How pre-travel mood and personality predict destination preferences: insights from social media data

Internal psychological factors are crucial in shaping destination preferences. However, most prior studies have neglected the impact of pre-travel basic psychological states, especially long-term affective states, on destination choice. Based on the "Push" theory of travel motivation, this study introduces a novel pre-travel perspective to explore the relationship between pre-travel psychological factors and destination preferences.Using natural language processing, we extracted MBTI personality and pre-travel mood states from social media data. T-tests and regression analyses revealed that modern entertainment destination preference was predicted by Extraversion, Sensing, and negative moods (Sad and Angry), while cultural heritage preference was linked to Judging, emotional stability, and positive mood. The psychological model significantly outperformed the demographic model, with Extraversion as the strongest predictor.This study extends the temporal perspective of tourism emotion research to the pre-travel phase and overcomes limitations of traditional questionnaire-based measurement of psychological variables.Our findings highlight the importance of pre-travel psychology and offer implications for tourist segmentation and targeted marketing for destination management organizations.