Do visitors gaze and reproduce what destination managers wish to commercialise? Perceived and projected image in the UNESCO World Heritage area 'West Norwegian Fjords'

Abstract

Destination image plays a key role in helping people decide where to travel and affects satisfaction, likelihood of return visits and word of mouth. While photography is not the only way of projecting and perceiving an image, 'a picture paints a thousand words'. The rise of social media and usergenerated content has made the image formation process more complex, and has reduced the extent of control that tourism suppliers can exert on the image they wish to project. It is thus necessary to further investigate whether tourists reproduce the commercialised image in what the literature calls the 'hermeneutic circle of representation' or capture and share their own impressions. This study constructs a categorisation scheme for conducting photography-based image analysis to compare images of two Norwegian destinations as projected by destination management organisations with those shared by Instagram users (perceived image). Results indicate that this circle of representation is not hermeneutic.

Small-Scale Sport Events as Place Branding Platforms: A Content Analysis of Osona’s Projected Destination Image through Event-Related Pictures on Instagram

“…Traditionally, this process was done through Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs) [89]. However, with the current use of the Internet, the DMOs have lost control over the creation of destination images [90], and this has been transferred, in part, to users and content creators via social networks such as Instagram [91].…”

“…Posting on Instagram, visitors perform as photographers and visualise their impressions [107]. In fact, these photographs not only communicate their preferences, but also provide information about behaviours [90].…”

Is Going Viral a Good Thing?

“…The introduction of technology and the internet in the present modern generation has drastically transformed visitors' perspectives. As a result, many tourist guides or even paper maps are no longer valid to find their new location [18]. People generate trust in these social media contents while obtaining information about the destination and eventually assume similar experiences to those from other customers when they comply with those components [19].…”

A Comparative Study of Perceptions of Destination Image Based on Content Mining: Fengjing Ancient Town and Zhaojialou Ancient Town as Examples

“…The second source is tourists, who convey their perceptions of the tourism destination through platforms such as social media, travelogues, or by communicating with others, resulting in a destination image based on user-generated content (UGC). While there are differences in how DMOs and UGC shape the destination image [7], both significantly impact the choices of tourists of destinations and decisions regarding travel behaviors [8]. The rapid advancement of information and communication technologies has shifted the focus of the tourism industry from traditional markets towards a digitally driven marketplace [3].…”