Learnings from Social Media Data, Challenges Heritage Buildings
in Tourism
KONG LINGYI
A0283729N
Supervisor: Dr. Wong Yunn Chii
Dissertation submitted to the Department of Architecture in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS IN ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION at the DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE
2024
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My study experience at the National University of Singapore has been filled with unforgettable memories. During this year of both theoretical and practical learning, I have not only deeply appreciated the value of architectural heritage but have also become more determined to dedicate myself to the cause of heritage conservation. In the process of writing my thesis, I received a great deal of valuable assistance and I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported me.
First and foremost, I wish to extend my deepest respect and gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Wong Yunn Chii. Thank you for guiding me with endless patience, for providing invaluable suggestions that helped me define the direction of my dissertation, and for enabling me to understand the knowledge and skills related to my research topic more deeply. It is your guidance that has given me the confidence to efficiently complete my dissertation and inspires me to continue exploring this subject in the future. Similarly, I am also thankful to Professor Ho Puay Peng and Professor Johannes Widodo for their valuable opinions and profound insights throughout the writing process, which encouraged me to delve deeper into my research.
I also want to thank my classmates and friends. The help and companionship in our journey of studying abroad prevented me from ever feeling alone. Every moment spent with you has been joyful and will remain one of my most treasured memories.
I am especially grateful to my parents. Thank you for your attentive care and support; you are the strongest help in my academic journey. Your love and encouragement have endowed me with the strength and determination to pursue my passion.
(Word Counting: 9611 words)
The figures used in this research paper are produced by the author, if not indicated individually.
ABSTRACT
Heritage building plays an important role in tourism industry as essential carriers of culture and history. However, the real impact of heritage buildings on tourists' awareness and appreciation of architectural conservation remains to be unclaer. This study examines the influence of heritage buildings on tourists' awareness and appreciation for architectural conservation, with a focus on the National Monument Lau Pa Sat in Singapore. Utilizing Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, this study systematically analyzes tourist reviews collected from TripAdvisor and Google Maps, aiming to gain insights into tourists' heritage buildings' perceptions and attitudes, toward the historical, architectural, and socio-economic values of heritage buildings. The findings show that tourists' evaluations of Lau Pa Sat focused on its cuisine, cultural atmosphere and unique architectural style. Notably, there are differences in the evaluation of Lau Pa Sat by tourists from different countries. The study concludes that in terms of heritage tourism, tourists focus too much on the functionality of heritage buildings rather than their intrinsic value. Further attention must be paid to the interpretation and promotion of heritage buildings.
Keywords: Heritage building, Tourism, Visitor experience, Social media
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research Background
1.1.1 Tourism and Heritage Buildings are Inseparable
Heritage tourism is an important global tourism industry (AlSayyad, 2013; Ashworth & Larkham, 2013; Poria et al., 2003). It is a type of tourism based on commercialised history and culture ( Chhabra et al., 2003; Fyall & Garrod, 1998). Local traditions, including architectural heritage such as buildings, sites and other places, are important factors in attracting tourists ( Lee et al., 2016).
Heritage tourism has become a significant focus of the Singapore government to highlight the country's cultural richness ( Henderson, 2011). As of 2024, 75 National Monuments have been officially gazetted or listed (The Padang, n.d.). These places such as Lau
Pa Sat and CHIJMES are popular tourist attractions in Singapore, with the rich history, unique architecture, and dining and entertainment experiences for visitors ( National Monuments, n.d.; Lau Pa Sat, n.d.).
1.1.2 Importance of Heritage Building Conservation
Conservation of heritage buildings can serve to educate the public. Crutcher (2019) has stated that conservationists need to prevent the phenomenon of uninterpreted by increasing public awareness of heritage buildings through enhanced promotion efforts at heritage sites. Uninterpreted heritage cultures can prevent the public from fully appreciating their cultural and historical values, leading to public concern and conservation awareness of heritage.
Insufficient public attention to heritage and awareness of its conservation can lead to the degradation and destruction of heritage. At the same time, when heritage culture is misrepresented, it can lead the public to have a wrong perception of heritage and support the wrong conservation strategies, which can also aggravate the destruction of heritage buildings.
Protecting heritage and interpreting it correctly allows people to re-imagine the history they are dealing with. Conservation efforts need to emphasise the value of heritage so that the public understands why heritage is important and, in particular, how to conserve it. Good conservation education can create conservation awareness so that sites and artefacts are not forgotten.
Conservation management must encourage public participation to prevent the destruction of heritage and the forgetting of culture.
1.1.3 Potential Impact of Public Comments on the Conservation of Heritage Buildings
Public experience and feedback influence heritage conservation. A high level of visitor experience impacts desired outcomes such as increased economic value, visitor satisfaction, positive recommendations, and loyalty (Smart et al., 2020). Pang, Paveena, and Lin (2019) have discussed how heritage values often emphasise the manager's or designer's vision and the assessment of historical experts. However, the perceptions of and interactions with heritage sites by local users and the public should be considered, illustrating the need for more public perceptions in the heritage conservation process.
1.1.4 Digital Technologies Bring New Opportunities for Heritage Conservation
A large amount of data and new technologies provide us with new perspectives for
observing and studying heritage and architecture. Liu et al. (2015) mention that a large amount of easily accessible data allows access to data generated by the social activities of the public, which can be used to understand the social environment in which they live. Considering people's daily behaviours and the technologies they use (smartphones, social media, etc.) as a source of data generation can reveal individual behavioural patterns and map the dynamics of social groups. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Google Maps have many active users who can post opinions and discussions on specific topics through the platform. These platforms are becoming an important source of socially-aware data for mobile phones (Van Zanten et al., 2016).
Novel techniques allow us to learn in-depth about the outcomes generated by big data from a different perspective. Specifically in the field of heritage tourism, a part of the research has used images to develop human emotion perception methods at a regional scale through deep learning to gain insights into tourists' behavioural patterns, preferences, and the way they interact with cultural heritage sites (Loke et al., 2022; Bapiri et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2023).
Another study uses big data from social media for textual analyses to learn about tourists' perceptions of heritage sites. The public's textual comments on heritage sites are obtained from social media sites such as Instagram, Google Maps, etc., and the tourists' experiences and emotional tendencies etc. of the heritage sites are obtained by textual analyses ( Stoleriu et al., 2019 Smart et al., 2020 ; Yu et al.)
However, the reliability of learning about tourism heritage buildings through social media data needs to be further refined and explored. For example, how to structure a large amount of data, extract and analyse tourists' potential about the value of the building using
sentiment analysis tools, and make recommendations for the conservation management of heritage buildings in response to these findings.
