Tourists are the best or the absolute worst. When it comes to tweeting out something about non-locals, there is little middle ground.
Charter service Stratos Jet Charters, Inc. unveiled its social media study where it examined over 62,000 tweets from January 1-December 31, 2016. The tweets either contained the words "tourist" or "tourists." Researchers also looked at hashtags #tourist and #tourists, giving us the appropriately titled Talking Tourists study.
It then took these geotagged tweets and plunked them into the AlchemyAPI sentiment machine to see whether the statements from various regions were negative or positive.
What it found is that locals around the country overwhelmingly have negative things to say about tourists visiting their respective area.
Only six states broke the 50 percent mark on the positivity scale, offering tweets that were favorable for tourists: Washington, Illinois, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Vermont.
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"Talking Tourists" utilized an innovation that quickly and efficiently mines data for emotive values behind social media posts.
IBM's website explains the technology takes text and extrapolates meaning behind the semantics: "You can input text, HTML, or a public URL and leverage sophisticated natural language processing techniques to get a quick high-level understanding of your content and obtain detailed insights such as sentiment for detected entities and keywords."
Utilizing AlchemyAPI, Stratos Jet Charters was able to uncover a wealth of data. The company held a similar study in 2015 and discovered the states with the greatest shift in tourism sentiment. Oregon, for example, enjoyed over 35 percent change in its feelings on visitors to its state.
If you want to feel the warm glow of friendly eyes, perhaps visit Key West, Cleveland, Nashville, Atlanta or Boston. {They represent No. 1 through No. 5 on the positivity scale.}
Cities that are looking down on you and your selfie stick? That would be Phoenix, Denver, San Jose, New York City and Charlotte. (If you find yourself in any of these towns, we recommend meandering about with a map wide open as you bump into locals. They will "love it.")
The study also looked at the incidents of tweets that included the phrase "Go home."
North Carolina, Rhode Island, Delaware, Arkansas and Idaho residents would really love it if visitors turned around and went back where they came from.
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Granted, locals are plenty upset with tourists clogging up highways, causing havoc with holiday shenanigans and driving up the cost at restaurants and various hangouts.
However, perhaps the above study is a reminder that we as locals can indeed be kinder and gentler to those who just want to enjoy our normal digs.
It's assuredly a reminder that we as tourists need to be far more mindful and respectful of the places we visit and the people who live there.
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