Co-Creation of a Destination's Image: An Exploratory Study of User Practices on Instagram
(2022) SMMM40 20221Department of Service Studies
- Abstract
- Today, as anyone could generate content independently, content produced by the Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO) and others co-exist on social media. As such, anyone runs the chance of being a tourism promoter and marketer. Whether this is intentional or not, content generated by the DMOs are not the only thing out there inspiring or influencing tourists' choice of destination, or creating and distributing a destination image. This thesis undertook an interest in user’s co-creation practices plus an additional interest in one particular user practice. Namely, the one that meant creating and publishing Instagram Reels. With previous literature, the authors started this journey with exploring social media in a tourism context,... (More)
- Today, as anyone could generate content independently, content produced by the Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO) and others co-exist on social media. As such, anyone runs the chance of being a tourism promoter and marketer. Whether this is intentional or not, content generated by the DMOs are not the only thing out there inspiring or influencing tourists' choice of destination, or creating and distributing a destination image. This thesis undertook an interest in user’s co-creation practices plus an additional interest in one particular user practice. Namely, the one that meant creating and publishing Instagram Reels. With previous literature, the authors started this journey with exploring social media in a tourism context, destination marketing and branding, and the various impacts social media may bring.
The aim of this was to explore branding strategies, users’ co-creation practices of the destination image, and how new technology on social media, such as Reels, potentially influence the users’ gaze and their co-creation of the destination image. A qualitative approach was employed and this thesis carried out netnography through observations online on DMO Visit Helsingborg’s Instagram account. Altogether, 60 posts were observed. Then, an additional method was employed and eight semi-structured interviews were conducted.
The empirical findings suggest that the DMO Visit Helsingborg and other users together participate in practices online that (co)-create the destination image of Helsingborg. Visual content generated by other users was extensively used to convey a favourable destination image by the DMO. Except this, the findings indicated that posts published by the DMO facilitated other users' practices on @visithelsingborg which contributed to further formation of the destination image. Then it was revealed that Instagram Reels influenced the way users decided to gazed. Due to the ability to combine a variety of different video clips in one Reel, the interviewees experienced more than one gaze: ‘the tourist gaze’, ‘the director gaze’, and ‘the Instagram gaze’. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9086611
- author
- Nilsson, Sara LU and Granbom, Ebba
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SMMM40 20221
- year
- 2022
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- language
- English
- id
- 9086611
- date added to LUP
- 2022-06-10 13:50:41
- date last changed
- 2022-06-10 13:50:41
@misc{9086611,
abstract = {{Today, as anyone could generate content independently, content produced by the Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO) and others co-exist on social media. As such, anyone runs the chance of being a tourism promoter and marketer. Whether this is intentional or not, content generated by the DMOs are not the only thing out there inspiring or influencing tourists' choice of destination, or creating and distributing a destination image. This thesis undertook an interest in user’s co-creation practices plus an additional interest in one particular user practice. Namely, the one that meant creating and publishing Instagram Reels. With previous literature, the authors started this journey with exploring social media in a tourism context, destination marketing and branding, and the various impacts social media may bring.
The aim of this was to explore branding strategies, users’ co-creation practices of the destination image, and how new technology on social media, such as Reels, potentially influence the users’ gaze and their co-creation of the destination image. A qualitative approach was employed and this thesis carried out netnography through observations online on DMO Visit Helsingborg’s Instagram account. Altogether, 60 posts were observed. Then, an additional method was employed and eight semi-structured interviews were conducted.
The empirical findings suggest that the DMO Visit Helsingborg and other users together participate in practices online that (co)-create the destination image of Helsingborg. Visual content generated by other users was extensively used to convey a favourable destination image by the DMO. Except this, the findings indicated that posts published by the DMO facilitated other users' practices on @visithelsingborg which contributed to further formation of the destination image. Then it was revealed that Instagram Reels influenced the way users decided to gazed. Due to the ability to combine a variety of different video clips in one Reel, the interviewees experienced more than one gaze: ‘the tourist gaze’, ‘the director gaze’, and ‘the Instagram gaze’.}},
author = {{Nilsson, Sara and Granbom, Ebba}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Co-Creation of a Destination's Image: An Exploratory Study of User Practices on Instagram}},
year = {{2022}},
}