Market Tourism and Tourist Perceptions: A Topic Modeling Analysis of Ben Thanh Market

Abstract

Market tourism is a type of cultural tourism that involves blending business with cultural experiences. This study explores tourist attitudes towards Ben Thanh Market, one of the oldest markets in Ho Chi Minh City, by applying Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling. Through TripAdvisor reviews, this study captured eight positive themes that included price, variety of products, and atmosphere of the market, as well as five negative themes that included dissatisfaction towards pricing, seller interactions, and product quality. There are interesting findings in terms of regional differences as Asian tourists focus on the price and bargaining, while Western tourists focus more on the authenticity of the products and the services offered. This analysis adds to the body of knowledge on cultural tourism by showing the role of traditional markets as economic and cultural centers where genuineness and commercialization coexist. In this case, it broadens the scope of tourism studies by using topic modeling with geographical segmentation to differentiate subtler aspects of tourist behavior. Targeted marketing, lack of vendor interaction, and unclear pricing strategies are ways proposed to meet the dissatisfaction and improve overall visitor experience. The study highlights the need for utilizing tourism big data in decision-making and calls for further study with a focus on demographic segmentation and longitudinal trend analysis.