1.2 Research Motivation
1.2.1 Demand for Public Participation
Heritage buildings are closely aligned with the development of Singapore's tourism industry, which facilitates tourists' cultural understanding of Singapore and residents' passing on their cultural heritage. Despite frequent discussions on architectural heritage value among experts and professionals, Peng et al. (2019) noted that public interpretations and attitudes towards the sites still require further research. Although there is close interaction between heritage sites and visitors, it has not significantly increased public awareness of architectural conservation. Therefore, more population samples are needed to gain insight into the public's understanding of heritage conservation in Singapore. This study explores the role of public engagement in architectural conservation by analysing reviews on Google Maps and
TripAdvisor, aiming to deepen public understanding of heritage conservation and discuss how visitor feedback can be used more effectively to shape conservation strategies.
1.2.2 Use of Digital Technology
Research increasingly uses sentiment analysis and other NLP techniques in the tourism industry. However, these studies often need to capture domain-specific features in tourist feedback, especially in the context of cultural heritage. This study aims to identify domainspecific features of tourists' experience-orientated feedback in cultural heritage tourism. By
analysing tourists' reviews and discussions, we explored tourists' perceptions of the value of heritage places. Utilising big data and text analytics techniques, this study provides a new perspective aimed at facilitating the understanding of cultural heritage tourism and contributing to the effective management and conservation of heritage buildings.
1.3 Research Questions
This study explores whether travellers are genuinely concerned about the value of heritage buildings in Singapore despite their crucial role in the tourism industry. The research question was subdivided into several sub-questions to thoroughly assess and answer the topic. Firstly, how tourists from different backgrounds perceive the value of heritage buildings was examined to understand how contextual diversity affects their perceptions. Secondly, among other things, by analysing online rating data, this study aims to explore the relationship between these data and visitor satisfaction. Thirdly, an assessment will be made of how visitors describe the features of heritage buildings and their significance, and the perceptions of heritage value reflected in these descriptions will be explored. This study will also explore visitors' satisfaction and emotional engagement with heritage buildings by analysing the positive and negative sentiments in visitors' reviews. Finally, the paper will explore the discrepancy between tourists' expectations and actual experiences and their impact on perceptions of heritage value to gain a fuller understanding of the place and significance of heritage buildings in modern tourism.
1.4 Research Aims and Objectives
The purpose of this study is to use existing literature and fieldwork to understand the
value of heritage buildings in Singapore's tourist nature, then analyse tourists' reviews on heritage buildings and venues in social media, and analyse the related emotions through NLP, to explore tourists' satisfaction with heritage buildings and hidden emotions masked by ratings, and to understand tourists' true feelings and understanding of heritage buildings, to learn the interest and behavioural patterns of tourists, and to provide valuable recommendations for the conservation and management of heritage buildings. This will enable us to learn about tourists' interests and behavioural patterns towards heritage buildings and provide valuable suggestions for the conservation and management of heritage buildings.
Objective of this study:
1. To assess tourists' perceptions of heritage buildings in Singapore using ratings and reviews from tourists on social media about heritage buildings of a tourist nature, and to explore the relationship between the interaction between heritage building conservation and tourists.
2. Determine the significance of heritage buildings of a tourist nature.
1.5 Research Significance
This study contributes to understanding the proper understanding of heritage buildings by tourists, improving the management of heritage buildings of a tourist nature in Singapore, contributing to better promotion of Singapore's heritage culture from a tourism perspective, and a better interpretation of Singapore's heritage buildings. It will help promote Singapore's tourism and, at the same time, improve the conservation of its heritage buildings and culture.
In addition, user feedback can be obtained from different perspectives using NLP tools to understand how heritage buildings are perceived in public discourse on social media.
Through the feedback in social media, the tourists' perception of the importance of heritage
buildings can be analysed to make modifications in the conservation of heritage buildings, creating a feedback loop.
2.1 Development and History of Heritage Tourism in Singapore
Since the late 1980s, the Singapore government has become increasingly aware of the importance of environmental and cultural landscape conservation. This action is not only aimed at enhancing historical imagination and aesthetics, but also at shaping national identity and utilizing cultural heritage as economic and social capital (Urey, 1990). Heritage conservation is also recognised as having significant economic value. Governments recognise that cultural heritage can be used to brand and market tourist destinations to attract investors and tourists (Henderson, 2011).
Kong (2017) notes that the government has been successful in commercialising historical sites and cultural heritage through the efforts of the National Heritage Board, which has not only preserved important landmarks such as the Lau Pa Sat, Old Supreme Court, etc. but has also boosted tourism, as highlighted in the 1986 Singapore Tourism Board report that the preservation of cultural landscapes makes a significant contribution to economic development.
By 1990, tourism had contributed 6.2 % to Singapore's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Tourism has become an integral part of Singapore's economic contribution.
In summary, Singapore's heritage tourism policy has not only raised public awareness of heritage values and conservation, but also clarified the role of heritage tourism in the country's economic development. Through this policy orientation, Singapore has not only preserved its cultural heritage but also strengthened its economy through tourism.
2.2 Tourist Attitudes and Perceptions of Heritage Buildings
Tourists' attitudes and perceptions have a direct impact on the tourism experience, and these factors determine their behaviour, such as visit decision-making and consumption behaviour (Timothy & Boyd, 2003; Garrod & Fyall, 2000). Poria et al. (2003) highlighted the impact of personal interests, values, and perceptions of heritage awareness on visitor attitudes.
Such attitudes affect the quality of the experience and influence the economic benefits of heritage sites.
Visitor satisfaction of heritage sites is influenced by a number of factors. According to Garrod and Fyall (2000), critical aspects include the accessibility, the quality of interpretive services, the comfort of the facilities, and the professionalism of the service staff. Moreover, visitors' perceptions of heritage buildings, including the historical and cultural significance, can profoundly influence their evaluations (Goulding, 2000). Rich interpretive services and interactive experiences can significantly improve visitors' perceptions of heritage buildings (Richards, 2018; Goulding, 2000).
Understanding visitors' attitudes and perceptions towards heritage buildings is important for developing effective tourism management. It can help to improve visitor satisfaction and promotes heritage conservation and sustainable tourism. Managers of heritage tourism need to optimise the visitor experience based on these perceptions to achieve the longterm development goals of heritage tourism.
2.3 Content Analysis and NLP in Heritage Architecture Research
In heritage tourism, Content Analysis and NLP have been widely used to understand the
visitor experience. As the accessibility of online data has increased, researchers have begun to use big data to analyse perceptions and behaviour in tourism (Choi et al., 2007).
