International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering (IJITEE)
ISSN: 2278-3075, Volume-9 Issue-2, December 2019
4921
Retrieval Number: B7621129219/2019©BEIESP
DOI: 10.35940/ijitee.B7621.129219
Published By:
Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
& Sciences Publication
User Generated Big Data Analysis of Customer
Ratings of Beaches in Andaman and Nicobar Islands
of India
Anagha Prem, Sangeetha Gunasekar, Dileep G Menon
Abstract: In this study, we analyse user-generated content of
beach tourist attractions across Andaman and Nicobar Islands in
India to find the factors that influence tourist experience in terms
of customer satisfaction in island beach destinations. The study is
conducted to identify the specific attributes of beach tourism that
has positive and negative influence over the high rating provided
on online review portals. The study is conducted over the reviews
obtained from online reviews over Trip Advisor. Text analytics and
logistic regression is used to find the various attributing factors
that affect the customer satisfaction in the form of rating. The
online data is collected and the unique words are identified with
respect to the frequency of occurrence of the unique words in the
reviews and taken for analysis. The results indicate that there is
more influence of factors such as cleanliness of the beach, the
accommodation facilities available and the various beach activities
in inducing better satisfaction among the tourists than the scenic
beauty of the place. The study has policy implications as the
tourism development activities undertaken by the government of
Andaman & Nicobar Islands must focus on the positive influencing
factors and focus should be given on the factors such as better
restaurant facilities, crowd management and shopping facilities in
order to enhance the tourist experience at Andaman & Nicobar
Islands.
Index terms-Beach tourism, online review analysis
I. INTRODUCTION
Academic research has focused on island tourism since
several years [1] [2]. While themes covering economic impact
of foreign revenue earned [3][4], sustainability of island
tourist destinations [5], coastal scenery assessments [6], cruise
experience [7];[8], eco-tourism and resulting conflicts
between human settlements, increasing tourist footfalls and
ecological sustainability of islands [9] have been the focus of
several studies in the literature, not many have analysed the
reactions of tourists visiting different tourist attractions across
an island destination using user-generated content analysis
[10]. Tourism industry with a revenue of US$733 billion and
employment at 8% of global workforce, is expected to see
over 1.6 billion international tourists by 2020 (UNWTO,
2008). Beaches are the most popular tourist attractions in
islands. Many studies highlight the importance of beaches as a
tourist destination in the literature [10]; [11]. The studies
pertaining to Andaman & Nicobar Islands of India are scant in
the literature.
Revised Manuscript Received on December 05, 2019.
Anagha Prem, School of Business, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
Coimbatore, India
Sangeetha Gunasekar, School of Business, Amrita Vishwa
VidyapeethamCoimbatore, India
Dileep G Menon, School of Business, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
Coimbatore, India
One of the few studies that have focused on these islands [12]
estimate the carrying capacity of beaches at Andaman &
Nicobar Islands and find that while the islands tourist carrying
capacity is well within the limits, accommodation and other
infrastructure needs to be improved to at least match the
effective carrying capacity of these islands. Others like [13]
find these islands to have a high potential for ecotourism. The
Andaman & Nicobar Islands of India are bestowed with
beautiful coastline and sandy beaches and are a growing
attraction for tourists across the world. The present study use
the user generated content (online reviews from Tip Advisor)
of tourist attractions across Andaman & Nicobar Islands to
understand the factors that influence tourist experience in
terms of customer satisfaction. These islands of India are
endowed with some of most beautiful white-sand beaches,
mangrove forests, a large number of rare species of flora and
fauna [14]. It is a growing tourist destination of India
comprising of over 572 islands, islets and rocks, of which
only 38 are inhabited. Most of these islands have forest cover
with substantial parts under reserve and protected forest area
that are earmarked as primitive tribal reserves. Contact with
local tribes is restricted. The islands hold the potential to grow
into one of the most attractive tourist destinations of India.
The inflow of tourists increased over the years as clearly seen
in Figure 1 with domestic tourists showing stronger increasing
growth trends.This increasing trend of domestic as well as
foreign tourism can be capitalised for the growth of the
tourism industry and there by the economy. The data was
sourced from Basic Statistics 2016-17, Directorate of
Economic and Statistics, Andaman and Nicobar
Administration.
Fig1: Tourist arrival (foreign and domestic) at Andaman
and Nicobar Island
Tourist arrival in lakhs
years
Domestic Foreign