Corso di Laurea in Lingue Moderne: A Content-based Analysis of TripAdvisor Reviews about Agrigento

Corso di Laurea in Lingue Moderne
Classe L-12: Mediazione Linguistica per le Imprese e il Turismo
A Content-based Analysis
of TripAdvisor Reviews about Agrigento
Docente responsabile Laureanda
Prof.ssa Sabrina Francesconi Chiara Gandolfo
Docente correlatore
Prof.ssa Francesca Di Blasio
Anno Accademico 2014/2015

CONTENTS
0. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1
CHAPTER 1: TRIPADVISOR REVIEWS AND TOURISM DISCOURSE .....................................3
1.1 TripAdvisor Reviews in-between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0......................................................3
1.2 Stages of trip and review production.....................................................................................8
1.3 Communicative functions of TripAdvisor Reviews............................................................11
CHAPTER 2: CORPUS AND METHODOLOGY...........................................................................16
2.1 Corpus of Analysed Texts ...................................................................................................16
2.2 Methodology of Analysis ....................................................................................................21
CHAPTER 3: CONTENT-BASED ANALYSIS OF TRIPADVISOR REVIEWS ..........................28
3.1 Analysis...............................................................................................................................28
3.2 Discussion ...........................................................................................................................37
CONCLUSIONS................................................................................................................................40
APPENDIX........................................................................................................................................41
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................61

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1.1: A screenshot of the TripAdvisor homepage, (accessed 6th
October 2015). .....................4
Figure 1.2: Jakobson's model of communication, (adapted)..............................................................14
Figure 2.1: A screenshot of the results of the search on TripAdvisor website. .................................20
Figure 2.2: A screenshot of TripAdvisor webpage about “il Giardino della Kolymbethra”, where the
main features are marked, (accessed 19th
October 2015)....................................................................20
Figure 2.3: Final scheme of a content analysis of travel blogs about Charleston with coding
categories conducted by Pan, MacLaurin and Crotts.........................................................................24
Figure 3.1: Coding procedure for a content-based analysis of OTR .................................................30
Table 1.1: The language of tourism as dialogue by Dann, (adapted). .................................................5
Table 1.2: Tourism texts classified following Dann's grid, (adapted). ..............................................10
Table 2.1: Images of Alterity in Travelblogs, made by Dann, (adapted). .........................................25
Table 3.1: The final scheme of the content-based analysis of the OTR about Agrigento..................31
Table 3.2: The percentage results of the content-based analysis of the OTR about Agrigento.........36

1
INTRODUCTION
Over the years, the tourism industry has increasingly taken advantages of the
technological progress. Thanks to the advent of the Internet, tourists have become users
of this innovative communication medium that has allowed them to have the power to
influence the decision-making process of potential tourists according to the choice of
their next holiday destination.
In this dissertation, one of the largest travel community websites on the Internet,
TripAdvisor, will be introduced in order to identify the innovation that has allowed to
define it in between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 according to the evolution of Informatics. In
the last decade, TripAdvisor has become a useful way for people to share their own
travel experience and, for this reason, it is being consulted at every stage-of-trip.
Furthermore, the analysis focuses on the essential element of TripAdvisor, the Online
Travel Review (OTR), whose content will be examined in order to show how useful its
role is to identify the positive and negative aspects of accommodation, a place or
restaurant.
The first chapter introduces TripAdvisor, giving information about the services
offered and its main features, which allow to distinguish it from the other travel
platforms. As regards to the researches of Dann, the improvement in the language of
tourism will be identified and thanks to De Ascaniis and Gretzel it will be possible to
define the concepts of review and communicative function.

2
The second chapter focuses on the presentation of the corpus that includes OTR
about the off-the-beaten-track destinations of the province of Agrigento, which have
been gathered through particular parameters. Moreover, the research methods of Dann
and Pan, MacLaurin and Crotts will be introduced to explain the methodology that has
been chosen to analyse the corpus in order to conduct the content-based analysis in the
third chapter.
With reference to this, the aim of the third and last chapter is to show the
important role of OTR in the identification of the main features of each of the selected
places. Accordingly, a deep content-based analysis of the collected corpus will be made
in order to elaborate utterly the case study of this dissertation.
The Online Travel Reviews, which have been analysed in this dissertation, have
been collected in Appendix.

3
CHAPTER 1: TRIPADVISOR REVIEWS AND
TOURISM DISCOURSE
This chapter aims to explain what TripAdvisor is and to describe its features and
services, which have completely changed the way to plan a holiday. With reference to
Dann's research, the circumstances, where this platform is used, will be identified in
order to conduct a deep investigation into this topic. Moreover, the pivotal element of
this virtual travel community, that is, the Online Travel Review (OTR) will be analysed
as the main topic of this dissertation. In the last section of this chapter, the focus will be
on the essential communicative functions, which allow to differentiate TripAdvisor
from the other travel genres.
1.1 TripAdvisor Reviews in-between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0
Founded by Stephen Kaufer in February 20001
, TripAdvisor has become the most
visited travel website in the last years, thanks to its innovative feature that allows
travellers from all over the world to write their reviews about the places, where they
went on holiday. According to Google Analytics 2015, TripAdvisor consists of 23 other
travel media brands, e.g. AirfareWatchdog, BookingBuddy, Travel Pod, Tripbod, and
together with them, it makes up the largest travel community in the world, reaching 375
1
TripAdvisor website, www.tripadvisor.co.uk (accessed 30th
September 2015).

4
million unique monthly visitors, and more than 250 million reviews and opinions
covering more than 5.2 million accommodation, restaurants, and attractions2
.
Figure 1.1: A screenshot of the TripAdvisor homepage,
(accessed 6th
October 2015).
The distinctive feature of TripAdvisor is that it is a travel community website,
where posts and photos are directly shared by travellers, who have experienced a
specific place, accommodation or restaurant and have decided to give online-users
advice and rating in order to help them make the right decision about their next trip. As
a result, tourists have the power to interact with each other and they «are now part of
that place-making and experience evaluating process»3
that is not possible to build in
the case of the traditional travel guides, brochures or Web 1.0 websites, which are
examples of Business-to-Consumer (B2C) communication. Accordingly, it should be
emphasized the transition from the classical word-of-mouth recommendation to what
2
TripAdvisor website, www.tripadvisor.co.uk (accessed 30th September 2015).
3
Urry, John, Larsen, Jonas, 2011, The Tourist Gaze 3.0, London, Sage, 3rd
edition, p.60.

5
Dann calls «word-of-mouse» 4
, that is, tourists rely on other tourists, who can
recommend or demote a place through their authentic and spontaneous reviews on the
Internet.
Having said that, Dann5
made an analysis of the language of tourism and he
pointed out that the relationship among the tourism industry, tourists and tourees, which
assume the role of sender and addressee in the domain of tourism, is changed over the
years, going from monologue to dialogue and trialogue. Moreover, he defined
TripAdvisor as a virtual tourist community where information is exchanged in an
anonymous dialogue between sender and addressee, who are both tourists.
The following table explains this model:
Table 1.1: The language of tourism as dialogue by Dann6
, (adapted).
SENDER AND ADDRESSEE
SENDER AND
ADDRESSEE
INDUSTRY TOURIST TOUREE
INDUSTRY Advertising Online guidebook forums Local radio
and TV with
responses
TOURIST Telephone;
Letter;
Internet feedback sites;
TV consumer programmes
Conversations;
Consultations;
Word-of-Web; blogs; emails;
word-of-mouth account of
experiences;
Virtual tourist communities
Jungle tours
TOUREE Focus group;
Local print media;
Home-stays;
Tribal TV;
Children’s
essays and
drawings
Thanks to its interactive function, TripAdvisor can be considered an important
example of the development of Web 1.0, that is, Web 2.0 that was coined by Tim
4
Dann, Graham, 2012, Remodelling a Changing Language of Tourism: from Monologue, to Dialogue to
Trialogue in Pasos: Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural, 4:10.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid., p. 64.

6
O’Reilly and Dale Dougherty of O’Reilly Media Inc. in 2005, as Fabi7
has described.
According to O’Connor8
, the Web 2.0 can be defined as a revolution for the research of
information on the Internet, because «consumers are no longer dependent on website
owners, but they rely on information provided by their own peers». Therefore, as Maci9
has assumed, tourists are «prosumers», that is, consumers who have acquired the
opportunity to produce a text that can be useful to other tourists. Moreover, websites,
which build a virtual community and where information as User-Generated Content
(UGC) is shared, are labelled as Web 2.0 that «indicates digital communication with a
high level of user-interactivity»10
and allows to shift to Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)
communication, which has been continuously increasing. As a result, it should be
emphasized that on average, nearly 2,600 new topics are posted every day to the
TripAdvisor forums and more than 85% of these are replied to within 24 hours11
: in this
regard, these important data contribute to demonstrate how constant are the entries to
the website and the cooperation of people, who consider it as an useful way to influence
tourists’ choices. As to this last reason, any scholars conversely defined TripAdvisor not
simply as a Web 2.0 website, but as its evolution, Web 3.0, that is, a word coined by
Tim Berners-Lee in 2006 that describes a huge online database, by which people can
7
Fabi, Cristina, 2012, Travel 2.0. An Opportunity for Hospitality Organisations and Tourism
Destinations, Doctoral Workshop, Naples.
8
O’Connor, Peter, 2008, User-Generated Content and Travel: A Case Study on TripAdvisor.Com in
Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Information and Communications Technology i
Tourism, ENTER 2008, New York (USA): Springer Computer Science, p.48.
9
Maci, Stefania, 2013, Tourism Discourse: Professional, Promotional and Digital Voice,Genova, ECIG.
10
Francesconi, Sabrina, 2012, Generic Integrity and Innovation In Tourism Texts in English, Trento,
Tangram Edizioni Scientifiche, p.112.
11
September 2015).