Smart et al. (2020), Stoleriu et al. (2019) and Huai et al. (2022) analysed tourists' reviews on TripAdvisor through NLP techniques to identify tourists’ feelings and sentiment tendencies to optimise the tourists' experience. Similarly, Liu et al. (2019) compared the differences between Chinese and international tourists' evaluations of Australian destinations through a sentiment analysis model, revealing the impact of cultural context on tourists' perceptions. Yu and Egger (2021) explored tourists' perceptions of crowded tourist attractions using textual analytics, which can help managers understand and mitigate the negative effects of overtourism. Through these methods, the study not only reveals the direct experience of tourists but also provides insights into their awareness and expectations of heritage conservation.
Despite the progress made in content analysis and NLP in revealing the visitor experience, their application in managing heritage buildings and developing conservation strategies needs to be strengthened. Future research needs to explore how these analyses can be translated into practical heritage conservation and management measures to promote the sustainable development of heritage tourism further.
2.4 Case Study
2.4.1 Introduction to Lau Pa Sat
Lau Pa Sat , formerly known as Telok Ayer Market, is a National Monument located in the heart of the Central Business District in Singapore. The iconic building is known for its long history and unique architecture ( Wikipedia, 2024 ).
Lau Pa Sat was originally constructed near the mouth of the Singapore River in the early 19th century to cater for the market needs of the rapidly growing population. Its original structure was a simple wooden octagonal building. Over the years, it underwent several redevelopments and renovations due to policy changes. In 1991, it was converted into a 24hour hawker centre offering a variety of local and international cuisines, making it a popular dining and tourist destination (Tam, 2017; Hao, 2011).
Figure2 The old Telok Ayer Market (Source: John Turnbull Thomson)
Lau Pa Sat is not only a hawker centre but has also had a significant impact on Singapore. Its existence has boosted the commercial development of the neighbouring areas, attracting more tourists and businesses. In addition, as a historical building, Lau Pa Sat has also become an important part of Singapore's cultural heritage, reflecting Singapore's multicultural character.
Lau Pa Sat is not only a witness to Singapore's history but also an active place for modern life; its existence demonstrates the rich diversity of Singapore's culture and the history of the city's development.
2.4.2 The Significance of Lau Pa Sat
2.4.2.1 Historical Value
Lau Pa Sat has great historical value as one of the oldest markets in Singapore. Through site changes, policy changes and urban planning, it has witnessed the history of Singapore's development from a trading port to a modern city. Its location and historical context reflect Singapore's early urban planning and development strategies. It also embodies the evolution of Singapore's building materials, reflects the evolution of Singapore's historic architectural character, demonstrates 19th-century architectural styles and provides examples for studying historic buildings. Its presence connects the past with the present and provides a visual historical, educational resource for future generations.
2.4.2.2 Architectural Value
Lau Pa Sat is one of Southeast Asia's best-preserved Victorian iron structures and is of great architectural value. The octagonal shape of the building, the cast iron columns, and the
bell tower demonstrate the development of building technology from the 19th to the 20th century and are of great value for the study of architectural history and engineering (National Monuments of Singapore: Lau Pa Sat, n.d.).
2.4.2.3 Economic Value
Lau Pa Sat has become a popular tourist attraction and hawker centre, contributing significantly to Singapore's tourism industry. Tourism is an important pillar of Singapore's economy, accounting for a significant portion of its GDP, employment and overall economic activity (Singapore's Tourism Industry Soars With More Large-Scale Events and Career Opportunities - PSB Academy, n.d.).As a National Monument, Lau Pa Sat serves as a tourism resource in its own right, shaping a unique architectural style and cultural ambience, attracting many international tourists, boosting the development of neighbouring businesses, and bringing vitality to Singapore's local economy. On the other hand, as a busy hawker centre located in the CBD area, Lau Pa Sat is responsible for eating and drinking for the commuters in the surrounding area. At the same time, the busy hawker centre also provides many jobs and promotes the development of Singapore's job market.
Figure3 Interior Victorian structure (left) top bell tower (right)
Figure4 Tourists sitting in the piazza at Lau Pa Sat enjoying a meal (Source: Google Maps)
2.4.2.4 Social and Communal Value
Lau Pa Sat, as a symbol of Singapore's hawker culture, not only reflects its unique position in a pluralistic society, but also serves as a central space for community exchange and interaction. the inscription of Singapore's hawker culture on UNESCO's Representative List of
the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2020 highlights the inclusiveness and cultural value of hawker centres as "community restaurants". Lau Pa Sat not only facilitates the gathering of people from different social strata and enhances social cohesion, but also plays an important role in strengthening community interactions and reinforcing the social fabric.
In the mid-19th century, 'coffee friends' from the Chinese community would meet regularly at stalls in the Telok Ayer area to keep in touch and exchange market information through talking, thinking and enjoying food (Au, 2016). Although this form of socialising has diminished in the course of urbanisation, Lau Pa Sat's role as a hawker centre has preserved this exchange and interaction as a vibrant site of traditional and intangible cultural heritage, evoking sensory experiences and collective memories that provide the ongoing vitality of hawker culture.
For locals, Lau Pa Sat provides employment opportunities and a convenient dining space that becomes part of their daily lives. For tourists, it provides an affordable way to experience Singapore's cuisine and serves as a window into the Singaporean way of life. Lau Pa Sat is therefore more than just a hawker centre; its existence has far-reaching public value in promoting social harmony and passing on cultural heritage.
Figure6 Internal shops and diners
2.4.2.5 Cultural Value
Lau Pa Sat is a building with a rich history and unique architectural form that epitomises Singapore's multiculturalism. As a hawker centre, it serves a variety of authentic cuisines from different races in Singapore, and has become an important place to pass on and promote Singapore's food culture. The use of this space by people of different races and cultural backgrounds demonstrates the integration of Singaporean society As a colonial building, it not only holds great historical significance, but also serves as a hawker centre that is closely integrated with the daily lives of the locals. the transformation of the internal function of Lau Pa Sat depends on the public's love of food, and the government has taken note of this sentiment by combining the National Monument with the hawker centre. centre is combining heritage, history and cultural identity (Tam, 2017). This promotes a sense of historical and cultural identity among Singaporeans and showcases Singapore's cultural and intangible heritage to visitors.
CHAPTER 3 MATERIALS AND METHODS
3.1 General Framework
The research methodology proposed is to understand tourists' experiences of travelling to heritage sites to learn how to view the value and significance of heritage buildings in their travel experiences. The framework consists of four components: data collection and preprocessing, textual analysis, exploration of tourists' attitudes and perceptions towards heritage buildings, and discussion of results.
The first part, Data Collection and Pre-processing, collects open internet data from TripAdvisor and Google Maps to collect visitors' reviews about Lau Pa Sat, including text data, time, country, rating and user ID. And then based on the above information, the reviews are sifted out to select the reviews with real meaning. Finally, the text data is cleaned and preprocessed to avoid interfering with the results.
