From mining to tourism: assessing the destination’s image, as revealed by travel-oriented social networks

Mining communities often rely on tourism as a vehicle for post-mining territorial development. Sometimes, these expectations of the locals are justified by the natural setting and/or the well-preserved industrial heritage, however these potential tourist destinations are disadvantaged primarily by their image, often associated with decay in the perception of travellers. In this paper we treat travellers as stakeholders, able to decisively influence the image of a destination by uploading content (photos, reviews and ratings) on Google Maps and TripAdvisor, and we emphasize that the user-generated content should be considered when shaping the tourism development strategies. Taking as case studies three former mining regions trying to capitalize on their tourist potential - Jiu Valley and Ștei, in Romania and La Louvière, in Belgium, this article proposes a method for assessing the image of the destination, also aiming to identify those aspects that require improvement.