7
access to a countless data resource. Therefore, this travel opinion platform can be used
in order to have a tangible effect on the reality and on the behaviour of people.
The strongest point of TripAdvisor is the ease, by which travellers can leave
their reviews and photos online: on the website, after having found the section about the
holiday destination, accommodation or restaurant where they had been, users can write
their posts, which must be honest, relevant and family-friendly in order not to break the
“Reviews Guidelines” of the website. Moreover, users have to fill out the required
fields, that is, rating, type of trip and date travelled to complete their contributions,
which must be approved around 24-48 hours and posted by the editors.
As has already been said, TripAdvisor aims to guarantee the truthfulness of the
reviews on the website. For this reason, the President and CEO of the platform, Stephen
Kaufer, has recently declared that «no optimisation company is or will ever be affiliated
with TripAdvisor, and the practice of submitting any content that is not genuine and
from travellers goes against everything we stand for as a company»12
. Consistent with
this, the number of these optimisation websites on the Internet has been increasing and
the team of TripAdvisor fights against whichever fraudulent services, which violate the
Content Integrity Policy: e.g., the increase of the ranking of hotels and restaurants, the
posting of fake reviews and the removal of negative reviews on the website in exchange
for payment. As a consequence, this phenomenon shows how much the online reviews
influence the reputation of companies, which decide to pay these illegal and unfair
services in order to improve their place on the ranking list.
Nevertheless, TripAdvisor is also deemed as a revolution for the tourism
industry, as it increasingly offers new services, e.g. the opportunity to add a new topic
in the forum or to write travel articles about holiday destinations, which can be useful to
12
January 2016).

8
people, who want to ask for detailed information and tips to plan their trip. Furthermore,
tourists can find also on the website the clusters “Book with TripAdvisor” and
“TripAdvisor Flights”: whereas through the former, they can find the best hotel for their
holiday and book it instantly, the latter is a useful service of the site that helps to search
for the best deals on flights. Last but not least, “TripCollective” is the newest feature of
TripAdvisor that was launched in 2015 and has been achieving success among “tourist-
users”. This program consists of six levels and each user belongs to one level,
depending on the points that s/he has obtained through every review (100 points), photo
(30), forum post (20) or rating (5). Accordingly, tourists are encouraged to add new
contributions in order to receive points and badges, which show how they have been
helpful for the progress of this travel community website.
With the advent of the Internet and thanks to the technological progress, the way
to refer to the website has been also changing: the official App of TripAdvisor has been
recently developed and it can be consulted at whatever time using whichever electronic
devices, e.g. smartphones and tablets (Apple, Android, Microsoft), and as yet it was
downloaded by 195 million travellers13
. This innovative medium allows the website to
be constantly updated and for this reason, available at whichever stages of the travellers’
trip, which will be discussed in the next paragraph.
1.2 Stages of trip and reviews production
The tourism industry makes different texts available to tourists, who can use them in
specific phases of their holiday, termed by Dann «stages of trip»14
: Pre-trip, On-trip and
13
September 2015).
14
Dann, Graham, 1996, The Language of Tourism. A Sociolinguistic Perspective, CAB International.

9
Post-trip. His view is that each of this three stages has a specific semiotic potential that
helps to mark differences among them: the pre-trip texts generally focus on the wish of
emancipation or escape from the ordinary life and they consist of typical parts of
speech, such as adjectives and superlatives in order to persuade readers to choose a
place from a wide range of holiday destinations; the on-trip texts are written to show
how the destination can be a renewal or a rebirth for readers, whereas the post-trip texts
are used by tourists to reintegrate into their native community.
The central function of pre-trip texts, such as brochures, photographs and
tourists’ pictures, is to promote places, restaurants or accommodation in order to attract
the attention of other tourists and to prepare them for what they will be able to
experience in that place, restaurant or accommodation. Apps on smartphones, maps and
guidebooks belong to the second group of texts, which are mainly used for their
informative function during the holiday. Consistent with this, tourists can consult them
to acquire information about a city or an attraction: Therefore, this can be useful to them
to expand their knowledge and to orient themselves. Lastly, post-trip texts can be
postcards, which are generally sent to relatives and friends, or reviews and posts, which
are left on travel blogs and travel communities. Accordingly, actual tourists can
promote/demote a place after being there on holiday, share opinions, tell their own
experience as a story and, as a result, influence a wide unknown group of people, who
are at their pre-trip stage.
The following table clarifies the classification of the stage-of-trip texts, taking
account of the semiotic potential and the communicative function (see next paragraph
1.3):

10
Table 1.2: Tourism texts classified following Dann's grid15
, (adapted).
STAGE OF TRIP
OTHER
ASPECT
PRE ON POST
MEDIUM:
visual sensory
written and visual/
sensory
Photograph Print Tourists’
pictures;
postcard
Two-
dimensional
Brochure Guidebook;
Map
Coffee table
book
Informative
Webpages;
Online Review
Online Review;
App
Online
Review
Computer-
assisted
SEMIOTIC
POTENTIAL
Escape and
Emancipation
Renewal and
Rebirth
Reintegration
COMMUNICATIVE
FUNCTION
Promotional
(to anticipate)
Informative
(to experience)
Confirmation
(to share)
A wide group of users, who have different aims to reach, constantly consults
TripAdvisor. Therefore, it can be said that potential tourists refer to this platform to read
reviews written by actual tourist in order to gather information about a place and, as a
result, to plan their holiday. On the other hand, actual tourists consider TripAdvisor as a
medium, by which they can state their own opinion and experience about a place during
their holiday or after going back home. This behaviour can have an effect on the
decision making process of readers, who can decide to rely on them and to choose a
place instead of another.
The Online Travel Review (OTR) can be identified as a pre-trip, on-trip and
post-trip text and this demonstrates that TripAdvisor is not only suitable for a specific
target of users, as it allows everyone to find or give information about places,
accommodation, restaurants. Gretzel, Yoo and Purifoy16
have conducted a research in
15
Dann, Graham, 1996, The Language of Tourism. A Sociolinguistic Perspective, Oxford, CAB
International, in Francesconi, Sabrina, 2012, Generic Integrity and Innovation In Tourism Texts in
English, Trento, Tangram Edizioni Scientifiche, p.28.
16
Gretzel, Ulrike, Yoo, Kyung-Hyan, Purifoy Melanie, 2007, Online Travel Review Study: Role & Impact
of Online Travel Reviews, College Station, TX: Laboratory for Intelligent Systems in Tourism, Texas,
A&M University.

11
order to prove this last point. The research shows that 63.7% of prospective tourists
consult travel reviews, written by actual tourists, to get ideas: this aspect scores another
point for the usefulness of this platform to plan a holiday. Only 8.7 % of respondents of
this research read and also write reviews at the on-trip stage and 29.5% of them at the
post-trip stage, when they come back from holiday and decide to review the places
where they have been. In this study, Gretzel, Yoo and Purifoy have also enquired into
the aims of users of TripAdvisor, which are different, depending on the perspective.
Therefore, the OTR are written by actual tourists to influence (96.3%) or to save from
bad services (82.4%) and they are essential for potential tourists during their trip
planning process (97.7%). Moreover, readers can easily make decisions thanks to
reviews, which «reduce risk/uncertainty, help them evaluate alternatives, are a good
way to learn about a place, help them imagine what a place will be like, and help them
avoid places they would not enjoy»17
. In this regard, the Online Travel Review
represents the pivotal element of this dissertation and its essential role will be analysed
in the next paragraph.
1.3 Communicative functions of TripAdvisor Reviews
TripAdvisor has completely revolutionized the Internet thanks to its unique features,
which allow people to communicate each other in an innovative way, sharing their own
experience in order to be cooperative and useful to prospective tourists during their pre-
trip stage. For this reason, the Online Travel Reviews (OTR) can be certainly defined as
17
A&M University, p. 62.

12
the essential elements of this travel community, because they include information and
the opinions about places, accommodation, etc. and represent the medium, by which is
possible to set the basis for digital and dynamic communication among tourists.
The definition of the word “review” that can be both a noun and a verb, is given
in order to explain what OTR are and which communicative functions they have. With
reference to the context, which is analysed in this dissertation, the Oxford Advanced
Learner's Dictionary18
defines the noun “review” as «a report in a newspaper or
magazine, or on the Internet, television or radio, in which somebody gives their opinion
of a book, play, film/movie, etc.»; whereas the verb “review” is defined «to write a
report of a book, play, film/movie, etc. in which you give your opinion of it». As these
definitions themselves suggest, the most important aspect of a review is to express a
point of view about something that can persuade other people in their decision-making
process. Consistent with this, De Ascaniis19
pointed out that reviews on the Internet, and
in particular on the platform TripAdvisor, are relevant to choose a destination because
people tend to make judgments and to rely on the first impression that reviews create
regarding a place. Furthermore, with reference to Pragmatics, she considered OTR a
communicative act that can be defined as an «emergent» textual genre where «travel
advice about a destination is given, […], by expressing an opinion on the destination. A
constellation of arguments is put forward to support the opinion, which is based on a
personal previous travel experience. Those aspects of the experience or the destination
[…] are provided to help the reader to get the most from her trip. Narratives of the
18
The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary website,
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/learner/review (accessed 24th
September 2015).
19
De Ascaniis, Silvia, 2013, Destination Online Travel Reviews. An argumentative and textual genre
approach, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation.

13
personal travel story and trip details, constitute additional elements, which contribute
shaping prospective tourists’ expectations»20
.
Gretzel, Yoo, and Purifoy21
have noticed that TripAdvisor has become a reference
point both for travellers, who want to enhance their own reputation on the community,
and for those, who decide to collect information about different places before taking a
decision. For this reason, TripAdvisor is used both for altruistic and personal reason,
that is, travellers decide to write a review in order to help other people through their
positive/negative statements and also to show them their success in having positive
experience during the holiday.
Having said that, it can be possible to explain what communicative functions are
and which of those characterize the OTR. The first scholars, who have shown interest in
the analysis of the functions of the language and have conducted important
investigations over the years, were Karl Bühler and Roman Jakobson. As a matter of
fact, Bühler has identified three main functions of the language: emotive or expressive
(related to the addresser), referential (related to the context) and conative (related to the
addressee). Moreover, his work has influenced Jakobson, who has added other three
more functions: poetic (whose focus is the message), phatic (related to the channel) and
metalingual (related to the code). The following figure included in De Ascaniis22
recapitulates this classification, in which addresser, context, addressee, message,
channel and code are to be considered the pivotal elements in communication:
20
approach, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation., pp. 150-151.
21
A&M University.
22
approach, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, p.54.

