Local experiences on Instagram: Social media data as source of evidence for experience design.

Abstract

Abstract Local experience is a complex and subjective concept, which has moved from the simple consumption of products (e.g. local products and local activities) to a wide range of social interactions in both the real and digital world (e.g. localhood). In these times of experience economy, destinations will often compete in offering their distinctive local experiences and designing experiences has become crucial in destination management and marketing. To design and deliver local experiences, destinations need to be supported by methodological innovation and updated data sources. Social media can satisfy these requirements, because it contains user-generated content about human experiences. Nevertheless, limited research has been conducted, to date to understand the potential of social media in experience design. The purpose of this paper is to explore how user-generated content can contribute to design thinking. In agreement with the principle that ‘everyone can – and does – design’ this paper investigates local experiences in the social media environment, in which everyone can co-produce information. The paper first reviews the concepts of ‘local’ and ‘local experiences’ in the academic literature and then expands the research into the discussion of social media, investigating secondary data posted by users with #local∗ and #localexperience∗. Instagram is one of the most used platforms in the world and it was selected based on previous research conducted on local experiences. The results of this study contribute to the understanding of what and who is associated to local experiences, suggesting that social media can provide new knowledge by expanding on existing topics and introducing missing dimensions as the basis for a holistic understanding of experiences. Local experiences on Instagram are related to traveling and associated with outdoor activities and local people. The analysis reveals insights into the use of hashtags in Instagram: #localexperience∗ is largely employed by professional accounts to brand tourism activities, contrary to #local∗ which is preferred by the vast majority of users in posting everyday life images. User-generated content is presented as a resource for experience design to enhance destination marketing and management. A method for data mining and content analysis of Instagram textual data (hashtags, comments and user profiles) is presented to foster research and comparison among social media platforms, as a way to address future directions in tourism design management and to develop implications to destination management.