractions in Spain

Abstract

This research explores how tourists’ discourse on sustainability (economic, environmental, social, and cultural) is associated with their satisfaction with, and evaluation of, tourist attractions when writing online reviews. It examines the relationship between the importance tourists attach to sustainability and their level of satisfaction, as reflected in the ratings given to tourist attractions. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines data science techniques with statistical testing, a total of 207706 reviews of major tourist attractions in Spain are processed. The Spanish BERT-based deep learning language model BETO is employed to classify the reviews, and the hypotheses are tested through ordered logistic regression models. Additionally, the study compares how tourists’ sustainability discourse is associated with their level of satisfaction with attractions located in rural and urban areas. The results show that the cultural and environmental dimensions are associated with greater satisfaction, whereas the social and economic dimensions tend to receive lower ratings. Trips with friends or solo travel receive better evaluations than those taken as a couple, and domestic tourists are more critical than international ones. Environmental sustainability has a greater impact in rural areas, while the cultural dimension stands out in urban contexts.