Potential Integration of Metaverse, Non-Fungible Tokens and Sentiment Analysis in Quantitative Tourism Economic Analysis

Sergej Gričar (), Violeta Šugar, Tea Baldigara and Raffaella Folgieri
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Sergej Gričar: Faculty of Business and Management Sciences, University of Novo Mesto, Na Loko 2, 8000 Novo Mesto, Slovenia
Violeta Šugar: Faculty of Economics and Tourism “Dr. Mijo Mirković”, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Zagrebačka 30, 52100 Pula, Croatia
Tea Baldigara: Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management, University of Rijeka, Primorska 42, 51410 Opatija, Croatia
Raffaella Folgieri: Department of Philosophy, University of Milan, Via Festa del Perdono 7, 20122 Milano, Italy

JRFM, 2023, vol. 17, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: With the emergence of the metaverse, countries’ digital efforts to create tourism opportunities have given rise to the possibility of capitalising on digital content which, along with physical tourism experiences, can generate further income and enhance a country’s reputation. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a unique application of blockchain technology, offer an enabling technology in several sectors, including tourism. Therefore, this study aims to explore the official tourism websites of Croatia and Slovenia and analyse current NFT applications in tourism economics. The methodology focuses explicitly on sentiment analysis, blockchain and machine learning. The paper introduces various applications currently in place, including Slovenia’s “I Feel Nft” project. The research shows that the main benefits of using NFT and sentiment analysis in the tourism economy are the promotion and presentation of major tourist destinations, exhibitions, works of art, and companies’ products in tokens, digital content and souvenirs. The adoption of sentiment analysis and NFTs in the tourism economy is still open to proposals for implementing public quantitative data metrics. Therefore, the scientific contribution of this research is essential in terms of operational recommendations and defining metrics for measuring the effectiveness of those methodologies and their applications in the tourism economy. On top of that, the practical contribution lies in monitoring the influx of tourists, and highlighting their increase over time and the significance of new technology in time series tourism research.

Keywords: Croatia; tourism demand; Slovenia; tourism economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C E F2 F3 G (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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