ABSTRACT
Tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world and has become a leading sector in Indonesia. The Indonesian government has determined four superpriority tourist destinations in order to achieve visits by 20 million foreign tourists and 275 million domestic tourists in 2019. Moreover, a social network provides essential information that raises a new paradigm known as smart tourism. The geotag social network can identify tourists’ preferences, perceptions, and also attitudes toward tourist destinations from their posts on Instagram. It is important for the government and tourism management to understand tourists’ preferences and interests to develop a better strategy and policy. This study provides an alternative method to evaluate the superpriority tourist destinations using data mining shared on social media. It identifies the pattern of tourist visits and tourists’ interest related to their opinions of the tourist destinations using topic modeling, which generally describes the scenery, favorite spots, and events. In conclusion, this article provides recommendations for determining favorite tourist destinations based on tourists’ preferences as expressed on social media.