14
Figure 1.2: Jakobson's model of communication, (adapted).
By virtue of this research, De Ascaniis has identified the basics of User
Generated Content (UGC) communication, which can also be relevant to a virtual
platform as TripAdvisor: the addresser and addressee are actual and potential tourists
respectively, who write/read a review (message) about a tourist experience (referent) on
the Internet (channel) using an informatics language (code).
Accordingly, De Ascaniis and Gretzel23
have conducted a research in order to
identify the communicative functions of the titles of Online Travel Reviews, focusing
on reviews about destinations and attractions and their semantic and linguistic
characteristics. In this regard, the results show that the titles have the power to attract
the attention of readers and to anticipate the content of the review, therefore, they have
an anticipatory-positioning function. Furthermore, from their investigation, it has
emerged that OTR are used as communicative acts with the communicative aims to
23
De Ascaniis, Silvia, Gretzel, Ulrike, 2013, Communicative functions of Online Travel Review titles: A
pragmatic and linguistic investigation of destination and attraction OTR titles, in Studies in
Communication Sciences, 2:13.

15
promote/demote a place, accommodation etc., not just telling a story of their experience,
but also giving advice and information about it and sharing recommendations,
judgements and critics, which characterize this «emergent» textual genre from the other
travel genre, such as tourist guide or travel diaries. As has already been above
mentioned, the Table 1.2 sums up this point.
In this chapter, the topic of this dissertation has been introduced, explaining the
important role that TripAdvisor has assumed during the three stages of trip of tourists,
from the decision-making process, to the consultation on the road and the sharing of
travel experience. Moreover, the communicative functions have been identified in order
to accentuate the importance of OTR, which are the essential elements of TripAdvisor
and of the corpus, whose features will be analysed in next chapter.

16
CHAPTER 2: CORPUS AND METHODOLOGY
This chapter pays specific attention to the main topics of this dissertation, that is, the
corpus of Online Travel Reviews (OTR), collected through TripAdvisor, and the
identification of the methodology that will be used to analyse the content of the OTR. In
this regard, the way, by which the OTR have been selected, will be examined in depth,
giving brief information about Agrigento, one of the nine Sicilian provinces, which has
been chosen as case study. Moreover, in the second part of the chapter, the methods of
analysis, developed by Dann and Pan, MacLaurin and Crotts, will be introduced in
order to clarify how the corpus of this dissertation has been analysed.
2.1 Corpus of Analysed Texts
As described in the Chapter 1 (see paragraph 1.1), the aim of TripAdvisor is to allow
travellers to write reviews in order to help potential tourists in their decision-making
process. Therefore, the OTR have been defined as the pivotal elements, which have
completely changed the way to choose a holiday destination. In this regard, the case
study of this dissertation is a corpus of texts, constituted by OTR about destinations and
attractions, which are located in the province of Agrigento, Sicily.
Information about Agrigento will be given readers in order to analyse the OTR
of the corpus and to explain them the reason it has been chosen as case study. Founded
by Greeks around 580 BC in the southern coast of Sicily, Agrigento (“Akragas” in
Greek, “Girgenti” in Sicilian dialect), was one of the most important colonies of Magna
Graecia. Over the centuries, several populations, such as Phoenicians, Normans and

17
Arabs, invaded Sicily and according to Smecca24
, this phenomenon has characterized
the identity of the Sicilian cities, among which Agrigento: as a matter of fact, the
influences of invaders can be noticed in the local architecture, in the traditional dishes
and in the somatic traits of Sicilians. Thanks to the “Grand Tour”, the traditional travel
organised for the aristocracy, several writers and artists, from the most important
European cities, such as Goethe, Swinburne and Vuillier, reached Agrigento between
the 18th
and the 19th
centuries, confirming what the Greek poet Pindar (523-443 BC)
said about Girgenti: it is «the fairest city inhabited by mortals»25
. Today, Agrigento is
one of the nine provinces of Sicily and travellers come from all over the world to visit
the Valley of the Temples that has become a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.
With reference to the study of Smecca26
, Francesconi27
described Sicily as an island,
frozen «into an atemporal, golden, mythical dimension», and this is the first point, from
which derive the choice to analyse OTR about Agrigento. Moreover, several unknown
places, hidden in the province of Agrigento, such as “the ruins of Heraclea Minoa”, “the
Nature Reserve of Torre Salsa” and “the ancient garden of Kolymbethra”, have been
included in the corpus in order to demonstrate that they can be discovered and enhanced
thanks to the OTR. Last but not least, Agrigento is also the author’s hometown and this
dissertation is an opportunity for her to show the pride of her origins.
24
Smecca, Paola Daniela, 2005, Representational Tactics in Travel Writing and Translation: A Focus on
Sicily, Roma, Carocci Editore.
25
Pindar, Pitica XII in Smecca, Paola Daniela, 2009, Tourist Guidebooks and the Image of Sicily in
Translation, in Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, p. 112.
26
Smecca, Paola Daniela, 2009, Tourist Guidebooks and the Image of Sicily in Translation, in
Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, 17:2.
27
Tangram Edizioni Scientifiche, p.53.

18
Having said that, the analysed corpus of texts consists of 75 reviews of a total of
3,137 reviews, which have been manually collected by the author from the travel
community website www.tripadvisor.co.uk. The single keyword “Agrigento” was
entered in the general search box on the homepage of TripAdvisor, whose results were
“Agrigento”, “Province of Agrigento” and “Sciacca”. The second result was selected
and through the nearby box, it was possible to target the search thanks to the filters,
which TripAdvisor suggests: “Overview”, “Hotels”, “Holiday Rentals”, “Things to Do”,
“Restaurants” and “Flights”. As showed in Figure 2.1, after choosing the filter “Things
to Do”, the “Top Things to Do” in the “Province of Agrigento” were given and from
this list, seven places and attractions were selected in order to constitute the corpus of
texts:
 “Riserva Naturale di Torre Salsa”, (The Nature Reserve of Torre Salsa),
 “Il Giardino della Kolymbethra” (The Garden of Kolymbethra),
 “Area archeologica di Eraclea Minoa” (Archaeological area of Heraclea Minoa),
 “Scala dei Turchi” (Stair of the Turks),
 “Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Greci” (Church of St. Mary of the Greeks),
 “Il Castello Incantato” (The Enchanted Castle),
 “Vulcanelli di Macalube”.
Moreover, the Figure 2.2 shows the typical layout of a page about a place on
TripAdvisor, where all OTR are listed and the most important features have been
marked in order to identify them on the page, such as the button “Write a Review” on
the right side and the table about “Visitor Rating” on the left.
The second step of the constitution of the corpus was to gather manually the
most relevant reviews in Word format, that is, this sampling of reviews was not made
using a computer program, but by the author, searching on the page of each of the seven

19
chosen places. Moreover, the corpus of 6,786 words was collected reporting the reviews
in their authentic version with their titles, the rating that was given to the place, the date
when the place was visited and reviewed and lastly personal information about the
travellers, who shared the posts. With reference to this, a deep analysis has been made
in order to establish the nationality of the authors of OTR, who come from all over the
world, through personal information, included in their profiles: 75.4% of reviews are
written by Europeans, of which 54.3% from UK and only 13% from Italy, 18% by
American reviewers and 1.6% by Australians, Canadians, Israelis and Indians,
respectively. Furthermore, the travellers, who have shared their own personal
information, are 61 of 75, and some of them have written more than one review. As a
result, only 14 of reviewers have preferred to publish their review in anonymity without
giving personal information and using only a nickname or a first name as a sign of
identification in order to protect their privacy.
Through the analysis of information about the authors of the collected reviews, it
has emerged that 3 of the travellers have reviewed more than two places and for this
reason, it has been possible to determine also the itinerary that they have followed
during their travel experience. For example: gianpiero_giibino from Bologna, Italy, has
reviewed both the “Riserva di Torre Salsa” and the “Giardino della Kolymbethra”;
ridler36man, whose nationality is unknown, has written two reviews about the “Castello
Incantato” and the “Scala dei Turchi”, respectively.
In this regard, in the Chapter 3, (see paragraph 3.1), a content-based analysis of
the collected reviews will be made and several reviews will be quoted in order to
examine how travellers advise other potential travellers a holiday destination in the
province of Agrigento and which verbal strategies are used to reach this aim.

20
Figure 2.1: A screenshot of the results of the search on TripAdvisor website28
.
Figure 2.2: A screenshot of TripAdvisor29
webpage about “il Giardino della
Kolymbethra”, where the main features are marked, (accessed 19th
October 2015).
28
TripAdvisor website: www.tripadvisor.co.uk (accessed 6th
October 2015).
29
Ibid. (accessed 19th
October 2015).

21
To sum up, OTR for each of the seven selected places have manually been
collected, following particular parameters used by Francesconi30
in order to form the
corpus of texts:
 Text Genres: Websites,
 Verbal Code: English,
 Site Reference: Province of Agrigento,
 Interactive Participants: C2C,
 Mode: Online Reviews,
 Time-Span: 22 October 2009 – 22 October 2015.
As a matter of fact, thanks to these criteria it is possible to clarify how the
selection of OTR was made. Furthermore, the use of specific parameters is essential to
identify the methods, which have been consulted in order to make a deep analysis of the
corpus of OTR, and which will be introduced in the next section.
2.2 Methodology of Analysis
In the Chapter 1 (see paragraph 1.1) it has been explained that communication among
tourists on the Internet has changed according to the online travel texts, which have
been up-to-dated over the years, from online travel guides to travel blogs and online
travel communities, such as TripAdvisor. For this reason, several research studies have
been conducted over the last decade, for example by Dann and Pan, MacLaurin and
Crotts in order to analyse how travel texts have influenced tourists’ opinion about a
place as holiday destination and to identify the useful strategies to reach this aim. The
results of these researches have demonstrated that the tourism industry has taken an
interest in the online travel texts, developed by the new technologies, by virtue of their
30
Tangram Edizioni Scientifiche.

