The Immediate Impact of Instagram Posts on Changing the Viewers’ Perceptions Towards Travel Destinations

Abstract

This study aims to measure the immediate impact of User-Generated-Contents (UGC) in forms of Instagram images on changing the viewer's perceptions towards a travel destination.By using an experimental design and subsequent t-Test in SPSS, the viewers' perceptions of a destination (Lebanon) pre-and post-exposure to selected Instagram images were investigated.The findings show that Instagram posts were effective in changing the viewers' perceptions and it can influence viewers' ` behavioural intentions during the pre-visitation stage. The study discusses implications for the strategic place of UGC in promotional strategies for destinations by means of Instagram, but equally will assert -where appropriate -more general guidelines and areas for future research towards the use of other social media in this context. The research around destination image formation have been focusing on Destination -Marketing -Organization (DMO) marketing activities, therefore, this is one of the few studies that have addressed the impact of Instagram images on changing the viewers' perceptions towards travel destinations.

Instagram as a Co-Creation Space for Tourist Destination Image-Building: Algarve and Costa del Sol Case Studies

“…This practice is particularly representative in the case of Algarve, and our results have demonstrated that photos posted by tourists provide an effective resource for building and promoting a destination's image. This form of tourism promotion by DMOs in social media was identified, but they only focused on content generated by travel bloggers [4]. However, their results revealed the particular contribution of microbloggers to their promotion campaign.…”

“…As a result, social media should be considered not only as a communication tool, but also as an active component in the destination's image [1,4,14]. As Hanan and Putit [18] expressed, "Snapping a picture can create the certain kind of emotion and feeling toward the destination.…”

“…The environment and ambiance of the destination will make the destination more attractive in the picture" (p. 472). The issue of destination imagery has been widely considered in the existing literature, but there is still a lack of studies focused on the impact of UGC on building and enhancing a destination's image [4,19] and very few that have focused on Instagram in particular. Consequently, this study makes a further exploration in this line.…”

“…It has been pointed out that tourism is the most popular sector on Instagram and the current Instagram growth figures are maintaining this trend [5,29]. Evidence that Instagram's users are shaping tourism destination brands has been provided [1,4]. A set of photographs can be considered as the materialisation of tourist image.…”

“…Tourists are connected, informed, and interact with tourism companies, becoming potentially interested in destinations at a worldwide level. Therefore, User-Generated Content (UGC) has become a research focus in recent years [2,3]; however, knowledge of the impact of UGC on a destination's image is still limited and further exploration is needed [4]. Sharing experiences through photos on Instagram is now a usual practice; indeed, Instagram is the most popular type of social media used in tourism [5].…”