A social sentiment analysis done on over 2.5 lakh online conversations by a data analytical firm has revealed that this year London and Goa are the most preferred December holiday destinations for international and domestic travellers, respectively.
The analysis by IBM social sentiments index showed that 59 per cent of people are looking forward to go on a vacation this December. The tracking of the conversations showed travel and hospitality trending very high, indicating a particularly large volume of discussions about flying, driving, and vacation with family and friends, among others.
The analysis combines sophisticated analytics and natural language processing technologies to gauge consumer public opinions from Twitter, blogs, message boards and other social media. In this instance, the index was used to measure and understand consumer views on the holiday travel season in India from September 1 to December 12, 2013.
As per the data analysed, international destinations received the most buzz (32 per cent) on all social media channels. London is the most mentioned destination, while Thailand has emerged as the most recurring country in social conversations.
Under domestic travel, Goa is the ‘busiest’ destination in India, followed by Delhi-Agra-Jaipur and Golden Temple in Amritsar.
The Taj Mahal, followed by the Golden Temple, is the most mentioned monument in social media content.
Beaches and palaces are top places to visit on people’s vacation agendas, the trend from the conversations analysed showed.
Also, with airfares being very high in the current holiday season, airplanes received the highest number of negative sentiments for mode of transport.
However, cyber expert Vijay Mukhi expressed doubt at such analysis. “How can we know whether the person who has commented on a social networking site is from India or is based in some other place? Also, it is very difficult to correctly interpret the statements made on social networking sites; they can have multiple meanings,” Mukhi said.
Internationally:
Thailand has emerged as the most recurring country in social conversations.
Domestically:
Goa is the ‘busiest’ destination, followed by Delhi-Agra-Jaipur and Golden Temple in Amritsar.
The Taj Mahal, followed by the Golden Temple, is the most mentioned monument in social media content.
New year brings in new custom forms
Passengers now flying into India will have to fill in a new customs form beginning new year while the need to fill an immigration form for Indians returning home, is being done away with.
The new system, will bifurcate custom and immigration forms. The new form will have a comprehensive list of declaration for dutiable and prohibitable items. The travellers need to state the countries they have visited in the past six months. They would be asked to declare any prohibited articles, gold jewellery, gold items and Indian currency exceeding Rs7,500.
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