The second part, Analyses the text data, is the core of this study, aiming to dig deeper into the tourists' behavioural patterns and spatial experience feelings. This part includes the analysis of tourists' characteristics, such as the analysis of the origin of the tourists, the analysis of the group of people who travelled with the tourists, the analysis of the age group of tourists, the analysis of the overall evaluation, including the analysis of the ratings, the analysis of the number of evaluations and the analysis of the frequency of the words; as well as the thematic analysis of the content of the reviews. Thematic modelling was used to extract important themes from the reviews, focusing on "food" and "architecture". The emotional tendencies of tourists were explored in the reviews on heritage. This explains the tourists' views and
emotional tendencies and discusses their concern for heritage buildings' cultural and historical values during their travels.
3.2 Introduction to Tools
3.2.1 Content Analysis
Content Analysis covers a range of methods that can extract and mine information from documents (in the form of text, images, audio, etc.) and systematise and replicable thinking to increase the understanding of the document (Elo & Kyngas, 2008). It is widely used in the social sciences due to its systematic, replicable, and other advantages, as well as market research and media research ( Downe - Wamboldt, 1992; Hsieh & Shannon, 2005).
3.2.2 Thematic Analysis
Thematic Analysis is a widely used method in qualitative research to identify, analyse and report on patterns (themes) in datasets. It is a flexible method that can reveal deeper meanings and nuances in data and is suitable for extracting themes and concepts from a variety of unstructured data (e.g., text, interview transcripts, social media reviews, etc.). Through this analysis, researchers are able to integrate the scattered information in the data into meaningful themes that provide insights into the research question ( Braun & Clarke, 2006).
In applying thematic analysis to a study about public reviews of Lau Pa Sat in social media, the researcher first needed to familiarise himself with the content by reading in detail review data extracted from platforms such as TripAdvisor, annotating key words or phrases that reflect user experiences, ratings and sentiments. The annotations were systematically
translated into initial codes and categorized under predefined themes. Through an iterative process of comparison, review, and refinement, a thematic framework was developed that reflected the user experience. And the researcher wrote an analysis report which showed representative data under each theme and explored the significance of these themes for understanding the public's perceptions and experience. Thus the researcher can gain a deeper understanding of public perceptions in social media, providing a foundation for further research and practice (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
3.3.3 Natural Language Processing (NLP) Techniques
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is one of field in computer science and artificial intelligence focused on enabling computers to interpret and process human language. NLP can process many tasks automatically in Content Analysis, such as text classification, topic extraction, keyword recognition, etc.
NLP has shown its unique application in heritage building research and conservation.
With the development of digital technology, a large amount of text data of heritage buildings are widely used. These textu data contain rich information, which is important for understanding the historical value and status of heritage buildings and public attitudes and perceptions. In this context, NLP techniques have become an important tool for analysing text data.
3.3 Data Collection and Processing
3.3.1 Data Collection
TripAdvisor and Google Maps were selected as data sources to investigate public
perceptions of Lau Pa Sat. TripAdvisor has about 10 million reviews and 5 million registered members, and gets 25 million visits every month (Lu & Stepchenkova,2015 ). Google Maps is a popular online mapping service and enables users to rate and review specific locations, providing insights into their personal feelings and experiences. Both TripAdvisor and Google Maps boast a wide international user base and offer real-time updated reviews, making them ideal data sources for researching public attitudes towards heritage buildings.
For data collection, using crawler scripts to grab data from both platforms, including author ID, posting time, nationality, ratings, and reviews. Considering the huge number of Google Maps reviews and the update mechanism, a fixed number of drop-down refreshes were set to ensure data consistency. The approach combines the strengths of both data sources and helps to provide in-depth analyses and understanding of public reviews on heritage buildings from different perspectives. Among the data presented on the web page, TripAdvisor can obtain user ID, review posting time, user origin, rating, and review content (Table 1). While Google
Maps can obtain user ID, review posting time, rating, and review content (Table 2).
Table1 Schematic of TripAdvisor table
Table2 Schematic of Google Maps table
3.3.2 Processing of Network Data
3.3.2.1 Methods of Processing Text Data
This paper analyses textual content using Natural Language Toolkit(NLTK), an opensource Python library widely used in NLP, which provides a comprehensive set of tools for analysing, processing and understanding linguistic data. Since its launch in 2001, NLTK has become an indispensable resource for academic education and research, containing a rich corpus, pre-trained models, and a variety of text processing functions, such as lexical segmentation, lexical annotation, named entity recognition, etc. ( Bird et al., 2009), to enable indepth mining of content, detailed analysis of text, and efficient data Processing
3.3.2.2 Data Cleaning
Firstly, the data are de-duplicated and blank reviews are removed. As informal content such as emoticons and web links in the reviews will interfere with the following data processing, regular expressions are used to remove web links and emoticons that do not contain emotional expressions are deleted; at the same time, emoticons that imply emotional expressions are standardised and added to the subsequent sentiment lexicon.
3.3.2.3 Text Analysis
Based on semantic segmentation, the data is further processed through text tokenization,
for example, "I/like/this/building/very/much." In this study, NLTK is chosen for tokenization.
NLTK tokenization is fast, efficient, and highly accurate when handling large-scale texts, and it also supports loading custom tokenization dictionaries for text tokenization tasks. Therefore, in this study, NLTK, written in Python, is selected to perform the tokenization tasks.
3.3.2.4 Word Frequency Statistics
The frequency of a certain word's occurrence in a text is known as word frequency, and the higher the word frequency, the higher the word's importance in the text. Therefore, the features that impressed tourists about Lau Pa Sat are frequently mentioned in the review text, reflecting that tourists pay great attention to that thing.
CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS
4.1 Visitor Characteristic Analysis
4.1.1 Characteristic of the Visitor Source Market
This study uses the registration information of user reviews collected as the data basis for the analysis. On TripAdvisor, 1785 valid English reviews were collected, of which 1038 revealed the users' countries of origin. Among these, 292 reviews were from users in Australia, 187 from the United Kingdom, and 120 from Singapore.
Figure7 Reviews from the top 10 countries
Statistics on the number of global sources of visitors to Lau Pa Sat show that the proportion of tourists from Australia is the highest, followed by the United Kingdom, Singapore, the United States and other countries. It can be seen that Lau Pa Sat is highly popular and has a wide range of tourists.
The ratings of Lau Pa Sat varied across countries, with an average rating of 4.2 in
Australia, 4.26 in the UK, and the lowest local rating of 3.66 in Singapore. The rating difference reflects the impact of different cultural backgrounds and expectations on the visitor experience.
