Abstract
Culture is one of the reasons that encourage many tourists to travel, one of the places par excellences to show the culture and values of a people is the museum, a monument responsible for the transmission of knowledge between generations. Additionally, visiting museums can contribute economically to local populations. In this context, this chapter intends to analyze the experience lived by the visitor in one of the two most important museums on the African continent, Ghana, and Nigeria, through the analysis of the content generated in social media, which may or may not contribute to encouraging the visit of new tourists. The methodology used was text mining with the application of sentiment analysis. As a result, it was concluded that the visitors considered the experience very positive and described it as an interesting, valuable, and beautiful/wonderful visit.
Top1. Introduction
In West Africa, Nigeria and Ghana, there are many modes of communication, cultural aspects, and different traditions. For example, in the way of communicating, many symbols are used, also known as ideograms, which convey the culture and traditions of each country. For example, at the museums, there exist many textiles made of different techniques, which are collected and exhibited in museums to promote the traditions and conserve the symbolism, craftsmanship, uniqueness, and identity of tradition for sustainability (Seideku et al., 2022) and influence visitor satisfaction (Zanibellato et al., 2018) and consequently the tourism visit experience (Elliot et al., 2023). The study of West African peoples and their cultural dimension involves visiting museums (Rassool, 2022), which depend on the definition and campaign of a set of values and behaviour in the sphere of culture. However, their development is mutable (Lamptey, 2022), varying according to the political, economic, social and cultural societal changes and other aspects that influence the environment where they are inserted, such as pandemics (Giannini & Bowen, 2023).
In West Africa, the 2019 Covid pandemic has caused many industries, such as tourism (museums), to lose a lot of capital and interest from tourists. On the other hand, museums are one of the significant, exciting places people visit for vocational relaxation and to research and study culture and learn. In this technological world, we have online travel agents that, at the touch of the bottom, one can book and review museums of interest. With this, we can see much competition through these cultural destinations. The question is how these museums advertise their product to outside customers. One important answer is through e-word of mouth. Hu and Ritchie (1993) denoted that museums have been found to impact the attractiveness of a destination and the visitors' vacation experience. The World Tourism Organization also views those museums as contributing significant economic and cultural value to the host destination (WTO, 2016). So therefore, you can see the fundamental essence because people visit such places.
The Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and Mausoleum and memorial park are located in downtown Accra, the capital of Ghana. It is dedicated to the prominent Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah. The memorial complex was dedicated in 1992 and is situated on the site of the former British colonial polo grounds in Accra. The Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and Mausoleum, designed by Don Arthur, houses the bodies of Kwame Nkrumah and his wife, Fathia Nkrumah (momaa.org). He was born on 21 September 1909, a Ghanaian politician and revolutionary. He was Ghana's first Prime Minister and President, having led the Gold Coast to independence from Britain in 1957. An influential advocate of Pan-Africanism, Nkrumah was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity and the Lenin Peace Prize winner in 1962 (Momaa, 2022).
After twelve years abroad pursuing higher education, developing his political philosophy and organizing with other diasporic pan-Africanists, Nkrumah returned to the Gold Coast to begin his political career as an advocate of national independence. He formed the Convention People's Party, which achieved rapid success through its unprecedented appeal to the ordinary voter. He became Prime Minister in 1952 and retained this position when Ghana declared independence from Britain in 1957. In 1960, Ghanaians approved a new constitution and elected Nkrumah President (Momaa, 2022).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Consumer Behavior: This is the focus of studies of consumers and the processes they employ to choose use (i.e., consume), and dispose of products and services.
Tourism Industry: One of the largest industries in the world. It emerged to satisfy the human need to travel to and see different places as part of the service sector, including hospitality (e.g., accommodation, restaurants), transportation (e.g., airlines, car rental), travel facilitation and information (e.g., tour operators, tourist information centers), and attractions and entertainment (e.g., heritage sites and traditional and cultural events).
Cultural Heritage: This comprises physical artefacts and intangible attributes of a place or society that are inherited from past generations. Tangible heritage includes buildings, monuments, landscapes, books, works of art, and artefacts. Intangible heritage includes folklore, traditions, language, and knowledge.
Social media: These aggregates of online communications channels can be considered tools that can be used to define new business models strategically, taking into consideration analyses of community user-generated content and information shared with other members of these online communities.
Online Review: Comments made by visitors about a service or tourist product, shared on social networks or travel websites, that convey a testimony of the experience lived during the visit.
Electronic-Word-of-Mouth: Shared content on social media that conveys an opinion about a product, which becomes a recommendation for future users looking for testimonials about the same product to support them in the decision-making process.
Tourism Experience: This is a set of activities in which individuals engage on their personal terms, such as pleasant and memorable places, allowing each tourist to build his or her own travel experiences so that these satisfy a wide range of personal needs, from pleasure to a search for meaning.
Sentiment Analysis: Through the application of text mining algorithms, it allows analyzing textual data, for example, online reviews, to understand whether the sentiment expressed in the text is positive, negative, or neutral.