Abstract
Tourists increasingly record video during their vacations. By introducing tourist videography as a distinct practice from tourist photography, this conceptual article starts to develop the foundation for a theory of tourist videography. It contributes to the literature on visual culture in tourism by exploring the differences related to the technology as well as in the social practices of (re)presentation between tourist photography and videography. The key technological differences are displays of visual continuity and multiple moments in time, multiplicity of cues (audio-visual), and ability to show motion. The article emphasizes the ability of new recording equipment—specifically, wearable cameras and drones—to film from different perspectives. Videography’s key differences in social practices are high-profile editing, the concept of digital distance, the idea of storytelling inherent in the media form and the emphasis on tourist activities rather than destinations. The paper further conceptualizes videography’s impact on the structure of tourist experiences. The key differences in mediation are tourists’ increased immersion in the experience, continuous interaction with the screen, ongoing performativity and collapse of the linearity of the tourist experience. Besides outlining future research needs, this article presents practical examples and emphasizes implications for experience design, site management, and marketing related to tourist videography in order to highlight the practical relevance of the developed theoretical differences.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baerenholdt JO, Haldrup M, Larsen J, Urry J (2007) Performing tourist places. Ashgate, Aldershot
Bell C, Lyall J (2005) “I was here”: pixilated evidence. In: Crouch D, Jackson R, Thompson F (eds) The media and the tourist imagination: converging cultures. Routledge, London, pp 135–142
Buhalis D, Law R (2008) Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the internet—the state of etourism research. Tour Manag 29(4):609–623
Burgess J, Green J (2009) YouTube: online video and participatory culture. Polity Press, London
Cary SH (2004) The tourist moment. Ann Tour Res 31(1):61–77
Chalfen RM (1979) Photography’s role in tourism: some unexplored relationships. Ann Tour Res 6(4):435–447
Chalfen R (1987) Snapshot versions of life. Popular Press, Bowling Green
Crang M (1997) Picturing practices: research through the tourist Gaze. Prog Hum Geogr 21(3):359–373
Crouch D, Lübbren N (eds) (2003) Visual culture and tourism. Berg Publishers, London
Daft R, Lengel R (1986) Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Manage Sci 32(5):554–571
Dinhopl A, Gretzel U (2014) The impact of wearable video cameras on the anticipatory, experiential and reflective phases of tourism experiences (abstract). In: Paper presented at the TTRA annual international conference, June 18–20, 2014, Bruges, Belgium
Dinhopl A, Gretzel U (2015) Changing practices/new technologies: Photos and videos on vacation. In: Tussyadiah I, Inversini A (eds) Information and communication technologies in tourism. Springer, Vienna, pp 777–788
Duggan M (2013) Cell phone activitites. Pew Research Center, Washington, DC. http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/09/19/cell-phone-activities-2013/. Accessed 15 May 2015
German Molz J (2012) Travel connections: tourism, technology and togetherness in a mobile world. Routledge, London
Germann Molz J, Paris CM (2013) The social affordances of flashpacking: exploring the mobility nexus of travel and communication. Mobilities. doi:10.1080/17450101.2013.848605
Gretzel U (2010) Travel in the network: redirected gazes, ubiquitous connections and new frontiers. In: Levina M, Kien G (eds) Post-global network and everyday life. Peter Lang, New York, pp 41–58
Gretzel U, Jamal T (2009) Conceptualizing the creative tourist class: technology, mobility, and tourism experiences. Tour Anal 14(4):471–481
Gretzel U, Fesenmaier DR, Formica S, O’Leary JT (2006) Searching for the future: challenges faced by destination marketing organizations. J Travel Res 45(2):116–126
Haldrup M, Larsen J (2010) Tourism, performance, and the everyday. Routledge, London
Hannam K, Butler G, Paris CM (2014) Developments and key issues in tourism mobilities. Ann Tour Res 44(1):171–185
Ito M (2005) Intimate visual co-presence. In: Position paper for the 7th international conference on ubiquitous computing, September 11–14, 2005, Tokyo
Jansson A (2002) Spatial phantasmagoria the mediatization of tourism experience. Eur J Commun 17(4):429–443
Jansson A (2007) A sense of tourism: new media and the dialectic of encapsulation/decapsulation. Tour Stud 7(1):5–24
Jansson A (2013) Mediatization and social space: reconstructing mediatization for the transmedia age. Commun Theory 23(3):279–296
Jennings G, Weiler B (2006) Mediating meaning: perspectives on brokering quality tourist experiences. In: Jennings G, Nickerson N (eds) Quality tourism experiences. Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford
Kindberg T, Spasojevic M, Fleck R, Sellen A (2005) I saw this and thought of you: some social uses of camera phones. In: Proceedings of the CHI ‘05 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems. April 1, 2005, Portland
Kirk D, Sellen A, Harper R, Wood K (2007) Understanding videowork. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems CHI’07. April 1, 2007, San Jose. ACM, New York, pp 61–70