To further analyse the differences, all the reviews were divided into three groups according to the origin of the visitors; the first group is Singapore local reviews, the second group is Asian countries reviews, which represent similar cultural backgrounds to Singapore, and the third group reviews from countries outside of Asia, such as Australia, the UK, and the US. The results show that the first group of local Singaporean reviews gave an average rating of 3.66, the second group of tourists from countries with Asian cultural backgrounds gave an average rating of 3.90, and the third group of tourists from countries with Western cultural backgrounds gave an average star rating of 4.26.
The phenomenon that local tourists in Singapore rated Lau Pa Sat lower than the average ratings given by tourists from other Asian countries and Western countries i because the feedback from different groups of tourists at will vary according to their unique needs and expectations. Local tourists are more price sensitive and have higher expectations of food quality and service due to their knowledge of local prices and long-term life experiences. Western tourists seeking a unique cultural experience have higher expectations for experiencing the authenticity and uniqueness of Asian food and give higher ratings when these expectations are met. Asian tourists, who also have high expectations that are not easily met due to similar cultural backgrounds, rate experiences that do not meet expectations lower.
Feedback from local visitors can help identify the social and cultural values of the heritage, as well as the community's concerns about cultural preservation, focusing more on the long-term benefits and helping to ensure that the preservation measures are in line with
local needs and aspirations. It also demonstrates how food and services are rated by regular visitors, thus enabling the hawker centre to improve the quality of related services. The feedback from non-local tourists, on the other hand, provides external perspectives that help managers understand the positioning of the heritage within the global cultural heritage and help optimise tourism management strategies. In addition, most of their evaluations are based on tourism experiences, which can help owners understand how to meet the needs of out-oftown visitors
It is worth noting that as TripAdvisor mainly serves English speakers, there may be bias in using its data as a database to count the origin of tourists in Singapore. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) report states that Asian tourists make up a major portion of Singapore's tourism market, which is not entirely consistent with the results of analyses based on TripAdvisor data. In addition, the relatively low popularity of Google Maps and TripAdvisor in Asia, coupled with the fact that English is not the dominant language in countries such as China, Macau, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, has resulted in a low percentage of reviews on these platforms by tourists from these regions. All these factors affect the representativeness and accuracy of the study results.
4 1.2 Characteristic of Travel Companions
In order to avoid the recurrence of the same words in the unified reviews, this study screens the text frequency of feature words that summarise text information about the cotravelling population. Firstly, the feature words are replaced with synonyms, such as family: "dad", "mom", "parents", "husband", "wife", "child", etc., and then the high-frequency words
reflecting the co-travelling crowd are sorted out, including family, friends, couples, classmates, etc., as well as other crowds.
As shown in the graph, among similar groups, the highest number of visitors travelled with friends, with 167 reviews mentioning that they were travelling with friends, and 47 were couples, reflecting the fact that Lau Pa Sat carries a social function. There were 107 mentions of
travelling with family, providing a vital venue for family activities, highlighting the appeal of Lau
Pa Sat to families In addition, some other people travelling with the group were travelling with a tour group, while others were travelling with colleagues. All in all, Lau Pa Sat provides an excellent venue for family outings and colourful social events, meeting the needs of the new age of travel.
Figure8 Number of partner types mentioned
Combining the results of the analyses from these two data sources, we can see that tourists travelling with friends seem to be the most common at the tourist attraction of Lau Pa
Sat in Singapore, followed by those travelling with their families, while couples are less common.
4.1.3 Characteristic of Visitor Age
Due to the absence of explicit age data in the source dataset, and considering that tourist groups typically comprise individuals from various age segments, this study extracts vocabulary indicative of visitors' ages from the review texts. These terms are categorized into three groups: children, middle-aged and young adults, and the elderly. This categorization allows for an analysis of the age structure presented in the reviews.
Table3 Glossary of word substitutions
The statistical results of the age structure of tourists are shown in the figure. Among the 2,951 pieces of data, middle-aged and young people are mentioned most frequently, indicating that they are the primary demographic for travel. This aligns with market trends, as middleaged individuals typically possess higher motivation and financial capability for tourism.
Reviews often mention children and the elderly in the context of middle-aged tourists, reflecting their dual role of enjoying the trip while also caring for older and younger family members.
Thus, the travel purposes of middle-aged groups are multifaceted, encompassing not only local cultural experiences and leisure activities but also fostering interactions among family members. Additionally, children represent a significant segment of the tourist population. The reviews suggest purposes such as "bringing children to visit" and "trying new things," highlighting Lau Pa Sat's educational impact on children and emphasizing the educational role of heritage buildings for young visitors. However, there are also negative feedbacks like
"children might find it boring" and "children are not interested," indicating a lack of appeal to children at Lau Pa Sat. Compared to other age groups, the elderly have the lowest probability of traveling.
Figure9 Number of age groups mentioned
4.2 Review Content Analysis
4.2.1 Rating Analysis
The rating information reflects the overall satisfaction of tourists with the developed Lau Pa Sat, and the number of their ratings also reflects the loyalty of tourists to some extent. Both aspects provide different perspectives on the current tourism status of Lau Pa Sat.
Each review on the TripAdvisor and Google Maps is rated with a star rating, which is divided into 5 stars: one star for terrible, two stars for poor, three stars for average, four stars for very good, and five stars for excellent.
Figure10 Percentage of ratings
Overall, the majority of reviews tend to give higher ratings (4 and 5 stars), which accounted for about 82.41% of the total reviews, reflecting the generally positive evaluation of this tourist location by tourists. There were fewer reviews with less than 3 stars, indicating that relatively few tourists were dissatisfied. Overall, it indicates that tourists are relatively satisfied with the evaluation of the built environment of Lau Pa Sat.
4.2 2 Overall Reviews
The evaluation text was analysed for overall word frequency. The keywords ranked in the top 200 of the text in terms of word frequency, with a word count greater than 1 and with practical significance were screened out (Appendix 1). And through the word cloud map directly observe the word frequency size, while better understanding the tourists' attention elements. The larger the word of the keyword in the word cloud map, the more attention the tourists pay to it. Larger words in the word map include "food" and "satay". The middle-sized words describe the peer group, the surrounding environment, and so on. This result shows that food, culture,
history, and architecture are located in the centre of the evaluation semantic network of Lau Pa Sat, reflecting the attention of tourists to the food and culture of Lau Pa Sat.
An analysis of the word frequencies in the reviews shows that visitors to Lau Pa Sat had a predominantly positive experience. "Food" had the highest frequency of one occurrence. This is due to the fact that Lau Pa Sat, as an adaptive reuse as a hawker centre, is inseparable from words such as food, service and management. In addition, "building" was also frequently mentioned, suggesting that visitors were aware of Lau Pa Sat as a heritage building in its own right, or at least aware of its architectural and cultural historical value.