22
innovation and the ability to attract and persuade tourists more than the traditional travel
guides, which have the main aim of promoting a place as a marketing strategy.
In this regard, the word has an essential role in the tourism industry, because it is
used to express, for example, a promotion or a demotion of a place. Pan, MacLaurin and
Crotts31
, who have focused their investigations on travel texts, made qualitative and
quantitative analyses of online texts and in particular of travel blogs. They had the aim
to demonstrate the importance of words in the influence of the decision-making process
of people, analysing their role in the identification of the strengths and weaknesses of a
destination.
Having said that, this research method used by Pan MacLaurin and Crotts can be
explained in order to establish the basis for the content-based analysis of OTR that will
be made in the next chapter. Consistent with this, the central topic of their research is
the travel blog, which they have described as an innovative travel text for several
reasons, among which the possibility to communicate with other people reporting travel
experience.
In the first phase of their research, they have manually gathered in a file the texts
contained on blogs in order to constitute the corpus and to analyse the content, the word
frequency and the semantic network of the collected data, of which only a concise
account will be given in this dissertation. The semantic network analysis consists in a
quantitative analysis of words and phrases of a corpus, which are examined to establish
the relationship among concepts, as they can occur together several times depending on
the frequency and their semantic meaning. Furthermore, the analysis of frequency of
words is significant by virtue of the opportunity to recognise, using specific programs,
31
Pan, Bing, MacLaurin, Tanya, Crotts, John, 2007, Travel Blogs and their Implications for Destination
Marketing, Journal of Travel Research, 46:1.

23
the keywords, which are mainly used by travellers to describe a place. Therefore, this
can be an useful strategy to identify the main features of a place and to distinguish it
from other destinations.
The second step of their examination deals with the identification of coding
categories, which have been used to analyse the content of their collected corpus. Pan,
MacLaurin and Crotts have adapted the tourism amalgam model developed by Cooper32
choosing the sentence as a coding unit. As a matter of fact, a word, a sentence or a
paragraph might be chosen as a coding unit and this choice depends on the aim of the
research. Moreover, even the identification of the categories might be different and
tedious, as categories are not fixed and the coding procedure is manual, that is, a
computer program is not used to identify them. In this regard, the appropriate categories
for every type of corpus can be chosen according to the topics of discussion, which
emerge from the reading of the collected texts. Consequently, the analysis of the content
is considered superior to the semantic network analysis that, according to Pan,
MacLaurin and Crotts33
, is not able to reflect the direction of travel experience through
the keywords. Therefore, in order to code the content of their corpus, the researchers
have identified particular categories, that is, “Attractions”, “Amenities”, “Access” and
“Overall impression”, which constitute a final scheme (showed in Figure 2.3), together
with the positive and negative orientation of the sentences extracted from the corpus.
Through the examination of these texts written by bloggers, the researchers were
able to identify the strengths and the weaknesses of Charleston, a city in the South
32
Cooper, Chris, 2005 Tourism: Principles and Practice, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Financial Times
Prentice Hall, in Pan, Bing, MacLaurin, Tanya, Crotts, John, 2007, Travel Blogs and their Implications
for Destination Marketing, Journal of Travel Research, 46:1.
33

24
Carolina that was their case study, depending on the number of positive and negative
sentences.
Figure 2.3: Final scheme of a content analysis of travel blogs about Charleston with
coding categories conducted by Pan, MacLaurin and Crotts34
.
The results of this research have confirmed that travellers tend to pay their
attention above all to particular aspects of a place, which can be assessed through the
combination of the semantic network analysis and the content-based analysis,
identifying its strengths and the weaknesses, which can include e.g. its history,
accommodation, food or local transport.
As has been previously said, one of the dimensions of the final scheme of the
analysis made by Pan, MacLaurin and Crotts was the positive and negative orientation
of the sentences, included in their corpus. In this regard, the researcher Graham Dann
has conducted several analyses of the language of the tourism, which over the years has
increasingly changed (see paragraph 1.2). Furthermore, his latest research35
focuses
34
Marketing, Journal of Travel Research, 46:1, p.41.
35
Dann, Graham, 2007, Revisiting the language of tourism: what tourists and tourees are saying, in De
Stasio, Clotilde, Palusci, Oriana, (eds), The Languages of Tourism: turismo e mediazione, Milano:
Unicopli.

25
above all on the posts written by tourists and tourees in travel blogs about Beijing and
Barbados in order to compare their content with the description of the same place made
by a tour operator. Dann observed that, whereas the tour operator tends to use parts of
speech like in a brochure, such as superlatives and adjectives, as it has to promote a
place for marketing plans, tourists and tourees tend to tell explicitly their holiday
circumstances as if it was a story, describing the place through personal perception.
In order better to explain the method that he has used to analyse the content of
his collected corpus, Dann planned a table (as shown in Table 2.1) to classify all the
most relevant sentences according to the negative, neutral and positive attitudes,
expressed by the authors of the travelblogs about the services offered and hospitality,
such as hostility, annoyance, appreciation. What emerges from this research is that,
through these new online travel texts, such as travelblogs in this case, but also OTR, a
place can be explicitly described without seeking anything that, on the other hand, tour
operators or brochures tend not to say about. For this reason, potential travellers can
easily find reliable information about a place and not only a description of perfect
holiday destinations, which have not negative aspects.
Table 2.1 Images of Alterity in Travelblogs, made by Dann36
, (adapted).
ATTITUDE VALENCE
TRAVELBLOG NEGATIVE NEUTRAL POSITIVE
Faye,
Dan,
Robin.
«Pedestrians need to be alert
and on their toes as bikes
don’t stop for people and
cars don’t stop for bikes »
(teeming).
«We are surprised at
how novel we are; the
boys are fussed over
constantly» (eating)
«The people are
friendly, despite the
language barrier»
(friendly).
36
Unicopli, p.22.

26
This research confirms that more and more actual travellers voluntarily use new
ways to show other people their ability to experience a holiday destination.
Accordingly, potential travellers mainly base their decision on impressions about what
they read online. Furthermore, the main feature of online travel texts is to tell about
circumstances, which have been personally experienced by tourists, who are not
addressees anymore, but more reliable and influential «prosumers» (see paragraph 1.1)
than e.g. travel guides and brochures.
The methods of Dann and Pan, MacLaurin and Crotts have been introduced in
order to give the reader information about the way, by which the corpus will be
analysed in this dissertation (see Chapter 3). Moreover, it can be assumed that the
importance of a content-based analysis of a corpus was recognised through these
researches. As a matter of fact, this examination allows to identify the differences
among travel texts, because each text has a specific language, structure and, above all,
different aim. Therefore, from the analysis of the content of OTR emerge that the main
aim of travellers is to inform people telling a personal opinion about a place or to help
them in their decision-making process. On the contrary, the tourism industry essentially
promotes a place through brochures and official travel websites in order to make profit.
According to De Ascaniis37
, researches like these, which focus on the
identification of the positive and negative aspects of a holiday destination, can be also
useful to the tourism industry, as, through the comments and the reviews about places,
accommodation or restaurants, entrepreneurs of tourism sector can have an immediate
feedback from consumers, who can explicitly say their own opinion. By virtue of that,
37
approach, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation.

27
more and more tourism services can be offered and improved according to the
appraisals about travel experience lived by tourists.
In this chapter, the main features of the corpus of OTR have been recognised,
paying attention on the way, by which the OTR have been selected from the
TripAdvisor website according to the identification of specific criteria. The second part
of this chapter has focused on the main aspects of the research methods of Dann and
Pan, MacLaurin and Crotts, which are essential to constitute the appropriate
methodology for the content-based analysis of the corpus that will be the aim of the next
chapter.

28
CHAPTER 3: CONTENT-BASED ANALYSIS OF
TRIPADVISOR REVIEWS
In this last chapter the analysis of the content of the corpus of Online Travel Reviews
(OTR), will be made, with reference to its features, which have been introduced in the
previous chapter (see paragraph 2.1). Following the methods of Dann and Pan,
MacLaurin and Crotts, the most relevant OTR of the corpus have been selected and
used in order to design a scheme, by which their content will be examined. Moreover,
the aim of this last chapter is to show how travellers use specific verbal strategies in the
writing of OTR to promote or demote a place of the province of Agrigento, which is
also the case study of this dissertation.
3.1 Analysis
As has already been explained in the Chapter 2, several texts have to be selected to
compose a corpus following specific parameters in order to make a qualitative analysis
of OTR, that is, an examination of the content. In this regard, the corpus that in this
chapter will be analysed, consists of 75 OTR and they were manually selected by the
author from the website of TripAdvisor.
Having said that, with reference to the methodology, which has already been
defined (see paragraph 2.2), a procedure can be established in order to identify the
criteria and the coding categories, by which the OTR of the corpus will be analysed. For
this reason, the procedure consists of several phases, from the reading of the corpus, to
the identification of the categories, shared by OTR, and the analysis of the content

29
according to the categories and the positive, negative and neutral evaluations shared by
travellers on the TripAdvisor website. Furthermore, the results of this deep analysis are
showed in a final scheme, as explained in the Table 3.1 that has been built according to
the researches of Dann and Pan, MacLaurin and Crotts. The table consists of two
dimensions: holiday destinations, including the seven places in the province of
Agrigento, and three coding categories: ‘Attractiveness’, ‘Accessibility’ and
‘Maintenance’. Consistent with this, the identification of these categories has been made
reading the collected OTR: it has emerged that travellers refer to the holiday
destinations, judging their attractive qualities, the ease to find and reach them and their
authenticity (if the place is off the beaten track), and, lastly, their condition. In order
better to examine the corpus, the sentence has been chosen as coding unit, and therefore,
for each of the categories, 45 of the most distinctive sentences have been extracted from
the corpus and classified according to the positive, negative and neutral evaluation
expressed by travellers in their review.
As Pan, MacLaurin and Crotts38
have observed, the choice of the coding unit can
be different and it depends on the aim of the research. In this dissertation, OTR about
holiday destinations are being analysed in order to show how travellers have
increasingly become important for the tourism industry and are influential in the
decision-making process of potential tourists. Moreover, travellers write the reviews to
share their opinion and to inform users about their travel experience and this aspect
allows to define the strengths and weaknesses of a place. Consistent with this, the
appraisals of travellers have been classified in the final scheme (Table 3.1) following
38

30
the research method of Dann39
(see paragraph 2.2), as it allows to highlight the verbal
strategies used by travellers. For these reason, it has been decided to combine these
research methods to make a deep examination of the content of this corpus.
Following the procedure defined by Pan, MacLaurin and Crotts40
about the
content analysis of travel blogs, the Figure 3.1 shows the procedure that has been
defined and established to examine the corpus of OTR.
Figure 3.1: Coding procedure for a content-based analysis of OTR.
39
Unicopli.
40
Marketing, Journal of Travel Research, 46:1, p.42.

