IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v17y2025i2p452-d1562974.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring Transformative Ecotourism Experiences on Italian Pathways Through Online Reviews

Author

Listed:
  • Alessandra Marasco

    (Institute of Heritage Science, National Research Council of Italy (ISPC-CNR), Via Cardinale Guglielmo Sanfelice, 80134 Napoli, Italy)

  • Valentina Marchi

    (Institute of BioEconomy, National Research Council (IBE-CNR), Via Madonna del Piano, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy)

Abstract

Transformative tourism experiences have attracted considerable scholarly interest in the recent past and deserve further attention to advance knowledge on the role of tourism in human transformation. This study aims to advance the understanding of the triggers and dimensions of transformative ecotourism experiences through the analysis of travelers’ online reviews relating to 10 Italian Pathways (Cammini d’Italia). A total of 742 reviews from 2010 to 2022 were collected from TripAdvisor using a web scraping procedure and analyzed by applying text mining techniques. This analysis explored the cognitive, affective, sensory, social and other experiential factors that can trigger tourists’ transformative experiences and their relationship with behavioral, psychological, spiritual and physical dimensions of transformation. The findings provide evidence of the association of cognitive and sensory triggers and the search for unusual, special tourism experiences to transformative experiences, with specific regard to the psychological, spiritual and physical dimensions. Based on the findings, theoretical and managerial implications are provided to improve the understanding and promotion of transformative tourism experiences in this context.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandra Marasco & Valentina Marchi, 2025. "Exploring Transformative Ecotourism Experiences on Italian Pathways Through Online Reviews," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-15, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:2:p:452-:d:1562974
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/2/452/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/2/452/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:2:p:452-:d:1562974. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.