Color and engagement in touristic Instagram pictures: A machine learning approach

Color plays a critical role in recognizing tourist experiences and influencing their emotions. By classifying tourism photos on Instagram using machine learning, this study uncovers the relationship between color and user engagement based on pictures with different features. The findings show that the presence of the color blue in photos featuring natural scenery, high-end gastronomy, and sacral architectures contributes to user engagement. A red/orange color scheme enhances pictures regarding local delicacies and ambience, while the coexistence of violet and warm colors is crucial for photographs featuring cityscapes and interior design. By taking a broader lens from aesthetic philosophy and narrowing down to color psychology, this study offers guidelines for marketers to promote tourism activities through the application of color.     

Examining the direct and interaction effects of picture color cues and textual cues related to color on accommodation-sharing platform rental purchase

Given the increasing popularity of peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation-sharing platforms (i.e., Airbnb), this paper aims to explore the effects of both picture color cues and textual cues related to color (TCC) on rental decisions made on these platforms in China. Based on cue utilization theory, this paper distinguishes picture color cues signaled from photos listed by hosts and TCC signaled from online guest reviews. The paper conducts an empirical study using data crawled from Xiaozhu.com. The research model is tested with poisson regression using 2520 valid listings collected in Guangzhou and is verified with additional data collected in Shanghai. Results show that both picture color cues and TCC affect rental transactions. Properties displayed with warm-colored pictures are more likely to be rented than those with cold-colored pictures. In addition, the consistency of picture color cues and TCC is found to have a significant impact on rental decisions. Interestingly, we also found an invert-U effect of brightness on rental purchase.     

The antecedents of hashtag and geotag use in smart tourism: case study in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This study aims to determine what factors that motivate users to use the hashtag and geotag features on Instagram while traveling. It also seeks to determine the relationship between using Instagram features, traveling experience, expectation, confirmation, and satisfaction on traveling journeys. This study collected data from 606 Indonesian travelers. Then, the data analysed using covariance-based structural equation modelling. Results show that the use of hashtags and geotags during traveling improve their satisfaction. Additionally, information seeking, chronicling, and etiquette are found to be influencing hashtag use. Meanwhile, geotag use are influenced by geotag enjoyment and anticipated rewards.     

All hype or the real deal? Investigating user engagement with virtual influencers in tourism

Virtual influencer (VI) marketing has become increasingly prevalent on social media with the evolving landscape of digitalisation. However, the use of VIs in tourism has received limited attention in the literature. This study examines salient source and content attributes that stimulate Instagram users’ engagement with VIs in a tourism context. An online discrete choice experiment was designed using key attributes (i.e. source realness, image composition and caption discourse) identified from online focus groups. Survey responses from 309 adult Instagram users in Australia were analysed through discrete choice modelling. The findings indicate that humanlike VIs are preferred over 3D animated VIs and the least preferred influencers are 2D animated VIs. Instagram posts from humanlike VIs that combine images of tourism settings with rational messages attract the most engagement from the audience. Theoretical and practical implications are provided with recommendations for how tourism practitioners can harness VI marketing effectively.     

#ILoveLondon: An exploration of the declaration of love towards a destination on Instagram

Travellers increasingly use a combination of photographs, texts and hashtags to expressing their attitude towards tourism destinations (TDs). Existing destination branding literature has not yet investigated how consumers express their love towards TDs on social media. This study addresses this knowledge gap and explores how destination brand love (DBL) is expressed on Instagram using a mixed-methods approach. Study one consists of a qualitative visual content analysis of 700 user-generated photographs; while study two adopts text analytics with a sample of 48,783 posts. The findings show Instagram users’ declaration of DBL is expressed through photographs of some destination attributes (natural & architectural, people, public transportation, food, weather), accompanied by specific positive emotions (amazement, attractiveness, pleasure, preference, enchantment, nostalgia, belongingness, intimacy). The findings also illustrate how Instagram users express their love by providing emotional support when the destination goes through a crisis and that different stakeholders co-create the emotional capital of TDs.     

Be who you are and be proud: Brittney Griner,intersectional invisibility and digital possibilities for lesbian sporting celebrity

Abstract

This article examines current professional basketball player, Brittney Griner, and the ways in which her personal and athletic lives are represented on social media. In particular, her visibility and posts on her public Instagram account allow for a consideration of the digital possibilities for social change by lesbian sporting celebrities. This analysis interrogates these possibilities through a close reading of several Instagram posts regarding Griner’s romantic relationship with fellow basketball star, Glory Johnson. This article ultimately argues that Griner’s Instagram profile helps challenge the intersectional invisibility of Black lesbian sporting celebrities and discusses the implications of this visibility for similarly positioned LGB youth.     