Commonly used words are generally positive, such as good, nice, tasty, etc., which suggests that tourists generally have a positive experience in Lau Pa Sat. However, some different reviews can also be found in the word cloud, such as "old", "dirty", "messy', etc., which signals a different perception of Lau Pa Sat. As can be seen from the star ratings for Lau Pa Sat, most of the ratings are positive, but there are also some less favourable ratings.
In summary, the word frequency of the evaluation of Lau Pa Sat, food, culture, and architecture together build the overall perception of tourists about Lau Pa Sat, with food being the most prominent factor. Tourists pay more attention to the service, characteristics, and
Figure11 Word cloud diagram
management of the building. According to the social and semantic network analysis, Lau Pa Sat has its own characteristics, which are in line with the architectural style.
4.2.3 Theme Analysis
Analysed through the LDA model, this study grouped all the data into the five different themes: environment, food, experience, buildings, and culture Theme 0 relates to street, location, and environment; this theme focuses on Lau Pa Sat's location, surrounding streets, and environment. Reviews mentioned its central location in Singapore's financial district, the views of the surrounding high-rise buildings, and its easy accessibility to tourists and locals. Theme 1 relates to food and focuses on the food served at Lau Pa Sat, including feedback on feelings, reviews, flavour, variety and price. Reviews relate to specific cuisines, such as satay, Hainanese chicken rice or duck curry, and visitors' satisfaction with these foods. Theme 2 relates to the visitor's overall experience at Lau Pa Sat, including food, service, ambience, and value, and reviews mention dining comfort, the attitude of the wait staff, and overall satisfaction. Theme 3 is concerned with the visitor's experience with the architecture and structure of Lau Pa Sat, including its distinctive Victorian style, historic value, and state of preservation, with reviews addressing the aesthetics of the building, and its significance as a historic landmark. Theme 4 relates to Lau Pa Sat as a place to experience Singapore's local culture, with reviews on how visitors get a sense of Singapore's cultural ambience through the food, architecture and surroundings.
Table4 Examples of themes
Based on all the data collected, there were 1,801 reviews with food as the theme, accounting for 61.4% of the total number of reviews, showing that food is the main factor of concern for tourists. Reviews with environment as the theme and building as the theme accounted for 15.8% and 9.5% of the total reviews, ranking second and third respectively, indicating that tourists are also concerned about the location, surroundings and architectural features of Lau Pa Sat to a certain extent. Together, these five themes formed visitors' overall
impression of Lau Pa Sat, ranging from the flavour and diversity of the food to the history and aesthetics of the building, to the overall dining experience and cultural experience.
4.2.4 Food Theme
In this study, food is one of the main factors that attract tourists to Lau Pa Sat. The variety and local flavour of food choices allow tourists to experience the local culture in depth; however, while most of the reviews praised the flavour and diversity of the food, some of the negative reviews focused on the overpricing of the food and dissatisfaction with the quality and hygiene of the food.
There are various reasons for the high food pricing; Lau Pa Sat's prime location in the heart of Singapore, next to the CBD financial district, has resulted in high rents, which businesses pass on to their food prices. In addition, as a famous tourist landmark and National Monument, Lau Pa Sat attracts many tourists, which is one of the reasons for businesses to increase prices for specific customer segments. Tourists are often willing to pay higher prices for unique experiences, and merchants take advantage of this. In addition, the cost of maintenance and preservation of a historic building is reflected in food prices.
4.2 5 Architectural Heritage Theme
When 2,951 English-language reviews related to Lau Pa Sat were analysed, only about 5% dealt with aspects of its architecture, history ,building, heritage and culture.
Figure12 Percentage of keywords in all reviews (left) Percentage of each keyword (right)
This phenomenon is due to the following factors: firstly, tourists' interest in Lau Pa Sat is mainly focused on its gastronomic experience, which is reflected in the richness of its culinary specialities. Data sourced from travel review platforms such as TripAdvisor and Google Maps suggests that tourists tend to focus on the immediate consumer experience and less on in-depth historical or cultural context. Second, the historical and architectural value of Lau Pa Sat is not adequately highlighted in on-site interpretive services, resulting in tourists under-appreciating these aspects. In addition, socio-cultural factors, such as the level of education and cultural background of the public, influence the perception and valuation of heritage. Lack of general awareness of heritage values have contributed to low references to these elements in reviews. These factors contribute to the limited visibility of Lau Pa Sat's architectural and cultural heritage in visitors' reviews.
Visitors have a deep understanding for the architectural and historical character of Lau Pa Sat. In reviews, they repeatedly mentioned the design elements like Victorian architecture and high ceiling fan, which provide a unique aesthetic experience. Moreover, many reviews mention 'famous building from the 19th century', which reflects its rich historical value and shows the opportunity for historical education through the transformation from a market to a hawker centre. The review emphasizes the social and communal aspects of Lau Pa Sat, showing
that it is not only a meeting place for local cuisine, but also a central place for social and cultural exchange. By providing outdoor dining options, Lau Pa Sat creates an environment where visitors can talk with people from all over the world, strengthening its role as a center for social engagement. The importance of Lau Pa Sat as a historical site lies not only in its architectural and historical features, but also in its active role in social and cultural exchanges.
However, these reviews rarely mention specific architectural conservation issues. This suggests a lack of sensitivity among tourists about the current condition of heritage sites and indicates a limited awareness of architectural conservation. Visitors' concerns tend to focus on the aesthetics and function of the building to the overlook of the need for conservation. In addition, inadequate interpretive services contribute to visitors' lack of concern for architectural conservation. However, despite the lack of direct reviews on conservation, visitors' concerns about the impact of commercial activities on the essence and cultural values of heritage buildings can be indirectly felt through concerns about the commercialisation of food and the lack of authentic Singaporean flavours, reflecting the importance of maintaining the original character and cultural values of the buildings and the activities within them.
Taken together, although there was not much discussion of heritage and architecture in the reviews, the sentiments expressed were mostly positive, highlighting the importance of Lau Pa Sat as Singapore's cultural heritage and reflecting its role in facilitating social and cultural exchanges.
4.3
Analyses
This chapter explores the characteristics presented in the data and visitors' perceptions
of Lau Pa Sat by analysing visitors' online reviews on TripAdvisor and Google Maps, in conjunction with the discussion of Lau Pa Sat's significance.
Firstly, this study analysed the characteristics of visitors. The data indicates that Lau Pa Sat has a very high international reputation and attracts international tourists worldwide. However, this differs from the Singapore Tourism Board's report because Google Maps and
TripAdvisor are not the main rating platforms for high source markets such as China and Japan.
