Discovering New Tourist Attractions Through Social Media Data: A Case Study in Sabah Malaysia

Abstract

Tourism sector plays an important role in ensuring that tourist attractions are well maintained and taken care of. Facilities such as trash bins, toilets and accessibility to the attraction area are also of importance so that tourists or locals are comfortable and at the same time ensure that the area are properly taken care of with the provided facilities. Nowadays you will rarely see a person without their smart phones and electronic gadgets brought together everywhere they go. They also like to share with friends and family members on what they are currently up to by text or photos shared through social media. Social Media such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have been used widely throughout the world. In this research, tweets data from Twitter collected in Sabah, Malaysia have been used to analyze and see its pattern in discovering new tourist attractions. These geographically enabled tweets were retrieved and analyzed to see the current attracted area and to determine potentially new attraction spots. Results in this case study demonstrated encouraging results in revealing new potential tourism spots by examining its intensity and outliers done in spatial analysis using geographic information system from the collected Twitter data. Tourism sector or city council can further develop the targeted area and better facilitated it.