Tourism Perception on the Coast of Paraná, Brazil

Abstract

Digital platforms are tools of great importance for the evaluation of tourist destinations, as they allow tourists to access photos, evaluations and tips from users who have enjoyed destinations and attractions visited, thus being a source of consultation for other people who plan their trips. In this research, the analysis of comments on the TripAdvisor website was developed, aiming at mapping important attributes, in the visitors’ point of view, from a qualitative approach, guided by principles of netnography in the city of Paranaguá/PR, Brazil. The period considered as the basis for the analysis extended between January 2018 and January 2020 in order to reflect the realistic perceptions of the normality experienced by visitors in relation to the attractions without the bias of the Covid 19 pandemic time. In order to determine the corpus analyzed in the present study, the attractions available in the “Essential in Paranaguá” option were considered, classified by TripAdvisor as “places to see; ways to explore and; typical experiences”. Data collection was performed manually, with a copy of each comment left on the platform being made to a text document. 112 comments were compiled into a single text document with 16 pages and 6258 words, which form the textual corpus. This corpus was analyzed using the free software Iramuteq, suitable for qualitative and quantitative analysis of texts, such as correspondence analysis, hierarchical classifications, similarity analysis and word clouds. This set of possibilities enabled a better understanding of the meanings, motivations and perceptions emanating from the texts that make up the interactions of users of the TripAdvisor website in relation to the attractions of the city. Preliminary analyzes reveal that ‘Ilha do Mel’ and ‘Ilha dos Valadares’ are the most prominent attractions. The Descending Hierarchical Classification of the text indicates the existence of 7 categories of perception with related and statistically significant terms in the Chi-Square test. It was noted that ‘Ilhai do Mel’ is perceived as a place that is "worth" to be visited and that it has positive reviews and full of tips on how visitors can enjoy the best options during their visit.