A Pictorial Analysis of Destination Images on Pinterest: The Case of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, Japan

Abstract

Based on the recent trend that social network sites (SNSs) have been replacing traditional sources of information, this study seeks to examine the representative characteristics of pictorial information in both destination marketing organizations' (DMOs) websites and SNSs (i.e. Pinterest.com), focusing on three major cities in Japan. Analyzing photos in terms of 13 categories, this study revealed that differences exist between two channels indicating an inconsistency between travelers' interests and marketers' projections. Based on the results, the study suggests possible DMOs' marketing strategies utilizing SNSs to facilitate and reinforce favorable destination images.

Thematic analysis of destination images for social media engagement marketing

“…nature/landscape, people, archaeological sites, way of life, traditional clothing, architecture/buildings, outdoor/ adventure, wild life, art object and tourism facilities) that represented most of the destination images. Song and Kim (2016) examined different themes for DMO photographs on official websites and tourist photographs published on Pinterest for Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka in Japan. The authors developed image theme categories (i.e.…”

Web 2.0 and Destination Marketing: Current Trends and Future Directions

“…The usage patterns, practices and processes of Web 2.0 technologies by DMOs and destination marketers have covered several aspects such as the quality and quantity of users [50]; the type of medium deployed [39,40,72]; the content type [50,66,73,74]; the destination marketers' posting timing and frequency [9,21]; the use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of promotional and advertising campaigns [26,58]; and the comparison and benchmarking of SNSs' usage practices across multiple DMOs [8,34,64,67,71,[75][76][77].…”

Case Study as a Research Method in Hospitality and Tourism Research: A Systematic Literature Review (1974–2020)

“…Most of the qualitative case studies relied on the data triangulation approach, which refers to multiple data sources, and thus tourism researchers and scholars have tended to use observation, documentation, and archival records or published materials as secondary data to ensure the trustworthiness of the research. It was also reported in the analysis that a number of more recent qualitative studies have used photographs and movies as visual sources of data (e.g., Im & Chon, 2008; Önder et al, 2016; Song & Kim, 2016). On the other hand, the number of qualitative studies that employed participant observation was limited, while the use of the interview as preliminary data was prominent.…”