This document discusses research on how the tourist gaze is evolving due to digital photography shared on social media during mega events. The researchers analyzed over 200,000 photos from Expo 2015 shared on Instagram to understand what places and attractions were represented and how travelers portrayed themselves. Most photos were of the exposition site itself, especially the iconic "Tree of Life" attraction. While some photos included people, hashtags usually related to the location rather than individuals. The rising trend of online tourist photos is challenging the traditional socially constructed tourist experience.

1. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 1
Digital Tourist Gaze and Mega
Events
Alessandro Inversini, Manuela De Carlo & Isabella Rega
ainversini@bournemouth.ac.uk
manuela.decarlo@iulm.it
irega@bournemouth.ac.uk

2. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 2
The Tourist Gaze
‘The Tourist Gaze’: is the paradigm by which
tourism is a socially constructed phenomenon
where the tourist gaze is elaborated as a
particular way to see the world and is
essentially conditioned by the imaginary
and/or the representation created in the first
instance by the destination.
(Urry 1990)

3. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 3
Challenges
• More than 500 million photographs
uploaded daily on social media (e.g.
Lafferty, 2013)
• Urry and Larsen (2011) noted that the
tourist gaze is somehow challenged by the
rise of digital cameras and online social
networks.

4. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 4
Challenges
• Tourism is a domain which is dominated by
visual experiences and is a rich site for both
the creation and the analysis of visual
evinces (Feighey, 2003).
• Taking photos is actually one of the
emblematic tourism practices (Haldrup &
Larsen, 2003)

5. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 5
“traveller is always
depicted with a bags
full of camera,
lenses and tripod”
(Markwell, 1997).

6. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 6
The Tourist Gaze
• the tourist gaze is designed and deployed by
destinations focusing on a series of iconic
places and it is distributed via various media
• Travellers are visiting a given place to actually
experience and gaze all the manifestation
portrayed in first instance by the destination
itself (Garrod, 2008).
• Therefore for Urry, tourism is essentially
about consuming places visually (Haldrup &
Larsen, 2003).

7. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 7
Theoretical underpin
• The term ‘e-mediation’ in this context describes the
way in which people relate to information about a
destination, and in which way they use this
information to develop a perception of the
destination (Robinson, 2012; Robinson, 2014).
• Within this context, more than just an illustration,
tourism photography is permeated of personal
meanings (Stylianou-Lambert, 2012). Travellers try
to portray a socially desirable ‘ideal self’ (Lo &
McKercher, 2015) for a target audience..

8. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 8
Research Design
• Designed in the context of the mega event
EXPO2015, this exploratory research has been
planned to shade lights on the evolution of
the tourist gaze as described by (Urry &
Larsen, 2011) by investigating the power of
digital photography to mediate:
– the perception of the destination (Robinson, 2014)
– the change/creation of a new tourist gaze Urry &
Larsen (2011).

9. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 9
Methodology: Objectives
• What kind of digital photos are shared
online during an hallmark event;
• What kind of places/attractions are
represented by photos shared online
during an hallmark event;
• How the ideal self is represented by photos
shared online during an hallmark event.

10. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 10
Visual Ethnography
• The research moves from what Sarah Pink (2007)
calls ‘visual ethnography’.
• The visual representation of different experiences is
what visual ethnographers are looking at with a
variety of methods (Pink, 2013).
• This study uses a qualitative approach based on
visual content analysis (Leeuwen & Jewitt, 2000).
• Theory driven codebook
– e-mediation (Roinson, 2014)
– Concept of self Lo and McKercher (2015).

11. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 11
Sampling
• Instagram: 213’754 photos posted by 71’926 authors for the period
from 01/06/2015 to 31/07/2015.
• Photos were filtered thanks by hashtags #Expo2015,
#Expo2015Milano and #Expo2015Milan.
• The first 125 authors are responsible for 10% of the overall posts
within the considered period of time (21’529 occurrences) and they
are divided:
• Personal account (n=54), company and/or organizations accounts
(n=50), official Expo2015 accounts (n=21).
• The first seven hashtags describe the actual event and the place
where it is held: #expo2015 (162’945 occurrences), #milano (81’057
occurrences), #expo (71’242 occurrences), #Milan (47’797
occurrences), #Italy (38’124 occurrences), #expomilano2015 (28’124
occurrences) and #italia (20’183 occurrences).

12. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 12
Results
• 56.8% taken on the exposition site
• 10.8% taken in Milan
• 4.2% some other places (no ES no Milan)
• 42.7% represented buildings/places
• 28.2% represented persons
– 56% single persons
– (only 14 photos with hashtag #selfie)

13. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 13
Results
Travellers’ were attracted by the ‘Tree of Life’ the main
pyrotechnic attraction within the exposition centre (n=38)
and pavilions’ architecture (n=28).

14. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 14
Emerging hashtags
• for photos about attractions or building the most common hashtags
(86% of the times)
• when taking photos of people, the most common hashtags are
related to the attraction/building (37%) or to the people themselves
(23%).
• #foodporn

15. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 15
Conclusions
• The rising phenomenon of online tourists’ photography
is violating this socially constructed imaginary (Urry and
Larsen, 2011)
• Tree of Life’ seems to be the iconic element of the
exposition, which attracts the attention of the event
goers and has a have a synecdochtal meaning:
• Expo2015: the ‘Tree of Life’ was conceived and designed “ […]
from the beginning as an interactive icon able to capture visitors’
attention and imaginary and able to create a virtual connection
among pavilions […]”.
• The hosting city of Milan (10.8%) and the hosting
country (Italy – 4.2%) are not really present in the
sample