Do deep learning models accurately measure visual destination image? A comparison of a fine-tuned model to past work

The measurement of destination image from visual media such as online photography is of growing significance to destination managers and marketers who want to make better decisions and attract more visitors to their destination. However, there is no single approach with proven accuracy for doing this. We present a new approach where we fine-tune a deep learning model for a predetermined set of cognitive attributes of destination image. We then train state of the art neural networks using labelled tourist photography and test accuracy by comparing results with a ground truth dataset built for the same set of visual classes. Comparing our fine-tuned model against results which follow past approaches, we demonstrate that the pre-trained models without fine-tuning are not as accurate in capturing all of the destination image’s cognitive attributes. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first deep learning computer vision model trained specifically to measure the cognitive component of destination image from photography and can act as a benchmark for future systems.