In addition, the data shows slight differences in ratings between countries, with local ratings in Singapore generally lower than non-local ratings. This suggests that feedback from different visitor groups can vary according to their unique needs and expectations. Meanwhile, the structure data of the travel companions shows that Lau Pa Sat attracts a diverse type of visitors Lau Pa Sat provides an excellent place for family outings and social activities, reflecting its social attributes and meeting the travel needs of the new era. In addition, the analysis of age groups shows that young and middle-aged tourists account for the highest proportion and take on the responsibility of caring for the elderly and children.
Secondly, the content of the reviews was analysed. First, the overall rating data reflects that visitors are delighted with the developed Lau Pa Sat, with most ratings focusing on 4 and 5 stars. Next, the word frequency reflects that the characteristics, architectural culture and historical background of Lau Pa Sat are the focus of visitors. Next, among the five thematic models, food is the main factor that tourists focus on, followed by the environment and architecture themes, indicating that tourists have a certain degree of concern about the location, surroundings and architectural features of Lau Pa Sat. In addition, the food theme-targeted analyses also show that food is an important reason for attracting tourists to Lau Pa Sat.
However, it also brought negative reviews about price and environment, affecting tourists' evaluation of Lau Pa Sat. As for the architectural theme, visitors maintain more positive emotions and express deep feelings about the architectural and historical value of Lau Pa Sat in the reviews. The relatively few reviews on heritage and architecture indicate that while the internal functionality can to some extent enhance the attractiveness of heritage buildings to tourists, it also diverts their attention and obscures their genuine perception of the heritage architecture.
In all analyses of the data, the experience of food at Lau Pa Sat far exceeds the experience of the heritage buildings. While food and cultural consumption provide a sensory touchpoint that allows visitors to immerse themselves in local flavors, this experience does not automatically translate into a deeper understanding of the history of the place. This failure of transformation is partly due to insufficient on-site interpretive information that fails to tie the food experience to the rich historical context of Lau Pa Sat. Additionally, visitors may be less motivated to acquire historical knowledge if the presentation of relevant history relies too heavily on passive information panels or lacks interactivity. Moreover, the built environment itself, as a carrier for history, should be maintained and displayed in a more prominent manner to enhance its role in telling the story of the place.
In terms of the built environment, the design, structure and state of conservation of the buildings in Lau Pa Sat visually reflect the historical changes and cultural values, while providing the public with a place for direct dialogue with history. The Victorian architectural style not only has a high aesthetic value, but also conveys information about the era, technology and socio-economic context, enabling people to visualise past lifestyles and social
environments. In addition, he adaptive reuse of Lau Pa Sat (transformation from a traditional market to a modern hawker centre) not only preserves its social value, but also enhances its relevance in society. The transformation has allowed Lau Pa Sat to continue to serve as a gathering centre, maintaining the continuity of its function as a public space that promotes understanding of culture across generations. And the Victorian style allows visitors to feel the aesthetics of 19th-century architecture, and modern food services have been incorporated to enhance the visitor experience. It proves that heritage buildings can be made more attractive and useful by adapting modern features without sacrificing their historical value. Not only does it maintain its value as a historical heritage, but also enhances its function and importance in modern urban life. And the built environment of Lau Pa Sat is a educational platform, increasing the public's awareness of and respect for heritage. Through its functions and well-conserved structures, it is not only a proof to the history, but also a bridge between the psat and the future, showing the continued importance of heritage places in modern society.
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION
5.1 Summary
This study explores tourists' perceptions and attitudes towards Lau Pa Sat, a heritage building in Singapore, by analysing review data on social media. Using Python web crawler and NLP techniques, this study collected a large amount of review data from TripAdvisor and Google Maps and conducted a detailed analysis.
The study found that visitors from different regions had a greater impact on ratings, and factors such as the age and the companions also affect it In addition, tourists rated Lau Pa Sat highly overall, giving high approval to its food and value. However, awareness of the value of Lau Pa Sat as a heritage building was relatively low. Tourists were too focused on the function and food inside Lau Pa Sat, rather than the value of the building itself. This suggests that while preserving heritage buildings such as Lau Pa Sat, it is necessary to ensure that their internal activities and maintain their historical and cultural values, and that publicity and interpretation of the cultural and historical values of heritage buildings need to be strengthened in order to raise public awareness of heritage buildings and their preservation.
In addition, the study shows the potential of social media data in heritage building research. Analysing tourists' reviews can provide a deeper understanding of public attitudes towards heritage buildings, thus providing valuable references for the conservation and management of heritage buildings.
The significance of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of tourists' perception of heritage buildings and their role in tourism development.
By obtaining a dataset from social
media, this research analyzes tourists' subconscious views on heritage buildings as tourism attractions. These reviews indirectly reflect concerns about the impact of commercialisation on the nature and cultural values of heritage buildings, which highlights the importance of maintaining the original character and cultural values of the buildings and the activities.
Therefore, this study not only provides new perspectives for understanding tourists' perceptions of heritage buildings, but also offers useful suggestions for the conservation of heritage buildings and the development of tourism.
5.2 Reflections on Research Objectives and Questions
The main objective of this study was to assess tourists' perceptions of heritage buildings in Singapore by utilising tourists' ratings and reviews on heritage buildings of a tourist nature in social media to explore the relationship between the interaction between heritage building conservation and tourists. By applying digital technology for content analysis, the purpose of this study has been achieved and thoroughly answered the questions previously raised, providing a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.
Firstly, this study successfully analyses the contribution of tourism heritage buildings to Singapore by using the example of Lau Pa Sat, a heritage building in Singapore, and highlights the importance of heritage buildings.
Secondly, this study analysed the data to obtain the characteristics of tourists visiting heritage buildings as reflected in the online reviews and revealed the tourists' perceptions of heritage buildings during their travel experience. The tourists' subconscious perceptions of heritage buildings and the emotions presented were explored. This explores the relationship
between heritage conservation and tourism and provides an innovative direction for future research into heritage tourism development.
Thirdly, focusing on Lau Pa Sat, the study examines how heritage tourism affects heritage buildings in Singapore. The study explores the relationship between heritage tourism and conservation and provides recommendations for the future development of Lau Pa Sat.
5.3 Recommendation for Lau Pa Sat
Firstly, it is recommended that heritage education and interpretation be enhanced More information boards and interactive exhibits detailing the history and architectural features of Lau Pa Sat could be installed, and digital technologies, such as through QR codes and apps, could be utilised to allow visitors to explore the cultural and historical context of Lau Pa Sat in depth.
Secondly, it is crucial to optimise the visitor experience. Based on feedback from tourists, food prices and service quality should be adjusted to enhance tourist satisfaction.