31
Table 3.1: The final scheme of the content-based analysis of the OTR about Agrigento.
HOLIDAY DESTINATION ATTRACTIVENESS ACCESSIBILITY MAINTENANCE
Torre Salsa Positive Negative Neutral
“ We found
there the most
beautiful beach
on the Sicily.
Astonishing
views, white
sand and not a
single person
except us.
Great place!”
by Mikolaj T
“Very nice
place. […] but
nothing really
special.” by
Olivia Irish K
Positive Negative Neutral
“ To get to
Torre Salsa in
the first place,
get off the
SS115 at the
Montallegro
exit from
where it's
signposted and
about 15
minutes drive.”
by SherpaP
“It's difficult
to reach by
car.” by
OscarPaulaN
uria
“We followed
the signs until
we came to
an impassable
muddy road
and could not
continue.” by
RFBarnhardt
“ It is a bit
hidden and
offroad but
despite other
coments on here
we had no
problems to
drive there
[…].” by Felix
T
“ It is immersed
in nature and
mostly
untouched,
without structures
or commercial
activity - we
really appreciated
this.” by
gianpiero_gi-
biino
Il Giardino della Kolymbethra “It is a true
oasis […] great
views,
peaceful,
enchanting!”
by stephan j
“ The garden
by itself if
unimpressive,
but against the
backdrop it
could become
interesting for
some.” by
SagarVS
“[...] away
from all the
crowds in the
Valley of the
Temples.” by
Lesley
“The FAI […] is
doing a fantastic
job maintaining
the place.” by
stephan j
“ A very well
managed garden
by FAI.” by
gianpiero_gi-
biino

32
Eraclea Minoa Positive Negative Neutral
“The small
museum was
interesting as
well. Worth
seeing if in the
area.” by
JudyDoris
“This place is
absolutely not
worth the visit
to a regular
tourist.” by
Kristjàn
“There is not as
much to see as
there is at the
main sites, but
[…] so much,
much quieter.”
by Ceiniog
“[…] sandy and
not
overcrowded,
easy parking in
a pineta, lovely
walk from the
car to the beach
and back.” by
VTGR
“You can
reach it
driving on a
narrow street.”
by MSP_V_66
“Close to the
autostrada but
is a lonely
spot.” by
BobxxxxCind
y
“Sadly, the
management of this
historic site is
appalling. […]Most
of the site is
overgrow and
unattended” by
RedDragon2012
“It seems ‘working
on progress’, but it’s
not.” by MSP_V_66
“[...] the ruins,
although some
are under cover,
are quite special.”
by
Highwycomberev
iew
“Quite a bit of
debris on the
sand which was a
shame, but
nevertheless was
still a nice
beach.” by
FarrahM123
Scala dei Turchi “One of the
highlights of a
one-week trip to
Sicily – enjoyed
this much more
than the Valley
of the Temples.”
by 63Jeremy6
“Beautiful and
amazing. The
contrast of
colors and rock
formation is
spectacular.” by
stephanie p
“Recommend-
ed in all
touristic guides
as one of the
best European
beaches. In my
opinion, it's
overvalued.”
by Toni3452
“It wasn't
originally on
out top must-
sees, but […]
when we
realized it was
worth it.” by
teammerrill
“It can be
reached by foot
from Realmont
or from Porto
Empedocle. [...]
From Punta
Grande it' is at
least 3.5km
walk.” by
Tetskie
“[...] easy to
miss the exit
lane because
of the small
sign.” by Judit
E
“Very hard
access from
the top and
long walk
along the
beach.” by
EwelinaIRL-
PL
“It's a little
bit out of the
way and the
signs are not
very clear,
but a good
GPS will do
the trick.” by
thyssens
“The fact that this
is not heavily
advertised means
that its beauty has
been preserved.”
by Tetskie
“ Such a shame
that visitors
don't show their
respect for this
fantastic
coastline by
taking their
rubbish home
and resisting
the urge to
carve their
marks into the
rock.” by
ridler36man

33
Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Greci Positive Negative Neutral
“The church is
highly
recommended
to visit, as it is
very old and
was built on the
top of a temple
dedicated to
Athena.” by
Dana B
“ It is easy to
find among the
steep narrow
streets and
alleyways of
this district.”
by Paul S
“Hidden away
in the winding
back street of
the old town, it
is worth making
the effort to
find this
church,” by
Max M
“ Loved the way
the tombs in the
crypts are
exposed and you
can see it all
through the glass
floors.” by ianthy
Castello Incantato “[...] I
recommend it
as a very
unique exhibt.”
by WilsonWay
“ A scattering
of approximate
heads carved in
the same way
over a bunch of
rocks. As they
say in Italy,
"Una
grandissima
cavolata".
Avoid.ā by
MEP63
“ Get off at the
next junction
and follow the
signs, it is very
easy to find.”
by Bessiegal
“It is a bit hard
to find but
definitely one
of a kind.” by
WilsonWay
ĀBe aware that
the pathway is
stones set into
concrete so do
not go in
stillettos, with a
pushchair or a
wheelchair: It
might be
tricky!ā by
Bessiegal
Vulcanelli di macalube “It is a strange,
moonlike
landscape of
mini mud
craters and
sporadic mini
geysers.” by
bernard69
“Off the beaten
track, but well
worth a visit.”
by
FaustoCopp1
“Not easy to
find the place,
although there
are several
signs along the
way.” by
Etiy78
“Too bad the
place was
abandoned
because it could
be a wonderful
tourist site.” by
Etiy78

34
From the analysis of OTR, the strengths and weaknesses of each of the seven
holiday destinations of the province of Agrigento can be identified. Eight of the
travellers, who had visited the “riserva naturale di Torre Salsa”, for example, wrote
positive reviews about its qualities and its natural condition: the reviewers Mikolaj T.
and ginapiero_gibiino described it as «the most beautiful beach on the Sicily» that is
«immersed in nature and mostly untouched», respectively. A weakness of the place can
be the difficulty to find it and the condition of the streets, which can be a problem.
The majority of the seven analysed reviews about the “Giardino della
Kolymbethra” contain only positive evaluations, as the reviewer stephan j said, that is,
«it is a true oasis». Moreover, several travellers praised the FAI – Fondo Ambiente
Italiano, a non-profit organisation equivalent of the British National Trust, for its
assiduous work of renovation of the site.
The location of Eraclea Minoa is well-known both for its stunning beach and
above all for the archaeological site. Consistent with this, all the reviewers, except one,
judged in a positive way the features of the place and negatively the condition of the
archaeological ruins, as they are under a plastic cover and «the site is overgrow and
unattended» as the traveller RedDragon2012 wrote. One of the strength of Eraclea
Minoa is that it is not always mentioned in the travel guides and therefore, it is not
overcrowded as the reviewer VTGR said in her/his post. Moreover, the purity of a place
is the most important feature for potential tourists, as they tend to choose unspoilt places
to get off the beaten track and feel themselves anti-tourists, even though as Culler has
asserted, «wanting to be less touristy than other tourists is part of being a tourist41
».
41
Culler, Jonathan, 1989, The Semiotics of Tourism, in Framing the Sign: Criticism and its Institutions,
Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, p.156.

35
The colour and the good condition of the water are the most appreciated
qualities of the “Scala dei Turchi” by 23 of the 30 reviewers. Furthermore, as stephanie
p wrote in her post, the distinctive feature of this place is the perfect contrast between
the Mediterranean sea and the rock formation, whose shape is unique. A weak aspect is
the access to the site: the majority of reviewers criticized through negative evaluations,
the poor quality of the local transport and the lack of signs on the road. With reference
to the maintenance, half of the travellers praised the preservation of the beauty of the
location, whereas others denounced the lack of supervision, as there are no restrictions
for tourists, who abandon their rubbish in the place and ruin the rock, as the reviewer
ridler36man observed.
The “Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Greci” has been positively reviewed on all
accounts and several travellers considered it as “a hidden gem”. According to them, the
best feature of this church is its preservation status that allows visitors to admire both
the ancient crypts and tombs, built by the Greeks, and the frescos, which date back to
the gothic period.
Four of five travellers advised to visit the “Castello Incantato” in order to live a
unique experience: it is not actually a castle but the homestead of a Sicilian sculptor. Its
peculiarity is that the countless sculptures in the garden are heads carved out of stone,
which make this place unusual for the majority of reviewers. A negative aspect is the
pathway of stones that can provoke annoyance for those who « go in stillettos, with a
pushchair or a wheelchair», as the reviewer Bessiegal said.
The last analysed holiday destination is the site of “Vulcanelli di macalube”,
where there are particular mud volcanoes, which are still active. As the reviewer
bernard69 has observed, its strength point is that this place is suggestive and seems a

36
moon landscape, whereas Etiy78 has considered it abandoned and not easy to find,
although there are signs on the road.
The results of this analysis are showed in the following Table 3.2 in order to
establish the percentage of the assessments about the selected places according to the
three coding categories.
Table 3.2: The percentage results of the content-based analysis of the OTR
about Agrigento.
With reference to this, the extracted percentages explain how travellers have
reviewed the places, where they have been on holiday. Moreover, the results of the
collected data easily show that each holiday destination can have positive and negative
features, which other travellers consider essential to plan their next holiday. For this
reason, a deep observation will be made in the next section in order better to explain the
importance of the evaluations written online by travellers.
HOLIDAY
DESTINATION
ATTRACTIVENESS ACCESSIBILITY MAINTENANCE
Torre Salsa
(10 Reviews)
%Positive %Negative % Neutral
80 10 10
%Positive %Negative %Neutral
40 20 40
%Positive %Negative %Neutral
90 10 -
Giardino della
Kolymbethra
(7 Reviews)
85.7 - 20 100 - - 100 - -
Eraclea Minoa
(15 Reviews)
73.3 6.7 - 66.6 26.6 6.6 20 53.3 26.6
Scala dei Turchi
(30 Reviews)
76.6 3.3 20 33.3 76.6 30 50 20 30
Chiesa S. Maria
dei Greci
(5 Reviews)
100 - - 80 - 20 100 - -
Castello
Incantato
(5 Reviews)
80 20 - 40 40 20 80 20 -
Vulcanelli
Macalube
(3 Reviews)
33.3 33.3 33.3 33.3 66.6 - 66.6 33.3 -

