Purpose The purpose of this study is to gather insights into digital consumer behaviour related to Chinese restaurents by examining visual contents on Tripadvisor platform. Design/methodology/approach Using the deep learning approach, this research assessed consumer-posted online content of dining experiences by implementing image analysis and clustering. Text mining using word cloud analysis revealed the most frequently repeated keywords. Findings First, 4,000 photos of nine Chinese restaurants posted on Tripadvisor’s website were analyzed using image recognition via Inception V3 and Google’s deep learning network; this revealed 12 hierarchical image clusters. Then, an open-questionnaire survey of 125 Chinese respondents investigated consumers’ information needs before visiting a restaurant and after purchasing behavior (motives to share). Practical implications This study contributes to culinary marketing development by introducing a new analysis methodology and demonstrating its application by exploring a wide range of keywords and visual images published on the internet. Originality/value This research extends and contributes to the literature regarding visual user-generated content in culinary tourism.

Purpose – To identify consumers’ travel behavior on social media (SM) before and after purchasing tourism product in the case of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Methodology – A quantitative survey collected data involving travel purposes from 413 users of SM platforms. Findings – This paper revealed the impact of social-economic characteristics on travel behavior and characterized two stages of purchasing process tourism product on SM: The pre-purchase behavior: the impact on decision-making process such factors as sources of trustworthy content, travel frequency, being a member of travel companies’ SM and feedback from travel companies; The post-purchase behavior: the impact of satisfaction and dissatisfaction on the level of spreading positive and negative reviews; feedback from travel companies on consumers’ satisfaction, frequency usage of SM. The originality – The paper investigated pre-purchasing and post-purchasing travel behavior on SM and lack of researches and online travel behavior statistics in Central Asia makes this paper valuable.

The purpose of the research. In this research work, considering the previous research works, it is proposed to identify and group the common problems encountered during the development of ecotourism and future development prospects.Methodology. In the conduct of this literature review, the aim of the research work was determined and its main tasks were formed. Research questions were formed based on the study goals, and papers from Scopus and Science Direct sources were reviewed based on the keywords composing the research questions. Articles from 2017 to 2022 were evaluated for relevance to the study topic using the BULIN OR/AND operators. Furthermore, materials were gathered through publications written by domestic scholars, books, and government websites.Originality / value of the research. In the course of the study, the authors, based on the goals of the state program for the development of tourism in Kazakhstan for 2019-2025, reviewed and analyzed the problems that countries face in the development of ecotourism, and combined the most common problems. At the same time, as a result of the review work, the positive impact of ecotourism on the state and development prospects was determined.Findings. As a result of the research, the lack of support from the government and local administration, the low level of infrastructure, as well as the lack of knowledge of the local population on the implementation of ecotourism services, and the lack of specialists in this field were shown as the main common problems in the development of ecotourism. It was determined that the development of ecotourism has a positive economic, ecological and sociological impact on the local territory and directly contributes to sustainable development. The study's findings will be valuable to future researchers and stakeholders interested in ecotourism development.