Finally, attention is being paid to the management of increasing commercialisation.
Formulate appropriate policies and measures to balance the relationship between commercial activities and cultural heritage preservation at Lau Pa Sat. Encourage stall operators to offer more locally-inspired products and services to maintain the authenticity and diversity of Singapore's traditional cuisines and to avoid cookie-cutter tourist fare.
5.4
Limitations
First, data limitations. This study relies on review data from TripAdvisor and Google Maps , which lead to sample bias. Although these two platforms cover a large group of users,
they may not fully represent the views and feelings of all visitors. In addition, due to the limitations of the websites, most of the data could not accurately distinguish between the reviews of locals and non-locals.
Another limitation is the restriction of the scope. This study focussed on one particular heritage building, Lau Pa Sat, and therefore its findings may not be directly applicable to other heritage buildings. Lau Pa Sat, as a particular heritage building, functions internally as a hawker centre, which implies that the building is tied to food and that tourists are most likely evaluating the food and not the building, thus making data analysis of the data. Future research could consider expanding the scope of the study to include more heritage buildings and different types of tourist attractions to gain a more comprehensive understanding.
Finally, the limitations of the research methodology need to be considered. This study used NLP techniques to analyse textual data, which is an effective analytical tool but has some limitations. Social media data tends to contain highly subjective and personalised content compared to traditional data collection methods such as questionnaires and interviews. These data often include informal expressions that increase the complexity of processing the data. In addition, NLP have problems with accuracy when dealing with texts containing irony or double meaning, which affect the final analysis results. And social media reviews are not always directly related to the research focus such as architecture or heritage, so there are an additional challenge in extracting relevant information from these data. Though NLP provided practical insights for this study, these limitations should also be considered to ensure the quality of the findings.
5.5 Future Developments
Firstly, future research could further explore the differences in tourists' perceptions of heritage buildings in different cultural contexts. This study has mainly focused on Englishlanguage comments, but Lau Pa Sat, as an internationally recognised tourist attraction, attracts tourists from different countries and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, examining the reviews in different languages and cultural contexts will help to gain insights into the diversity of tourists' perceptions of heritage buildings.
Secondly, in addition to NLP techniques, future research could explore the combination of image analysis or questionnaires to gain a more comprehensive understanding. For example, by analysing images on social media, it is possible to reveal tourists' visual perception of heritage buildings; through questionnaire surveys, more detailed information can be collected, such as tourists' specific perceptions of heritage buildings and their awareness of conservation.
Due to the limitations of the existing data sources, future research can adopt a more systematic methodological approach to in-depth comparison of non-local' and local' evaluations of heritage Firstly, a comparative study could be designed focusing on analysing the differences between local' and non-local' evaluations. In addition, a more diverse methodology could be applied to obtain the differences between the two through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, such as questionnaires to collect quantitative data and in-depth interviews to obtain more detailed qualitative insights, or by analysing a wider range of comments on social media using NLP techniques.
In conclusion, this study provides new perspectives for understanding the public's perceptions and feelings towards heritage buildings and points to directions for future research
and practice. With the digital technology exhibition, the use of social media data for heritage
building research will become a promising area.
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APPENDICES
Appendix -1: Data of Visitor Source Market
Appendix -2: Data of Travel Companions
Appendix -3: Data of Visitor Age
Appendix -4: Data of Rating
Appendix -5: Top 200 keywords from reviews
food: 1708
satay: 802
place: 687
stalls: 459
great: 448
Lau: 425
good: 423
hawker: 414
Pa: 408
street: 397
Singapore: 370
one: 353
many: 339
Sat: 328
try: 315
go: 310
local: 288
will: 277
stall: 265
around: 256
Satay: 254
different: 252
food.: 248
visit: 247
chicken: 244
time: 241
variety: 236
really: 227
eat: 221
best: 215
find: 213
Singapore.: 191
market: 186
night: 183
Great: 176
outside: 173
experience: 172
went: 169
much: 168
cheap: 166
must: 159
want: 157
choose: 154
lunch: 154
order: 147
better: 144
food,: 142
tables: 141 come: 141
beer: 138
well: 138
table: 138
bit: 135
people: 135
nice: 135
centre: 133
still: 133
back: 131
dishes: 127
worth: 123
Food: 122
court: 122
open: 121
eating: 121 atmosphere: 120
building: 120
us: 116
set: 115
rice: 115
closed: 115
Indian: 114
sit: 114
taste: 113
lots: 113
choice: 112 lot: 110
dinner: 110
here.: 109
satays: 109
recommend: 109
area: 108
found: 107
prices: 107
old: 106
every: 106
quite: 106
locals: 104
delicious: 103
little: 103
walk: 102
close: 102
even: 102
ordered: 102
evening: 102
beef: 101
inside: 101
busy: 100
quality: 100
price: 99
first: 99
tried: 97
Asian: 96
something: 96
10: 95
good.: 94
vendors: 92
Singapore: 91
Hawker: 91
options: 91
enjoy: 91
satay.: 91
choices: 89
hawkers: 88
clean: 88
take: 87
love: 87
business: 86
selection: 85
sticks: 84
sure: 84
prawn: 83
available: 83
make: 83
got: 82
tourists: 82
expensive: 82
tourist: 81
next: 80
amazing: 80
foods: 80
tasty: 79
place.: 79
meal: 79
places: 78
center: 78
definitely: 78
right: 77
middle: 77
visited: 76
huge: 75
Tiger: 74
day: 73
think: 73
wide: 73
ate: 72
way: 72
plenty: 72
it: 72
pretty: 72
experience.: 72
location: 71
road: 71
drinks: 71
reasonable: 71
especially: 71
see: 71
Chinese,: 70
satay,: 69
served: 69
Indian,: 68
stalls.: 68
going: 68
fried: 68
selling: 67
sauce: 67
enjoyed: 66
fresh: 66
chicken: 66
always: 66
value: 65
seafood: 65
say: 64
recommended:
64 times: 64
hot: 63
famous: 63
look: 63
friends: 62
Chinese: 62
range: 62
number: 62
air: 61
large: 61
came: 60
trying: 60
years: 60
side: 59
from.: 59
dining: 58
sat: 58
bring: 57
visiting: 56
fun: 56
authentic: 56
near: 56
buy: 56
loved: 55
dish: 55
cuisines: 55
Appendix -6: List of text comments with the mention of the word
“Architecture”
Appendix -7: List of text comments with the mention of the word “Heritage”
Appendix -8: List of text comments with the mention of the word “History”
Appendix -9: List of text comments with the mention of the word “Culture”
Appendix -10: List of text comments with the mention of the word