37
3.2 Discussion
From the content-based analysis of the composed corpus of the Online Travel Reviews,
several remarks can be made in order to define the main features of OTR and their
functions.
As DeAscaniis and Gretzel42
have observed, the content of an OTR is
anticipated by its title, by which travellers sum up what they will say in the review.
Moreover, the title gives potential tourists information about a place before reading the
review entirely: this aspect has been noticed also during the analysis of the gathered
corpus and examples can be the titles «Great non touristy beach» and «Ok, but
overcrowded» by the reviewers FarrahM123 and Toni3452, respectively, with reference
to “Eraclea Minoa” and the “Scala dei Turchi”. Another aspect has emerged, is that
some travellers use Italian words both in the title and in the review in order to show that
they have interacted with local people and learnt their language: Skippy50 and
63Jeremy6 wrote «a giardino segretto in every way» and «La Grande Bellezea» to
describe the “Giardino della Kolymbethra” and the “Scala dei Turchi”, respectively.
As has already been said, one of the main functions of OTR is to give potential
tourists advice in order to have a good experience during their holiday. Consistent with
this, it has been observed that some travellers of the analysed OTR use the imperative
form to inform readers about what not to forget to take before going in a place, such as
water and food or how to reach the destination as RFBarnhardt wrote about “Torre
Salsa”: «beware two entrances […] make sure you are going to the right entrance».
Furthermore, the usefulness of OTR can be proved thanks to the review of SherpaP,
42
De Ascaniis, Silvia, Gretzel, Ulrike, 2013, Communicative functions of Online Travel Review titles: A
pragmatic and linguistic investigation of destination and attraction OTR titles, in Studies in
Communication Sciences (SComS), 2:13.

38
who said «we followed advice from another TripAdvisor reviewer and headed just back
up the road to the Torre Salsa Agriturismo and parked there».
With reference to the verbal strategies used by reviewers to influence readers, it
has been noticed they tend to describe a place through specific words and phrases, such
as “not touristy”, “unspoilt”, “hidden” and “off road”. According to Maci43
, through this
language, potential tourists can identify themselves with reviewers and rely on them.
Moreover, the reference to «something off the beaten track makes the product sound
exclusive44
» and influences the decision-making process of readers, who want to live
the same experience.
Another observation that emerges from this analysis is that some travellers refer
to the stereotypical situation of Sicily, that is, the inefficiency of the local
administration, the lack of a good local transport, etc.: an example is the review about
the “Scala dei Turchi” by Vincenzo G, who praised the beauty of the place, and, on the
other hand, said «you will end up struggling with stereotypical disadvantages of being
in Sicily: no primary services […], unauthorized parking attendants and more..».
Following the procedure of the analysis made by Francesconi45
, some OTR in
the corpus have been classified according to the five text types: the narrative, the
descriptive, the regulative, the expository and the argumentative. The majority of
analysed OTR focuses on describing the place and giving general information about
what to see. For this reason, only the review written by teammerrill can be considered a
narration of what s/he made on holiday, that is, «we stopped by the Scale dei Turchi
with little expectations. […] we parked and walked down the pathway […]». As has
43
Maci, Stefania, 2007, Virtual Touring: the Web-language of Tourism, in Linguistica e Filologia, 25.
44
Ibid., p. 43.
45
Tangram Edizioni Scientifiche.

39
already been said, almost all the travellers describe the destination in detail, such as
permia, who said about the “Chiesa di S. Maria dei Greci” that it is «a fascinating 13th
century structure built on an ancient Greek temple. The three plain aisles with their
columns and arches are attractive and restful. The walls contain faded frescoes […] ».
The aim of the regulative text is to give instructions and some reviewers decided to
advise potential tourists, as the traveller RFBarnhardt, who has been mentioned above.
As expository text, which generally gives objective information, only one review by
Phei Yee O contains a phone-number, that is, «to our surprise, we found a taxi service
called Capibus (3287963842) which takes you directly to Scala dei Turchi for 5 euro».
With reference to the argumentative text, the corpus consists of several reviews, where a
neutral evaluation of the place has been made, as FarrahM123 said about “Eraclea
Minoa “: «it is a nice peaceful tranquil beach. Quite a bit of debris on the sand which
was a shame, but never the less was still a nice beach. »
On the TripAdvisor website, travellers have to give also information about when
they have been in a place in order to establish if they are still on holiday or at their post-
trip stage. The majority of the analysed OTR has been written after coming back home
and this aspect is marked by the date of visit of the place that is prior to when travellers
write the review. Other reviewers prefer to post their comments at the on-trip stage
using either the mobile version of the website or the official App.
In this chapter, a deep analysis of the content of the corpus of Online Travel
Reviews has been made, introducing features and discussing its functions. The analysed
OTR have allowed to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the selected places of the
province of Agrigento. Consistent with this, what has emerged from this analysis is that
travellers assume an essential role in reviewing the place where they have been and in
the decision-making process of potential tourists.

40
CONCLUSIONS
In this dissertation, the online travel community TripAdvisor has been introduced,
giving information about the services it offers and its features and focusing above all on
its essential element, that is, the Online Travel Review (OTR). Moreover, what has
emerged is that, over the years TripAdvisor has become increasingly popular among
tourists, drawing the attention of the tourism industry. Consistent with this, TripAdvisor
has allowed travellers to have the power to express their own opinion about a place and
to influence, giving advice to other potential tourists, who can expect at whichever
stage, how their holiday will be.
The most important innovation introduced by TripAdvisor is the review, whose
specific features and communicative functions have been defined in order to
differentiate it from the other travel texts. Moreover, the intent of this dissertation was
to prove that OTR, as User-Generated Content (UGC), is useful to identify the strengths
and weaknesses of a place, through the opinion of travellers, who have been there on
holiday. In order to show this, the content-based analysis has been chosen as
methodology, following the researches of Dann and Pan, MacLaurin and Crotts. From
the examination of the content of the 75 OTR, a final scheme has been composed
through the selection of the most relevant sentences, extracted from the corpus.
Consequently, the features of each of the seven holiday destinations of the province of
Agrigento have been identified.
In conclusion, this analysis has allowed to recognize the importance of OTR, as
the possibility for travellers to express their opinion has increasingly effects on the
reality and, as a result, TripAdvisor can be considered expression of the Web 3.0.

41
APPENDIX
Abbreviations:
- Attractiveness: AT
- Accessibility: AC
- Maintenance: MA
- Positive: +
- Negative: -
- Neutral: +/-
10 Reviews about “Torre Salsa” from 01/09/2014 to 21/10/2015
Total Reviews on TripAdvisor: 351
Visitor Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Position on the list of “Top Things to Do”: #5 of 148 in Province of Agrigento
 “Totally empty, totally amazing” by Kevin N from Ohio
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 21 October 2015 – Visited April 2015
I went here on a whim with my fiancee as we were looking for a nice beach. We weren't there during
busy season, but we were also not expecting to see zero other humans for two hours. We had the beach
entirely to ourselves and it was gorgeous. The undulating rock-walls at one side are bizarre and wonderful
when compared to the sea across from it. Visitors should note that you actually have to go into the Torre
Salsa BnB (or something like that) and wait for someone to come out. You'll have a 6 euro fee to enter
and go to the beach, but it's entirely worth it.
There's a park nearby but it was a bit too treacherous to try driving through all of the dirt-paths to
unknown places for us, so we didn't find out if those roads made it all the way to the beach as well.
AT: + AC: + MA: +
 “Untouched nature” by gianpiero_gibiino from Bologna, Italy
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 13 September 2015 - Visited August 2015
We reached the beach after a few km of dirt road immersed in the nature. The road is very narrow and
two cars hardly can pass, so it's rather annoying. However, at the end there's quite a large park (2 or 3 €
ticket).
After a few min walk, the beach appears very large and great. At the time we were there (around 4pm in a
August day) was rather empty; however, I assume it's hard to find too much crowd given the dimension
of the beach and the rather long way to reach it. It is immersed in nature and mostly untouched, without
structures or commercial activity - we really appreciated this.
Sea looked nice, although it was too crispy and windy that time. We would go back there again!
AT: + AC: - MA: +

42
 “Nice but far” by Olivia Irish K
4 of 5 stars Reviewed 21 August 2015 - Visited August 2015
Very nice place. Mostly like scala dei turchi but less people .
Prepare to drive a long way with narrow sandy road . So much wave, such a long beach with loads of
rocks!!! Nothing really special . But it was enjoyable and fun time.
Went there jusy becoz its less people . And i hear that was another entrance that you will need to pay.
AT: +/- AC: + /- MA: +
 “Fantastic beach, beautiful ” by smurgie from Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Follow the signs to the WWF nature reserve done a single track dusty road. Parking is 3 euro for the day
and the beach is a 5 min walk this beach is sandy and good for swimming and does not have the rocks etc
like scala di turchi. Although if you walk for 30mins there are rocks etc good for snorkelling( a lot of
people were using theirs in this area).
AT: + AC: +/- MA: +
 “Guacamole and Salsa” by SherpaP from Camberley, United Kingdom
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 16 July 2015
Fabulous beach stretching many kilometres and for once on sicily we appreciated the poor organisation
and lack of information from the Sicilian authorities as this probably helps to keep this place quiet.
We couldn't get to the WWF centre as the dirt track was blocked by tree cutters so we followed advice
from another TA reviewer and headed just back up the road to the Torre Salsa Agriturismo and parked
there. A bit steep at €10 euro but you get to reach a remote part of the beach down a further private track
into the woods just behind the beach where you can park and then walk 5 minutes through the dunes onto
the beach. By all accounts the Agriturismo is very well rated and looked a great spot to stay if we return
to Sicily.
The beach is stunning. Sandy and generally clean, beautiful clear warm water in July and vistas in all
directions will get your iPhone camera clicking. From where we chose to pitch for the day there was 2
other couples about 500 metres away in each direction so very very peaceful. No facilities at all so take
everything you need, though if you walk about 2km round the beach there is a small beach cafe and
slightly busier area from another point of access (montallegro marina?)
To get to Torre Salsa in the first place, get off the SS115 at the Montallegro exit from where it's
signposted and about 15 minutes drive.
AT: + AC: + MA: +

