The Role of Tourists’ Feedback in the Enhancement of Religious Tourism Destinations

Over the last few decades, tourism has faced several challenges and opportunities mostly related to the tremendous rise of online social networks and tourist platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor, etc.). The revolution brought about by Web 2.0 (or Travel 2.0) has radically changed the behaviour of tourists, who are now able to access information rapidly and to contribute in generating information to share with other users. As a consequence, online reviews are becoming increasingly important, as they represent a significant information source both for the tourists and for the local management of tourism destinations. In accordance with content analysis methodology, the case study selected a manual coding process in order to transform non-structured information into a format that allows analysis, which is possible due to the nature of the reviews. This paper presents empirical findings on the importance of online feedback for a religious destination at an international level. The paper has 1,323 downloads (since 2016 to March 2021). The paper offers an original contribution to this new scenario, where religious tourism destinations should try to manage tourists’ feedback, in order to adapt their offer to the needs expressed by their visitors.