Instagramming nature-based tourism experiences: a netnographic study of online photography and value creation

The purpose of this research is to explore the role of online photography in creating experience value in nature-based tourism, and what types of experience value are conveyed through photography-based user-generated content. The paper draws from existing literature in defining tourism experience value as a subjective, inter-subjective and inter-contextual construct, performed by situated valuation practices. Consequently, the paper presents interpretive and participatory netnography as an effective method to investigate experience value, and identifies online photography on Instagram as both a valuing practice and a valuing place. Results show the capability of online photography-based UGC to create multidimensional values from strategic combinations of textual and visual content. Simultaneously, new dimensions of experience value are introduced, which exist beyond single tourism experiential encounters, but critically contribute to an iterative experience valuation. Finally, Instagram posts introduce valuation timelines that can elude linear models of pre/in-situ/post-experience valuation, and assume subjective and fluid connotations. •On-line photography is an important source for experience managers to learn from tourists•Using participatory netnography advances knowledge on value creation in tourism•Online photography can deliver valued sensorial elements other than sight•Utopian and eudemonic valuations of nature are reflected in tourists' posts•Valuation processes are not temporally linear and personally signified