Abstract
Alpine tourism destinations are highly dependent on their destination image. On Social Media, this perceived image relies heavily on user-generated content (UGC), which cannot be completely controlled by Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs). Potential tourists prefer informing themselves about travel destinations online, as UGC provides an unbiased resource reflecting a tourist’s perception. On Instagram, DMOs focus mainly on visual materials for projecting the intended destination image, affecting users’ perceptions, attitudes as well as travel behaviour, thus, alignment between the projected and perceived destination image is beneficial. This study compares photos collected from Instagram adopting a comparative content analysis approach together with Chi-square tests and Co-occurrence analysis, in order to identify differences of the projected and perceived destination image between posts by the Tyrol Tourist Board and actual tourists with the visittyrol hashtag. Findings are visualized via aggregated destination image maps. Results identify Nature & Landscapes, People, Plants, Architecture & Buildings and Residents’ Lives as the five predominant attributes of the projected Tyrolean destination image. However, tourists tend to be more interested in capturing nature, vegetation, leisure activities and domesticated animals, rather than lives of locals and their traditions. Similarities are found in illustrations of outdoor sports, other leisure activities and architecture.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Interview with Eckard Speckbacher, Head of Digital Communication, Tirol Tourist Board, on June 3, 2019.
References
Hu Y, Ritchie JB (1993) Measuring destination attractiveness: a contextual approach. J Travel Res 32(2):25–34
Bernkopf D, Nixon L (2019) The impact of visual social media on the projected image of a destination: the case of Mexico City on Instagram. In: Pesonen J, Neidhardt J (eds) Information and communication technologies in tourism 2019. Springer, Cham, pp 145–157
Gartner WC (1986) Temporal influences on image change. Ann Tour Res 13(4):635–644
Stepchenkova S, Zhan F (2013) Visual destination images of Peru: comparative content analysis of DMO and user-generated photography. Tour Manag 36:590–601
Ye H, Tussyadiah IP (2011) Destination visual image and expectation of experiences. J Travel Tour Mark 28(2):129–144
Frías DM, Rodríguez MA, Castañeda JA et al (2012) The formation of a tourist destination’s image via information sources: the moderating effect of culture. Int J Tour Res 14(5):437–450
Chang J-H, Wang S-H (2019) Different levels of destination expectation: the effects of online advertising and electronic word-of-mouth. Telemat Inform 36:27–38
Pearce PL (1988) The ulysses factor: evaluating visitors in tourist settings. Springer, New York
Picazo P, Moreno-Gil S (2017) Analysis of the projected image of tourism destinations on photographs: a literature review to prepare for the future. J Vacat Mark 25(1):3–24
Chon K-S (1990) The role of destination image in tourism: a review and discussion. Tour Rev 45(2):2–9
Beerli A, Martín JD (2004) Factors influencing destination image. Ann Tour Res 31(3):657–681
Kock F, Josiassen A, Assaf AG (2016) Advancing destination image: the destination content model. Ann Tour Res 61:28–44
Josiassen A, Assaf AG, Woo L et al (2015) The imagery–image duality model: an integrative review and advocating for improved delimitation of concepts. J Travel Res 55(6):789–803
del Bosque IR, Martín HS (2008) Tourist satisfaction a cognitive-affective model. Ann Tour Res 35(2):551–573
Xiang Z, Gretzel U (2010) Role of social media in online travel information search. Tour Manag 31(2):179–188
Yoo K-H, Gretzel U, Zach F (2011) Travel opinion leaders and seekers. In: Law R, Fuchs M, Ricci F (eds) Information and communication technologies in tourism 2011. Springer, Vienna, pp 525–535
Miller C (2017) How Instagram is changing travel. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/travel-interests/arts-and-culture/how-instagram-is-changing-travel/. Accessed 23 June 2019
Andreu L, Bigné JE, Cooper C (2008) Projected and perceived image of Spain as a tourist destination for British travellers. J Travel Tour Mark 9(4):47–67
Schwaighofer V (2014) Tourist destination images and local culture. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden
Baloglu S, Uysal M (1996) Market segments of push and pull motivations: a canonical correlation approach. Int J Contemp Hosp Manag 8(3):32–38
Baloglu S, Mangaloglu M (2001) Tourism destination images of Turkey, Egypt, Greece, and Italy as perceived by US-based tour operators and travel agents. Tour Manag 22(1):1–9
Chen JS, Hsu CHC (2000) Measurement of Korean tourists’ perceived images of overseas destinations. J Travel Res 38(4):411–416
Govers R, Go FM (2005) Projected destination image online: website content analysis of pictures and text. Inf Technol Tour 7(2):73–89
Hunt JD (1975) Image as a factor in tourism development. J Travel Res 13(3):1–7
Urry J (1990) The tourist gaze: leisure and travel in contemporary societies. Sage Publications, London
Kim H, Stepchenkova S (2015) Effect of tourist photographs on attitudes towards destination: manifest and latent content. Tour Manag 49:29–41
Bell P (2001) Content analysis of visual images. In: Jewitt C, van Leeuwen T (eds) Handbook of visual analysis. Sage Publications, London, pp 10–34
Li X, Stepchenkova S (2012) Chinese outbound tourists’ destination image of America: part I. J Travel Res 51(3):250–266
Neuendorf KA (2002) The content analysis guidebook. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks
Kirilenko AP, Stepchenkova S (2016) Inter-coder agreement in one-to-many classification: fuzzy kappa. PLoS One 11(3):e0149787
Cip T, Münch V, Pindzo J et al (2019) Conceptual process model for Instagram caption analysis in the case of the destination Ischgl. In: Maurer C, Siller HJ (eds) ISCONTOUR 2019 tourism research perspectives: proceedings of the international student conference in tourism research. BoD – Books on Demand, Norderstedt, pp 135–148
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Wacker, A., Groth, A. (2020). Projected and Perceived Destination Image of Tyrol on Instagram. In: Neidhardt, J., Wörndl, W. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2020. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36737-4_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36737-4_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-36736-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-36737-4
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)