A postcolonial feminist analysis of official tourism representations of Sri Lanka on Instagram

Although postcolonial analyses examining the sexualized imagery of women in tourism have been conducted, previous studies have predominantly focused on gender and (post)colonialism from a patriarchal perspective. By doing so, other (neo)colonial power asymmetries, such as race, class and ethnicity, have often been neglected. This paper mobilises postcolonial feminist theory to expand the existing analyses and discourses concerning gendered representations in tourism. Through a narrative analysis of the images published in the official Instagram page of Sri Lanka's Ministry of Tourism, we contend that the images produced and circulated to promote Sri Lanka in many instances echo essentialist gendered binaries (e.g. men/women; coloniser/colonised; hegemonic/subordinated). However, as the images tend to produce and reiterate Sri Lankan national identity through a hegemonic Sinhalese Buddhist discourse, they also show the intersections between gender and other asymmetries of power (e.g. race, ethnicity, religion, and social class) – in reproducing (post)colonial gendered identities.     

The flag-bearers of change in a patriarchal Muslim society: Narratives of Iranian solo female travelers on Instagram

This paper examines the travel experiences of Iranian solo female travelers through an analysis of their Instagram posts. While there is a growing body of literature on solo female travelers, few studies involve women from Asian or Middle Eastern countries. In the case of the Iranian women who are the focus of this study, our analysis identified three main themes: meaning-making; power and empowerment; and facilitation of self-awareness and transformation. We argue that traveling solo is a form of active resistance against Iranian gender relations that creates opportunities for the women to overcome personal fears and logistical challenges. The act of writing up their experiences in their Instagram posts involves self-reflection and such critical analysis allows for greater levels of awareness of self that may then lead to self-transformation.     

Hospitality and Tourism Online Reviews: Recent Trends and Future Directions

In view of the increasing popularity of online reviews and their significant impact on individual buying behavior as well as on the supply side, this study reviewed and analyzed articles related to online reviews in tourism and hospitality published in academic journals between 2004 and 2013. Based on a keyword-driven search and a content analysis, 50 articles were identified as relevant and classified into five topics. The findings revealed that (a) more than half of the analyzed articles focus on hotels and apply empirical methods based on secondary data, (b) more attention has been paid to the relationship between online reviews and online buying as well as satisfaction and online management, and (c) opinion mining of online reviews, motivation to post reviews, and the role of reviews are evenly distributed. This paper also discussed significant topical and methodological trends, contributes to an overall understanding of existing research and its limitation.     

Please,talk about it! When hotel popularity boosts preferences

Many consumers post on-line reviews, affecting the average evaluation of products and services. Yet, little is known about the importance of the number of reviews for consumer decision making. We conducted an on-line experiment (n = 168) to assess the joint impact of the average evaluation, a measure of quality, and the number of reviews, a measure of popularity, on hotel preference. The results show that consumers’ preference increases with the number of reviews, independently of the average evaluation being high or low. This is not what one would expect from an informational point of view, and review websites fail to take this pattern into account. This novel result is mediated by demographics: young people, and in particular young males, are less affected by popularity, relying more on quality. We suggest the adoption of appropriate ranking mechanisms to fit consumer preferences.     

A machine learning approach to cluster destination image on Instagram

Symbols are powerful in branding and marketing to represent tourist attractions. By bridging semiotics, marketing, and data science in the tourism context, this study uncovers the destination image based on Instagram photographs. This study constructed a novel methodological framework by evaluating different machine learning models to group textual information based on pictorial content. The results highlighted specific destination image clusters such as the wilderness and spirituality of alpine experiences. This information facilitates marketers' understanding of tourists’ preferences and movement. It also discloses blind spots that are less promoted by the marketers.     

Perfect pregnancy? Pregnant bodies,digital leisure and the presentation of self

Pregnant women are increasingly engaging with social media as a form of digital leisure. In doing so, they subject themselves to normalised images of pregnant bodies communicating unrealistic ideals. Instagram is a culturally communicative and visual platform and a pervasive context in which to explore body discipline and regulation. The current research utilised discourse analysis to explore dominant discourse surrounding pregnant women’s bodies through their self-presentation on Instagram, uncovering potential areas of challenge and resistance. Content was selected from 60 user-generated posts from 16 pregnant women’s personal accounts on Instagram. Results explore themes of ‘The “Perfect Pregnancy and Middle-class, Consumptive Ethic”’, ‘Doing Exclusive Heteronormative Pregnant Femininity’ and ‘Self-surveillance & Hyper-visibility of the Digital Fleshy Pregnant Body’. These themes identified how pregnant women embody dominant discourse regarding neo-liberalism, consumption, traditional medicine, heteronormativity, and hegemonic masculinity, and use this to engage in self-surveillance, policing, and monitoring of their pregnant bodies. A final theme Rejecting the ‘Perfect Pregnancy’, Reworking (and Reproducing) Dominant Ideals’ is uncovered, outlining alternative posts by the women that offer resistance to the dominant discourse, however examples are infrequent and lack evidence of conscious and overt politicisation. Future research should focus on pregnant women’s self-interpretation of social media engagement and the pregnant bodies excluded from this discourse.     

