ESG Indicators and Online Reputation in Tourism Platforms: A Pilot Data Analysis

Abstract

This paper investigates whether sustainability performance, measured through environmental, social, and governance (ESG) indicators, is reflected in digital reputation signals on tourism platforms at the city level. 

Destination managers and public institutions increasingly rely on ESG-based metrics to evaluate sustainability. However, reputation systems on digital tourism platforms—such as ratings, reviews, and rankings—remain largely driven by perceived service quality and popularity. This disconnect may reduce transparency and limit the ability of platform-based demand to support sustainable destination governance.

Using a pilot empirical design, the study links publicly available ESG indicators for fifteen tourism cities with platform-based reputation measures derived from attraction ratings and review volumes on TripAdvisor. The analysis examines relationships between ESG indicators and digital reputation signals, as well as differences across ESG dimensions and between evaluative indicators (average ratings) and visibility indicators (review volume).

The results show that environmental and social indicators are modestly associated with perceived destination quality, while governance indicators are more strongly related to platform visibility. These findings provide preliminary empirical evidence on the ESG–reputation relationship and highlight the potential relevance of integrating sustainability indicators into digital tourism reputation systems.