Tourism Destination STAR Programme

Strategy Through Analytics of Reputation

In a world where perceptions travel faster than marketing campaigns, online guest feedback is no longer noise but valuable intelligence. The most successful destinations are those that listen, analyse, and act on the real voices of their visitors. With the STAR programme, DataFQ transforms reviews, ratings, and guest comments into a strategic roadmap for growth and positioning.

STAR – Strategy Through Analytics of Reputation – is an advanced consultancy service that uses cutting-edge AI to analyse guest feedback across accommodations, attractions, gastronomy, and experiences. This data-driven approach provides destination managers with clear insights into strengths, critical improvement areas, and emerging opportunities, all based on the experiences of real visitors

The programme continuously shows how your destination performs compared to local, regional, and international competitors. With the unique Destination Visitor Experience Index, visitor perception is translated into a single, clear metric, enabling you to compare, communicate, and improve performance. This allows you to highlight your unique assets and identify areas where you lag behind – based on facts rather than assumptions.

Beyond analytics, the STAR Programme also fuels Experiential Data Development — turning insights into innovation. By using the same data that measures perception, we develop new concepts, create new products, and design better experiences for destinations. This continuous feedback loop helps destinations evolve from understanding performance to shaping the future of tourism through data-driven creation and strategic innovation.

Why Choose Us?

With STAR you know:

where your destination truly excels and where improvements are needed

how your performance compares to competing regions

which visitor segments spend the most, show the greatest loyalty, and report the highest satisfaction

What sets STAR apart is the combination of speed, depth, and accuracy with which AI can interpret massive amounts of feedback. By linking reputation analysis with competitor benchmarking and market positioning, data is transformed into actionable strategies.

The Destination Visitor Experience Index makes results tangible and understandable for all stakeholders, from policymakers to entrepreneurs. This makes STAR more than just an analysis: it becomes a compass for sustainable growth and stronger brand positioning.

Data is your most valuable marketing asset. With STAR, DataFQ turns your destination’s online reputation into measurable success – a foundation for smarter policies, sharper campaigns, and sustainable growth.

STAR gave us more than data—it gave us clarity. We finally understood what our visitors value, aligned stakeholders on one benchmark, and saw real results: more family bookings, higher spend, and stronger loyalty.

Close-up of a hotel receptionist receiving a credit card from a guest, highlighting a transaction at check-in.

Director of Tourism

Use-Case: STAR in Action –
Coastal Destination

Many destinations struggle with the same challenges: a lack of clarity on their true strengths and weaknesses, slipping behind competitors in visitor satisfaction, and broad marketing campaigns that fail to attract the right segments.

With the STAR programme, DataFQ analysed more than 1.2 million guest reviews across hotels, restaurants, attractions, and transport. AI-powered sentiment analysis and benchmarking against five competing destinations revealed valuable insights. Families consistently praised the safety and clean beaches, while visitors under 35 were less satisfied with nightlife and cultural variety. High-spend German visitors showed declining satisfaction, largely due to accommodation quality.

Beyond review intelligence, STAR added seasonality analysis to identify demand gaps, geo-mapping of visitor flows to reveal underperforming districts, profitability studies that showed which visitor segments contributed most to the local economy, and competitor positioning reviews to understand how nearby destinations framed their story.

The results were clear. The Destination Visitor Experience Index climbed from 67 to 81 within 18 months. The destination repositioned itself as a “Family-First Destination,” hotels redirected investments into family facilities, and a new cultural festival was launched to strengthen the appeal for younger travellers.

The impact followed quickly: visitor growth rebounded with a 12% rise in family bookings, average spend per visitor increased by €45, and loyalty among German travellers improved by 20%. Perhaps most importantly, stakeholders—from policymakers to hoteliers—finally aligned around a single benchmark for success: the STAR-powered Visitor Experience Index.

Associated Partner 'Destination STAR Programme'

My doctoral research in Online Guest Reviews has translated in different publications and consulting roles to integrate guest reviews in hotel classification systems. This has evolved in collaborations with leading tech companies to develop Online Reputation Management insights and solutions to the hospitality sector. The rise of AI is the next chapter that I am actively immersed in and I aim to combine academic research with Real-World functionality to drive insights and solutions in this space. Collaborating with DataFQ we are aiming to bring the next stage in destination reputation management to a strategic level for leading tourism destinations where we provide unprecedented insights and strategies to tourism destinations. (Wouter Hensens Executive Dean Stenden South Africa)