Research Methodology Trends in Tourism Photography

CONCLUSIONS

This study’s aims were to review the current photographic tourism literature landscape to identify what contexts within tourism had been studied by researchers, the specific fields, the samples used, the sampling methods employed, the photographic methods and accompanying procedures employed, the data analysis techniques used and the countries where the studies were conducted.

The findings have highlighted the increasing frequency of photographic tourism research from 1997, with a specific rise in the number of tourism management studies from 2010 in Asian and European countries. In addition, the use of geographical characteristics to study tourism has also emerged recently. This is because of the growing access to large amounts of digital data, such as government statistics, geographical referencing and online photography. Also, the push for sustainable tourism practices has resulted in scholars adopting multidisciplinary approaches to address environmental concerns. Specific fields such as tourist perception, tourist behaviour and destination image are currently the preferred domains of photographic tourism research that use literature and tourist samples by purposive sampling. Researcher-found imagery is used as frequently as no imagery. However, the emergence of online photography continues especially in the area of tourism management. Established methods such as tourist/visitor-employed photography and researchers’ photography are seen more in the general tourism domain. The dominant accompanying methods are interviews, literature reviews and observations, while questionnaires/surveys ethnographic approaches, diaries and visual analysis are also sometimes used. The traditional qualitative data analysis methods, such as critical analysis, still rule the tourism landscape, particularly in North America. However, following the recent appearance of quantitative analysis techniques from 1995 onwards, Chi-square and geo-referencing among others, have been employed with increasing frequency, mostly in Asian studies. This is possibly due to technological advancements, the access to large amounts of digital data, such as government statistics, geographical referencing, online databases and the easy access to sophisticated statistical analysis software. Thus, the use of statistical testing with numerous data sets will continue according to this review. European articles, however, have tended to use a mixture of textual and empirical devices, but with a slight preference towards qualitative analysis.

Photography-based studies in emerging fields in tourism research, such as 3D modelling in virtual tourism, have only been used a few times since 2006. Similarly, tourist motivation remains largely unexplored in studies focused on photography.

This study has thus been able to assess the current body of photographic tourism research within peer-reviewed academic journals. The results highlight that the continual development and evolution of both qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection and analysis is likely to continue to expand the tourism scholar’s toolbox, with the additional value of enhancing the overall comprehension of results, increasing the validity and reliability of research, and broadening its practical applications. Moreover, it is clear that there is a wide space for future research in this area to continue to expand and deepen the available tourism literature involving photography. Finally, it is the vision of this study to provide a sense of perspective for future researchers in order to assist them in further development and innovation within the realm of photographic tourism research.

Photographic Tourism Research: Literature Review

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