Fair Tourism Trends and Online Discourse in the Post-Pandemic Transition: A Semantic Network Analysis

This original empirical study examines how online discourse on fair tourism in Korea was structured and transformed during the post-pandemic tourism transition. Using unstructured online text data collected from Korean digital platforms, the study compares two periods: the pandemic continuation and early tourism recovery period (1 June 2020–31 May 2023) and the post-endemic tourism restructuring period (1 June 2023–31 May 2026). Fair tourism is conceptualized as a practical and policy-oriented discourse that connects local participation, benefit distribution, market fairness, destination governance, and tourism justice, rather than as a simple synonym for sustainable or responsible tourism. After text cleaning, morphological analysis, and keyword refinement, the top 50 core keywords for each period were analyzed using frequency analysis, degree and closeness centrality analysis, semantic network visualization, and CONCOR analysis. The results show that first-period discourse centered on regions, public policy, support projects, fair ecotourism, the social economy, resident participation, and local recovery. In contrast, second-period discourse was more strongly associated with foreign tourists, international tourism recovery, accommodation and service use, price fairness, overcharging and unfairness controversies, and sustainable destination governance. This study extends fair tourism research by revealing how fair tourism is constructed and rearticulated through digitally mediated public discourse.