Author Bios (50 Words for each Author)

Philipp K. Wegerer, PhD is a Research Associate at the MCI Tourism, Management Center Innsbruck, Austria. His research focuses on how organizations interact with society. This includes dimensions such as visual communication, digitalization, activism, and branding. His research is published in Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Organization, GJHRM, and IJRDM.

Prof. Dr. Serena Volo is Associate Professor of Marketing at the Faculty of Economics and Management, Free University of Bozen, Italy. She is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research. Her research interests include experience and emotions in tourism, visual research methods and big data.

Abstract (150 Words)

Image sharing on social media platforms offers freely available datasets for researchers to explore the role of user-generated visuals for value creation in tourism. Within this research it became apparent, that social media limit the DMOs ability to create and maintain a desired destination image. In this changing landscape, adequate methods are required to fully harvest the potential of visuals and to systematically analyze the compositional value and the associated meanings of images. This research explores selected images posted on Instagram with reference to the Alpine destination of Tyrol in order to analyze the congruity between user generated and DMO generated visuals. To reach this aim, the methodological principles outlined in the visual methods related literature are applied. The results are particularly relevant to advance visual research in tourism and to provide stakeholders with a more holistic understanding of their destination image identity.

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Visual Content Analysis of Instagram posts: The case of an Alpine destination

Image sharing on social media platforms offers freely available datasets for researchers to explore the role of user-generated visuals for value creation in tourism. Within this research it became apparent, that social media limit the DMOs ability to create and maintain a desired destination image. In this changing landscape, adequate methods are required to fully harvest the potential of visuals and to systematically analyze the compositional value and the associated meanings of images. This research explores selected images posted on Instagram with reference to the Alpine destination of Tyrol in order to analyze the congruity between user generated and DMO generated visuals. To reach this aim, the methodological principles outlined in the visual methods related literature are applied. The results are particularly relevant to advance visual research in tourism and to provide stakeholders with a more holistic understanding of their destination image identity.