“Chef recommended” or “most popular”? Cultural differences in customer preference for recommendation labels

Despite the widespread use of recommendation labels on restaurant menus, no prior research has investigated their impact on diners’ menu decisions. To bridge that gap, this study examines the joint effect of recommendation type (chef recommended vs. most popular) and culture (individualistic vs. collectivistic) on diners’ purchase intention. The results indicate that Indians showed higher levels of purchase intention when the recommendation involved a popularity (vs. expertise) cue, while Americans responded more favorably to an expertise (vs. popularity) cue. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that self-construal is the underlying mechanism explaining the culture effect for popularity cues. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Instagramming nature-based tourism experiences: a netnographic study of online photography and value creation

The purpose of this research is to explore the role of online photography in creating experience value in nature-based tourism, and what types of experience value are conveyed through photography-based user-generated content. The paper draws from existing literature in defining tourism experience value as a subjective, inter-subjective and inter-contextual construct, performed by situated valuation practices. Consequently, the paper presents interpretive and participatory netnography as an effective method to investigate experience value, and identifies online photography on Instagram as both a valuing practice and a valuing place. Results show the capability of online photography-based UGC to create multidimensional values from strategic combinations of textual and visual content. Simultaneously, new dimensions of experience value are introduced, which exist beyond single tourism experiential encounters, but critically contribute to an iterative experience valuation. Finally, Instagram posts introduce valuation timelines that can elude linear models of pre/in-situ/post-experience valuation, and assume subjective and fluid connotations.     

Exploring airline Companies' engagement with their passengers through social network: An investigation from their Facebook pages

Social media is an effective way to engage with an airline, and many carriers include Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Instagram as vital parts of their customer engagement strategies. The Facebook pages of four top airline companies that won the 2017 World Airline Awards have been used as the source of this study. The Stimulus–Organism–Response (S–O–R) model has been adopted. 281 posts were collected and analyzed by employing the thematic analysis method. The findings reveal that three out of four airline companies, especially those with more company-oriented, tend to stir complaining customers' cognitive and emotions regarding their flight experiences. The findings and recommendations offer airline companies a clearer picture about the airline passengers' concerns and behavior in responding to the Facebook contents posted. Furthermore, this study fills the gap in the existing studies, which lack a framework to investigate how airline companies engage with airline passengers via Facebook posts.     

Characterizing the location of tourist images in cities. Differences in user-generated images (Instagram), official tourist brochures and travel guides

This study analyses the extent to which there is an overlap in the territorial distribution and attractiveness of tourism images distributed via three different media: official tourist brochures, travel guides and user-generated content (Instagram). We applied a mixed-method approach, which included spatial analyses and cartography, to study the promotion of tourism in Montevideo (Uruguay). The results indicated a partial overlap between the locations captured in user-generated images and those promoted by official tourist brochures and travel guides. The findings suggest a territorial distribution of tourism images that is clearly differentiated according to the source(s). This provides useful insights for applications of social media into future geographical and image management research.     

Existential walking

This paper analyses Camøno, a pilgrim route on the island of Møn in Denmark, through the lens of existentialist philosophy. The theoretical framework draws on literature focusing on contemporary pilgrimage tourism and existentialism, as presented in Walter Kaufmann's works. The analysis is based on empirical material comprised of Instagram images shared by the pilgrims. The coding and analysis of the data combines a thematic and a metaphorical visual method. The findings show a strong resonance between the experience as portrayed by the pilgrims and core aspects of existentialist thought. They reveal the importance of nature and simple living and the limits to commercialisation and institutionalised religiosity. The study prompts us to rethink our understanding of the interconnection between spirituality and tourism.     

The effect of brand popularity statements on consumers’ purchase intentions: The role of instrumental attitudes toward the act

Marketers increasingly use brand popularity statements in attempts to influence consumers’ purchase decisions. Through the use of two experiments this research finds that a brand's popularity statement exerts a greater positive influence on the purchase intentions of consumers who possess less favorable instrumental attitudes toward the associated act (i.e. useless/foolish/harmful) than on purchase intentions of those consumers who have more favorable instrumental attitudes toward the act (i.e. useful/wise/beneficial). Further, this research also finds that a popularity statement for a brand of which society generally has a less favorable instrumental attitude toward the associated act (e.g. fast food consumption) has a larger positive influence on consumers’ purchase intent than does a popularity statement for a brand of which society generally has a more favorable instrumental attitude toward the associated act (e.g. dining at a casual theme restaurant). These findings suggest that brand popularity statements should be targeted at those consumers who might possess less favorable attitude toward the associated act or can be most effective in sectors in which consumer sentiment is generally low (e.g. the fast food sector).     

Special interest tourism is not so special after all: Big data evidence from the 2017 Great American Solar Eclipse

This study puts to empirical test a major typology in the tourism literature, mass versus special interest tourism (SIT), as the once-distinctive boundary between the two has become blurry in modern tourism scholarship. We utilize 41,747 geo-located Instagram photos pertaining to the 2017 Great American Solar Eclipse and Big Data analytics to distinguish tourists based on their choice of observational destinations and spatial movement patterns. Two types of tourists are identified: opportunists and hardcore. The motivational profile of those tourists is validated with the external data through hypothesis testing and compared with and contrasted against existing motivation-based tourist typologies. The main conclusion is that large share of tourists involved in what is traditionally understood as SIT activities exhibit behavior and profile characteristic of mass tourists seeking novelty but conscious about risks and comforts. Practical implications regarding the potential of rural and urban destinations for developing SIT tourism are also discussed.