43
 “Amazing” by Felix T
Stunning and unique spot. It is a bit hidden and offroad but despite other coments on here we had no
problems to drive there with our little Lancia. Absolutely recommendet.
AT: + AC: +/- MA: +
 “Amazing beach” by Mikołaj T
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 21 June 2015
We found there the most beautiful beach on the Sicily. Astonishing views, white sand and not a single
person except us. Great place!
AT: + AC: + MA: +
 “Beware two entrances!” by RFBarnhardt from Charlottesville, VA
2 of 5 stars Reviewed 26 April 2015 - Visited April 2015
We never did get into the reserve because we did not realize that there are two entrances. We were
driving toward Agrigento from the west and turned off at Montallegro when we saw the sign for Riversa
Torre Salsa. We followed the signs until we came to an impassable muddy road and could not continue. It
took a long time to understand the problem. Our guide book was directing us to the eastern entrance
closer to Agrigento. From what we could tell, it is easy to enter the reserve this way and it takes you
directly to the beach. So make sure you are going to the right entrance!
AT: - AC: - MA: -
 “great , secluded beach” by Billydragon1000 from Manchester, United Kingdom
If you just want, lovely sand and clear, warm water from your beach this is a great place to go.
It is very much off the beaten track and you will wonder where on earth your going as you wind down a
very long, rutted dirt road but eventually you will get to a field with a very nice attendant who takes a
very reasonable fee to park for the day.
There is nothing there apart from sand and sea so bring everything you'll need for the day. If your lucky
the ice cream man will turn up and nothing beats a proper gelato on the beach.
AT: + AC: +/- MA: +
 “Peaceful” by OscarPaulaNuria from Barcelona, Spain
If you like enjoy a beach with no many people, Torre Salsa is perfect. It's difficult to reach by car but
when you arrive you find a very beatiful beach and it's not necessary to ask for a place for yoyr towel...
Do not forger to carry on water and something to eat, there are not restaurants.
AT: + AC: + MA: +

44
7 Reviews about “Giardino della Kolymbethra” from 06/11/2019 to 10/10/2015
 “Free to National Trust Members - a giardino segretto” by Skippy50 from West
Sussex
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 10 October 2015 - Visited October 2015
A giardino segretto in every way, with no crowds and plenty of shade. We had a wonderful hour or so in
the gardens, after spending time talking with the delightful woman who was taking money (it is a separate
charge than the temples, though on site) and who had family in the UK. We were surprised that as
National Trust members we were given free entrance, so donated instead, (take your membership card)
and then wandered by water, through trees laden with olives and citrus fruits, until we reached the Temple
of Vulcan across the railway lines. The view of the other temples was also a bonus and we can thoroughly
recommend this tranquil and hidden gem. Take water etc since there are no refreshments available.
AT: + AC: + MA: +
 “Not a must” by SagarVS from India
3 of 5 stars Reviewed 3 October 2015 - Visited September 2015
These gardens are a part of the ruins and there is a small entrance fee. While it is not really a very
beautiful place, depending on when you visit, you will find oranges and some flowers. There are many
old trees if you are interested. The garden by itself if unimpressive, but against the backdrop it could
become interesting for some. Not a must visit.
AT: +/- AC: + MA: +
 “unexpected” by NYC-piano from New York City, New York
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 2 October 2015 - Visited October 2015
Refreshing, feels like diving into a green oasis situated 200 feet down from the scorching sun that is
beating down the valle dei templi plateau. See (and touch) every citrus known to the island. Cool. A must.
AT: + AC: + MA: +
 “Suggested stop by” by gianpiero_gibiino from Bologna, Italy
A very well managed garden by FAI; ticket is a few euros, not included in the one of the valley of the
temples.
Most of the trees and vegetation has also its type indication, making it an interesting destination to
explore local species. Also some ancient aqueduct channels are visible.
A suggested stop by during the visit of the valley of the temples.
AT: + AC: + MA: +

45
 “Restored garden to arrabic times” by heartbreakeria from Birmingham, United
Kingdom
4 of 5 stars Reviewed 26 July 2015 - Visited July 2015
Found this garden through the Temples route not long before Hercules and the exit. Very nice to see it
being restored to how the vegetation would have looked. The evening we visited they were putting on a
night of classical music but we did not stay although tempted as we were unsure of how we could exit in
the dark late at night.
AT: + AC: + MA: +
 “hidden gem” by stephan j from London, United Kingdom
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 16 April 2014 - Visited April 2014
not much visited this garden is a true oasis and a perfect addition to the temples of Agrigento. Easter is
the perfect time for a visit as the many orange and lemon trees are flowering and one is allowed to eat
oranges at will too. Great views, peaceful, enchanting! Yes, one has to pay extra to visit it, but the FAI,
equivalent to the National Trust in the UK is doing a fantastic job maintaining the place.
AT: + AC: + MA: +
 “A hidden gem” By Lesley P from Nottingham, United Kingdom
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 6 November 2013 - Visited September 2013
A lovely little garden, good value and a peaceful retreat away from all the crowds in the Valley of the
temples.
AT: + AC: + MA: +
15 Reviews about “Eraclea Minoa” from 22/10/2009 to 05/10/2015
 “Great non touristy beach” by FarrahM123 from London, United Kingdom
This was a lovely beach, and the best bit was that it wasn’t full of tourists. Because it is out of the way a
bit,less people come, and as a result it is a nice peaceful tranquil beach. Quite a bit of debris on the sand
which was a shame, but never the less was still a nice beach. There is also a nice restaurant on the
seafront with great views.
AT: + AC: + MA: +/-

46
 “So much potential” by VTGR
2 of 5 stars Reviewed 30 August 2015
There is a Greek theatre but it is very difficult to see it, apart from the covers to protect it. I fully
understand this was found relatively recently and it could get damaged by the rain. However, there could
be other ways to display it so that it is still visible while being protected... possibly too expensive.
There is also a village next to the theatre and this is slightly easier to visit and appreciate, although the
temperature under the cover is challenging.
There is a small museum on the site, lots of amphorae and other artefacts.
The views of the coast are great and walking around the site is still a pleasant experience.
It is worth visiting the beach you can see from here. One of the best ones we visited: sandy and not
overcrowded, easy parking in a pineta, lovely walk from the car to the beach and back (just enough to fry
out).
AT: + AC: + MA: -
 “nearly perfect beach” by mu0iover2pir from Didcot, United Kingdom
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 30 August 2015 – Visited August 2015
The beach is sandy. The water level gently increases - no sudden step, ideal.
It is possible to park in a pineta, lots of shadow and crickets singing.
There is a bar next to the beach on one side, while the other side is free.
One of the best beaches we have visited.
There is a Greek theatre nearby... they knew how to choose the place to live.
AT: + AC: + MA: +
 “magnificent site. It's amazing how in ancient times they understood where to
live!” by Colin B from Dogliani, Italy
This is all about the feeling & atmosphere of this ancient town. The amphitheatre is covered with an
artificial roof for protection but remains in pretty good condition. It was well worth the visit as far as we
were concerned, with the beautiful stretch of the sandy bay adding to town's position.
AT: + AC: + MA: +/-
 “Fascinating but poorly looked after” by RedDragon2012
3 of 5 stars Reviewed 17 June 2015 - Visited June 2015
It's not every day that you get to enjoy wandering around a town more than 2000 years old, free to
explore and wander in and out of ancient buildings. This is an awe inspiring place, set on a beautiful
headland on the Mediterranean coast. Sadly, the management of this historic site is appalling. There is
little effort to maintain or explain any of the intriguing history, except for the plastic covering that
protects the theatre and a house. Most of the site is overgrown and unattended. Those tasked with looking
after this site should be ashamed.
AT: +/- AC: + MA: -

47
 Lovely Sense of Place” by JudyDoris from New York
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 28 May 2015 - Visited May 2015
Empty, quiet, charming. The small museum was interesting as well. Worth seeing if in the area.
Disappointed the ruins of the theater were covered with some kind of protective panels which
unfortunately distorted the visual appearance.
AT: + AC: + MA: -
 “Lucky find” by BobxxxxCindy from North Palm Beach, Florida
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 29 November 2014 - Visited November 2014
Our Agrigento room clerk suggested this spot. I hadn't seen a reference to it in our Sicily books. Great
views of beautiful beach. The amphitheater had to be protected since the rock is very soft. You walk thru
the streets of an abandoned town. You will be tempted to sort thru the remains. I have never seen more
pot shards in my life lying everywhere as you walk down the hill. Close to the autostrada but is a lonely
spot. Also has an interesting museum.
AT: + AC: +/- MA: +/-
 “Draws together Selinunte & Agrigento” by VCB_10 from Great Torrington, United
Kingdom
4 of 5 stars Reviewed 12 October 2014 – Visited September 2014
Although hardly in the same league as Agrigento or Selinunte historically forms an important link
between the two, not forgetting the wonderful Doric temple and teatro at Segesta. Charge of €4 per person
is not out of the way though do wish that the income from ticket sales and EU monies could do something
to improve the 'presentation'. The covering over the teatro for example is second-rate to say the least. That
said, we enjoyed the visit and as so often with these sites, a lovely spot.
AT: + AC: + MA: -
 “Not worth the money not time” by Kristján F from Barcelona, Spain
Unless you are very knowledgeable about Greek history, this place is absolutely not worth the visit to a
regular tourist. Ticket is 4 euro per person which does not justify what is there to be seen.
AT: - AC: - MA: -
 “stunning views” by zimag from Sutton, UK
3 of 5 stars Reviewed 2 May 2014
Well... the monument itself is interesting primarily for people passionate about classical culture. For us -
regulars probably stunning views over the cliff shore were more attractive. the beach below is great so - if
you are disappointed with the disappearing Greek theater hidden over a plastic roof - go there. absolute
relax in stunning landscapes.
AT: + AC: + MA: -