Larsen J (2005) Families seen sightseeing: performativity of tourist photographs. Space Cult 8(4):416–434
Larsen J (2008) Practices and flows of digital photography: an ethnographic framework. Mobilities 3(1):141–160
Larsen J, Sandbye M (eds) (2014) Digital snaps: The new face of digital photography. I. B. Tauris, London
Larsen J, Urry J, Axhausen KW (2007) Networks and tourism: mobile social life. Ann Tour Res 34(1):244–262
Lash S, Urry J (1994) Economies of signs and space. Sage, London
Laurier (2014) Capturing motion set-ups for driving, cycling, and walking. In Adey P, Bissell D, Hannam K, Merriman P, Sheller M (eds) The routledge handbook of mobilities. Routledge, London, pp 493–502
Laurier E (in press) Owning and sharing experiences of adventure: tourism, video and editing practices. In: Mains S, Cupples J, Lukinbeal E (eds) Mediated geographies/geographies of media. http://www.ericlaurier.co.uk/resources/Writings/Laurier_2014_Experience.pdf. Accessed 28 Aug 2015
Lehmuskallio A, Sarvas R (2008) Snapshot video: everyday photographers taking short video-clips. Proceedings of the 5th Nordic conference on human–computer interaction: building bridges, Lund, 1 Oct 2008. ACM, New York, pp 257–265
Lo IS, McKercher B (2015) Ideal image in process: online tourist photography and impression management. Ann Tour Res 52:104–116
Lo IS, McKercher B, Lo A, Cheung C, Law R (2011) Tourism and online photography. Tour Manag 32(4):725–731
Lübbren N (2001) Rural artists’ colonies in Europe, 1870–1910. Manchester University Press, Manchester
Luff P, Heath C (2012) Some ‘technical challenges’ of video analysis: social actions, objects, material realities and the problems of perspective. Qual Res 12(3):255–279
MacCannell D (1973) Staged authenticity: arrangements of social space in tourist settings. Am Soc Rev 79:589–603
Marlow J, Dabbish L (2014) When is a picture not worth a thousand words? The psychological effects of mediated exposure to a remote location. Comput Hum Behav 30(1):824–831
Moore K (2011) 71% of online adults now use video-sharing sites. Pew Research Center Washington, DC. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Video-sharing-sites.aspx. Accessed 20 Jan 2015
Noy C (2014) Staging portraits: Tourism’s panoptic photo-industry. Ann Tour Res 47(4):48–62
Osborne P (2000) Travelling light: photography, travel and visual culture. Manchester University Press, Manchester
Pearce PL, Gretzel U (2012) Tourism in technology dead zones: documenting experiential dimensions. Int J Tour Sci 12(2):25–44
Purcell K (2013) Online video 2013. Pew Research Center, Washington, DC. http://www.pewinternet.org/files/old-media//Files/Reports/2013/PIP_Online%20Video%202013.pdf. Accessed 15 May 2015
Robinson M, Picard D (eds) (2009) The framed world: tourism, tourists and photography. Ashgate, London
Ryan M (2013) The mad billionaire behind GoPro: the world’s hottest camera company. Forbes magazine. http://www.forbes.com. Accessed 17 Aug 2014
Sarvas R, Frohlich DM (2011) From snapshots to social media-the changing picture of domestic photography: the changing picture of domestic photography. Springer, New York
Shaffer MS (2001) See America first: tourism and national identity, 1880–1940. Smithsonian, Washington, DC
Shields R (1991) Places on the margin. Routledge, London
Sontag S (1977) On photography. Delta Books, New York
Statista (2015) Shipments of wearable cameras worldwide from 2013 to 2015 (in millions). http://www.statista.com/statistics/302711/wearable-cameras-shipments-worldwide. Accessed 8 June 2015
Steward S (1993) On longing. Narratives of the miniature, the gigantic, the souvenir, the collection. Duke University Press, Durham and London
Stylianou-Lambert T (2012) Tourists with cameras: reproducing or producing? Ann Tour Res 39(4):1817–1838
Tomlinson J (2007) The culture of speed: the coming of immediacy. Sage, London
Tourism New Zealand (2014) Move over selfies—New Zealand launches dronies. http://media.newzealand.com/en/news/move-over-selfies-%E2%80%93-new-zealand-launches-dronies/
Tussyadiah I (2014) Expectation of travel experiences with wearable computing devices. In: Xiang Z, Tussyadiah I (eds) Information and communication technologies in tourism 2014. Springer, Wien, New York, pp 539–552
Tussyadiah I, Fesenmaier DR (2009) Mediating tourist experiences: access to places via shared videos. Ann Tour Res 36(1):24–40
Urry J (1990) The tourist Gaze: tourism and travel in contemporary societies. Sage, London
Urry J (2003) Global complexity. Polity, Cambridge
Urry J, Larsen J (2011) The tourist Gaze 3.0. Sage, London
Van Dijck J (2004) Memory matters in the digital age. Configurations 12(3):349–373
Van Dijck J (2008) Digital photography: communication, identity, memory. Vis Comm 7(1):57–76
Wang D, Park S, Fesenmaier DR (2012) The role of smartphones in mediating the touristic experience. J Travel Res 51(4):371–387
Wang D, Xiang Z, Fesenmaier DR (2014) Smartphone use in everyday life and travel. J Travel Res. doi:10.1177/0047287514535847
White NR, White PB (2007) Home and away: tourists in a connected world. Ann Tour Res 34(1):88–104
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dinhopl, A., Gretzel, U. Conceptualizing tourist videography. Inf Technol Tourism 15, 395–410 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40558-015-0039-7
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40558-015-0039-7