TOURIST REVIEW IMPACTING DESTINATION IMAGE

Who goes to a place without checking the review? None right! To be on the safer side everyone loves to read about the place and check what it has to offer and how it is of more value to the tourist than any other destination. The importance of it is being seen in a lot of ways for the tourist destination image formation, that is, from making and at times even breaking the destination image. The tourist checks reviews for each service or product that is available at that particular destination including the 5A’s that are Accessibility, Accommodation, Attraction Amenities, and Activity. 

With the increase in the use of technology and people being more aware of the destination, they prefer to check reviews from different sites because they want to make the maximum value for the money that they are investing. 

With accommodation being a private industry most of the hotels, resort stays, and dorms have a feedback form prepared for the tourists to fill in whether or not they are satisfied with their service or are there any areas of improvement. It is a bit different for the attraction sector as the sites are prominently managed by the government so the system for reviews lacks behind, and as for the accessibility industry it also consists of private companies and people prefer them over the government transport facilities due to the services they provide, for example, red bus or indigo providing its passengers with the feedback form after their journey gets completed to check on their travel experiences. As for the amenities sector, it’s slow but still, in progress, developments have been noticed in these areas like public toilets being opened up in various places and also machines being installed for recording the feedback of the customer regarding the cleanliness and other facilities, and as for the activities that happen on a particular destination the review systems are not that strong like if someone visits Bir billing for paragliding their feedback on the service is not asked and also not given much importance and the only feedback given is through word of mouth. 

The review of all the 5A’s is essential for a tourist to judge the destination through all aspects. Making people aware and also motivating them to review the service and products involved in the tourism industry is one of the most important areas, especially in today's technical generation because people nowadays don’t even prefer going to a salon without checking for its reviews so we cannot expect them to invest their hard money into a destination which will not provide them a satisfaction worth their money. 

As far as awareness is concerned the stakeholders involved in the industry try their level best to capture the attention of the tourists through all the different platforms like emails, messages, forms, etc. Asking the tourist to provide their feedback helps in knowing the importance, and how it is essential for them to review a particular service or product, how it can boost the tourism of that particular destination, and how it will be of great importance for other travelers as well. This is mostly required for unexplored places because all the places that are popular enough already have reviews and stories attached to them for people to know, and as for the upcoming trends and the new generation, they love to travel to places that have lesser crowd comparatively and for also those spots and bring them under the spotlight so more people know about them. For example, the Eden beach in Pondicherry which is one of the few blue flags certified beaches in India is not really known to many tourists due to its low popularity, such places are required to come under the limelight so that they can also bloom. 

Earlier when technology was not in its peak time people could only promote a destination through word of mouth and give reviews on a one-on-one basis only to the people known to them. But with changing times and evolving technologies nowadays the reviews we read online are from people whom we’ve never met in personal life and still trust them with the experiences they might’ve had. So, the dependence of people on technology has increased and so has the destination’s dependence. The stakeholders in the industry highly rely upon the advancing technology for building the image of the destination as well as promoting it through online platforms with the help of different trends. Technology is changing as well as growing and even reaching rural areas. It has helped a lot of people in making wiser choices and looking into things while keeping all the aspects in mind relating to the destination and the services being offered. 

Published on: June 2022

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