Understanding tourists' travel behavior before, during, and after the trip with data from social media platforms

Analyzing tourists' travel behavior at different stages of a trip can help to better understand their travel demands, providing valuable suggestions for destination management. In this article, we propose a research framework that can help in comprehensively analyzing tourists' travel behavior from the perspective of the three main stages: before, during, and after the trip. A case study was conducted based on user-generated content data from the Old Town of Lijiang to verify the feasibility of the proposed research framework. The results show that: (1) before the trip, tourists inquire about destinations and optimal stay; (2) during the trip, tourists are attracted to natural sceneries; (3) after the trip, tourists discuss experience and services. Travel behavior in stages provide detailed (inter-, intra-, and individual attractions) guidance (from tourists) for destinations. The proposed framework provides a novel perspective for exploring the spatiotemporal behavioral features of tourists at different stages of their trips.