48
 In the middle of nowhere ...a nice greek theater” by MSP_V_66 from Milan
3 of 5 stars Reviewed 21 October 2013 – Visited October 2013
Heraclea Minoa archaeological site seems lost in space and in time.
You can reach it driving on a narrow street. In october there were, maybe, 8 visitors, including us. Only a
few explanations, more in the small "museum" room, near the ticket counter.
In the "field" it seem that the time stopped centuries ago ...
The theater is nice but the protection used is not adding value; on the contrary ... It seems "working on
progress", but it's not.
The view on the see, from the above the theater is magnific. Only the 2nd world war casemate recalls you
that the time passed by since the greeks were there. The rest was silence...
AT: +/- AC: - MA: -
 “Great location but disappointing as an attraction” by les106 from Devon, UK
3 of 5 stars Reviewed 21 April 2013
Fantastic spot on the cliffs with loads of flowers and great views around - for me it was worth travelling
just for that. The ampitheatre was very difficult to appreciate with the eyesore plastic roof almost
obliterating the whole view. Maybe there is probably a reason for it, but I think it could definitely have
been done more sympathetically.
AT: + AC: + MA: -
 “Out of the Way Gem” by Highwycombereview
4 of 5 stars Reviewed 14 April 2012 - Visited March 2012
Although this lovely little gem is off the beaten track it is well worth the effort making the short trip off
the main road. The views are simply stunning and the ruins, although some are under cover, are quite
special. There is also a small museum with some interesting pieces of excuisitely fine pottery. It is a
special place and I quite see why it was chosen all those years ago for the building of an ampitheatre and
village - a truly tranquil setting - enjoy the quiet.
AT: + AC: - MA: +/-
 “bella spiaggia, fantastica pineta, acqua pulita” by Samppa87 from Espoo, Finland
We enjoyed a sunny end of September in this beach. The sea was waivy and the water warm. We liked
the calm and silence of that place. Some nuissance was given by bees which were quite numerous in the
area and admittedly bothered us quite a bit.
I believe that during the peaks this area can be crowded. so I encourage to visit it off peak periods.
AT: + AC: + MA: +

49
 “Enjoy an archaeological site away from the crowds” by Ceiniog from Wales, UK
4 of 5 stars Reviewed 22 October 2009
If you are interested in the archaeological sites but are tired of jostling with the tour bus crowds, then try
Eraclea Minoa. Naturally, there is not as much to see as there is at the main sites, but it is off the main
tourist routes and so much, much quieter. And the beach, backed by pure white cliffs, is worth the journey
on its own account.
AT: +/- AC: - MA: +
30 Reviews about “Scala dei Turchi” from 09/06/2013 to 18/10/2015
Total Reviews on TripAdvisor: 1,786
 “Beautiful but beware of steps” by claire r from Swindon, United Kingdom
4 of 5 stars Reviewed 18 October 2015
An amazing part of south sicily with beautiful beaches. ..beware of the steps as many many...easier to
drive to majata beach ..beach bar .free parking and walk round the headland only 5 mins. A must see.
AT: + AC: + MA: +/-
 “Unique beach - must see!” by Diana P from Bucharest, Romania
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 23 September 2015
I've never seen a beach like this one in my life. It's such a great feeling being surrounded by huge white
walls, while you swim in a blue and clear water. It was a fantastic experience. It is a must see if you're in
Sicily!
AT: + AC: + MA: +
 “Beautiful, authentic and not touristy!” by Phei Yee O
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 20 September 2015 - Visited September 2015
It was a cloudy day, so there are only 3 of us relaxing and taking photos. The view is stunning, even more
so when the sun comes out. The water is crystal clear, although it can be a bit white-muddy when it has
big wave (but it is good for your skin I heard!) It is not too touristy at all, so we really felt embraced by
the beauty of nature.
For anyone without a car: We were coming from Agrigento and were planning to take a bus to Realmonte
and walk 3km to the beach. To our surprise, we found a taxi service called Capibus (3287963842) which
takes you directly to Scala dei Turchi for 5 euro.
AT: + AC: +/- MA: +/-

50
 “Very pretty ''beach'' of Sicily” by Valia1986 from Brussels, Belgium
It's a must-see place, the water is blue and clean, but wouldnt recommend it for small children as they
have to climb rocks in order to go out of the water.Go early as it gets insanely crowded after the morning.
AT: + AC: +/- MA: +
 “Beautiful rock formation” by Aussie_Migrant from London, United Kingdom
I have wanted to go here for years, so perhaps I had high expectations. The white rock is amazing and the
setting is nice. It was busy, and windy/gritty and the water was nice but... If you have been to Favignana
or Scopello, the water here is a bit disappointing. Must go, but not going back.
AT: + AC: + MA: -
 “Spectacular gem in a land which doesn’t deserve it” by Vincenzo G
It’s hard reviewing fairly this place.
On the one hand, it’s a spectacular breath-taking masterpiece of nature. You won’t see anything like this
anywhere. On the other hand, you will end up struggling with stereotypical disadvantages of being in
Sicily: no primary services, such as toilets or help for disables, unauthorized parking attendants and
more… Not to mention the nasty dirty seaside…
So, 5 or 1 stars? Should I go for the average, 3 stars?
Listen up: 5 stars but go off-season ;)
AT: + AC: - MA: -
 “Marvelous place, too many people not respecting its beauty” by eageneve from
Geneva
Never go there seeking sun and the beach. Too many people, disrespectful of te beauty of the place. Enjoy
it out of season.
AT: +/- AC: - MA: -
 “Wonderful at sunset ” by John Q
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 24 August 2015 - Visited September 2014
We travelled here for the sunset which was amazing. Though a bit busy and this was September, it was
easy to find a place to sit and watch. The white cliffs itself are mesmerising to look at, and have a natural
tiered formation. This makes for natural seating. It's about a fifteen minute walk from the entrances to the

51
beach to the cliffs. It's the perfect way to spend the evening after a day at the valley of the temples which
are close by.
AT: + AC: + MA: +
 “Beautiful and epic place to go, but packed!” by Olivia Irish K
Took a taxi for a goood deal of 40€ for 2 people round trip to scala dei turchi.
it was very impressive , plain white giant cliffs. Just OMG.!!!
but it was so many people. We arrived around noon. Took some nice pics , manged not to get some
people in our background . There were separated beaches for visitors. The big one easy access was so
many people. But if you willing to walk across the cliffs yo the otherside . It was alright. Reasonable busy
and less kids
I think becoz family with kids were not bother to walk. It was kinda on yhe edge . Dangerous i would
give 7 out of 10.
it was windy, big wave, a lot of seeweed and grasses everywhere . When the wind blow , some hardrock
sand hit on you would be a bit painful . But i guess there was nothing you can do about it.
Enjoyed the day in Scala Dei Turchi. Would go back again in the future . Its a very famous place, worth
to visit .
Thumb up!!
AT: + AC: +/- MA: +/-
 “What an amazing place!” by CharlietheTraveller from Sydney, Australia
Absolutely beautiful place with the contrast of the white cliffs and the turquoise water! The water is a
refreshing temperature and the cliffs arent slippery at all :) But be aware of the walk down down to the
beach from the road, it is long and steep (on the way up). Bring some water/food but there is a cafe to buy
some food on the beach and the towel space gets much smaller the closer you get to the cliff. But it so
worth all the effort, such a beautiful place with mainly only Italian tourists :)
AT: + AC: +/- MA: +/-
 “Very nice, very white and also very crowded” by JMichelCM from Munich,
Germany
Must see in sicilia.. this is pure nature and absolutely fantastic. Some people go swimming here or for a
sun bath. But this is not the best beach to do so. A lot of people are parking around the street, going up
and down the chairs. Summarized its very crowded, but anyway you should see it. Its very impressing and
hard to imagine what nature can create. Its like a postcard and its real!
AT: +/- AC: - MA: +

52
 “Perfect end to visit of Valley Of the Temples” by Signreader from Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
5 of 5 stars Reviewed 10 August 2015 - Visited July 2015
My family of 5 had this on our list of desired places to see during our 12 day Sicily holiday. It was
definitely worth it! We saw it was close to the Valley of the Temples Agrigento. It is very close and I am
glad we didn't settle for some of the other beaches we passed. The weather was scorchingly hot and after
walking to see the Temples, this was a perfect place to cool off. There are many road signs to find it.
There is also a parking area where for a few Euros each, we were able to shower afterwards and have a
comfortable drive back.
The steep walk down to the beach from the road is quite long with many twists and turns, but it has steps
and is safe. There is a restsurant half way down, but we didn't stop there. The white cliff steps are
beautiful and give some wonderful opportunities for impressive pictures to bring back home. Everyone
who sees them is amazed at the beauty. The beach area is a little rocky and much seaweed, but floating on
the gentle waves was lovely. People dive, jump off the white cliffs. Getting back out is a little tricky we
learned, with the waves there being a little more rough pounding on the cliffs. But what memories we
made! If possible, don't miss this place of natural beauty.
AT: + AC: + MA: +
 “A spectacular natural view ” by TeoArio from Rome, Italy
I haven't listened before about the 'Scala dei turchi', but now I think it's one of the greatest natural
landscapes we have in Italy.
If you want to enjoy it, go there before 8 am, when there's nobody.
Just a thing: some people thinks that spreading that mud - it's a kind of clay - on their body could be
healthy. False! Many doctors have advised that kind of clay is not pure and could cause allergies.
Therefore, enjoy the landscape, the sea and the sun and don't spread the mud on yourself!
AT: + AC: + MA: +
 Great sightseeing place” by EwelinaIRL-PL from Dublin, Ireland
4 of 5 stars Reviewed 6 August 2015 - Visited July 2015
Good place for a walk... Great sightseeing place and to take pictures but there is very little things to do
there. Very hard access from the top and long walk along the beach. Bring all the food and water you
need as there is only one place at the beach and totally overpriced. Water seems nice to swim but far away
from the shore. We lasted only 2 hours there.
AT: +/- AC: - MA: +/-

Corso di Laurea in Lingue Moderne: A Content-based Analysis of TripAdvisor Reviews about Agrigento

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Corso di Laurea in Lingue Moderne: A Content-based Analysis of TripAdvisor Reviews about Agrigento