From the tourist gaze to a shared gaze: Exploring motivations for online photo-sharing in present-day tourism experience

Highlights

• The shared gaze guides present-day tourist experience through online photo-sharing.

• Five internally-driven and four externally-driven motives for sharing were found.

• The shared gaze occurs with physical others, online others, and the future-self.

Abstract

Online photo-sharing is commonplace in present-day tourism, yet previous studies revealed contrasting implications of mobile connectivity and holiday photo-sharing on the tourist experience. To address this, the present study explores tourists' online photo-sharing behaviour and motivation, and the subsequent gaze that is pursued. An inductive and qualitative approach was applied through 17 in-depth interviews with tourists from 11 countries. The findings reveal nine motives for sharing, classified into internally and externally-driven motives. Online photo-sharing was found to offer value targeted towards the tourist-self and others through viewership of the intended audience. The study then introduces a shift from the tourist gaze to a shared gaze and extends the literature on the communal nature and boundaries of this gaze, shaped by motives for sharing holiday photos online. It offers insights that will assist tourism providers with leveraging the shared gaze to enhance value, transform tourists into co-marketers, and improve destination performances.

Introduction

The intertwined relationship between photography and vacationing has been widely discussed in tourism literature. As such, photo-taking is recognised as an important part of being a tourist (Albers & James, 1988; Gillet, Schmitz, & Mitas, 2016) and “a tool for consuming and constructing the tourist experience” (Scarles, 2013, p. 898). The simultaneous development of digital photography, mobile technology, and social networking sites (SNS) has heightened tourists' engagement in photography and enabled holiday photos to be shared as experiences unfold. This has opened opportunities for tourists to not only gaze but share such gazes through instant broadcasts of holiday photos (Coghlan & Prideaux, 2008).

Tourism has long been regarded as one's visual consumption of place (Haldrup & Larsen, 2003; Scarles, 2014; Urry, 1990, Urry, 2002), and online photo-sharing allows such consumption to be extended to those who are not physically present. Yet, Barasch, Zauberman, and Diehl (2017) found people who take photos for the anticipated purpose of sharing enjoyed their experience less than those who photograph for memory-making and safekeeping. This was attributed to self-presentational concerns and the desire to display oneself in a positive light, leading to indirect deviation from one's enjoyment. According to the authors, “seeking future utility from sharing photos can diminish hedonic utility in the present” (Barasch et al., 2017, p. 1233). Similarly, Neuhofer (2016) argued engagement with mobile devices can lead to value co-destruction as it hinders tourists from experiencing the ‘now’. Tourists often find themselves focused on taking photos as well as posting and sharing their experiences online, which hampers the real-time experience (Neuhofer, 2016). In the same vein, Ayeh (2018) found mobile engagement to distract tourists and steal time away from the ‘real’ experience, limiting their ability to achieve travel-related goals. From a safety viewpoint, increasing accidents and injuries have been reported in the pursuit of selfies, with many resulting in deaths. Weiler, Gstaettner, and Scherrer (2021) attributed this to the distractive nature of selfie-taking and found such risk-taking behaviours to be motivated by the desire to share photos and display an intended image online.

Contrasting views were presented by other authors, claiming tourists receive instant responses and comments from virtual networks when experiences are shared online (Kim, Fesenmaier, & Johnson, 2013; Tan, 2017; Tanti & Buhalis, 2016). Such feedback offers gratification, resulting in positive feelings that enhance the tourist experience and satisfaction (Tan, 2017). Furthermore, positive emotional support received during the trip creates a more enjoyable and memorable experience (Kim et al., 2013; Tanti & Buhalis, 2016). Experience-sharing through social media also enhances value as it generates positive feelings of inspiring, influencing, and contributing to others through recommendations offered (Neuhofer, 2016). A paradox is hence identified, as photo-sharing was found to be important yet detrimental to the tourist experience. As experience-sharing on social media becomes an integral part of travel (Magasic, 2016), it is imperative to explore tourists' behaviours and motivations for online photo-sharing.

Samarathunga and Cheng (2021, p. 345) argued that tourists with differing motivations “including the desire for pleasure, excitement, recreation, spirituality or education construct alternate gazes”. Thus, to understand the gaze pursued by tourists partaking in this paradoxical activity, an understanding of their underlying motivations is first required. To explore this, the following research questions were formulated: What are tourists' online photo-sharing behaviours and motivations? How does motivation for online photo-sharing shape or alter the gaze pursued by present-day tourists?

The tourist gaze, through its iterations, has conceptualised the tourist experience as a visual consumption of place (see tourist gaze in Urry, 1990) to one that involves an intersection of senses and people in visual encounters (see tourist gaze 3.0 in Urry & Larsen, 2011). The tourist gaze 3.0 posits that when gazing upon places, tourists do so in the presence of others, such as travel companions, other tourists, and locals, transforming it into a relational and communal activity (Urry & Larsen, 2011). As such, the effect of the physical others on the quality of tourism experiences is acknowledged. Yet, in this “era of constant connectedness” (Neuhofer, 2016, p. 780), how the gaze and experience of tourists are shaped by the presence of, and interactions with, virtual others have yet to be understood.

From a theoretical perspective, this study rethinks the tourist gaze in the context of connected tourism experiences through photos that are shared, and therefore gazes that are extended, to those not physically present. It contributes to advancing knowledge on the gaze pursued by tourists when sharing visual encounters online. From a practical standpoint, this study assists tourism providers with curating experiences that cater to the pursuit of such gaze. As Barasch et al. (2017) stated, understanding factors affecting the enjoyment of experiences is important to companies providing and marketing experiences, as well as to consumers seeking happiness from such experiences.