How safety affects destination image projected through online travel reviews

Destination image is a key factor for attracting tourists and wealth to destinations. With the spread of Web 2.0 and traveller-generated content, destination management organisations do not control the information regarding destination image formation through its cognitive, affective and conative components. The aim of the study is to analyse, using natural language processing techniques, whether the terrorist attack of August 2017 and the Catalan sovereignty process, which took place during the last quarter of 2017 in Barcelona, harmed the online destination image perceived and transmitted by tourists, through language recognition, frequency analysis and term categorisation of more than 150,000 online travel reviews, written in English, Spanish, French, German or Italian, posted on a shared-lodging platform. The findings show that visitors did not fear for their personal safety despite the seriousness and immense international media coverage of both events. The opinion of tourists, shared through online reviews, can help companies to improve the supply of goods and services.