Abstract
New forms of media have changed the nature of travel photography throughout history, with social networking sites (SNSs) as the current primary form of self-portraiture and self-presentation. In particular, the visually-focussed Instagram platform has inspired new social concepts like ‘Instagrammability’, which mobilises significant shifts in the motivations and behaviours of tourists. This is particularly true for especially photogenic sites that are prone to travellers seeking photography for self-presentation on Instagram.
This research looked at the traveller behaviours that contribute to the phenomenon of self-presentation on Instagram through travel, and then shifts to focus on the effects of these behaviours on especially photogenic (or Instagrammable) destinations. New social norms of using travel images for impression management were identified in which there is a clear motive to match the ‘Instagram aesthetic’. The focus has shifted to the ‘self’ wherein 75% of the total photos analysed featured one subject es as the focal point of the photograph. Also, less than 2% of the photos analysed did not feature a human subject and exclusively featured the landscape. There is a physical component of this behaviour that unfolds in the ‘backstage’, which is contradictory to the intended idealised frontstage performance that unfolds online, and is not meant to be seen by the intended audience. Thus, the behaviour is cyber-physical in nature.
This behaviour has environmental, economic and socio-cultural impacts on the Instagrammable places where it commonly unfolds. There are both negative and positive effects of the behaviours of the travelling Instagram class; however, there are not enough positive impacts to counteract the negative impacts. Thus, sustainable destination management is necessary in these cases which is tailored to the idiosyncratic behaviours of the travelling Instagram class. Through a case study approach that evaluated destination response to this behaviour, strategic recommendations are given for destinations facing a similar scenario, with a best practice framework suggested.