The visual destination image of Hokkaido on YouTube: construction of social representations in five languages
Yasuhiro YAMANAKA, Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Japan
Sébastien ABILLA ESPUNA, Graduate School of Environmental Science, Hokkaido University, Japan
On the internet, websites of destination marketing organizations (DMO) and tourists’ user-generated contents (UGC) contribute to creating visual destination images (VDI)1. However, on a modern social network, the line is blurred by professional influencers founded by marketers2 and algorithms putting forward a minority of UGC3. We used the social representations theory as a comprehensive framework4 to describe the two steps of formation of a VDI on YouTube: objectification and anchoring, and to ponder the influence of factors usually related to VDI on them.
The test destination was Hokkaido, Japan. The VDI was drawn by multiple correspondence analyses from visual themes collected in 295 videos. The first factor tested was the cultural differences, emulated via a search in the five languages most spoken by visitors of Hokkaido (Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Thai). The second factor was the variable proximity with the destination, represented by the living place of the video-makers. The third factor was the effect of marketing, represented by the sponsoring or not of the contents by DMO.
The difference of culture was correlated with a small variation of objectification and a wide variation of anchoring. The proximity with the destination was correlated with a small variation of objectification and a small variation of anchoring. The effect of marketing was only correlated with a small variation of anchoring. The theme “Food” was at the core of the VDI of Hokkaido for each culture. The other themes were objectified differently by Japanese video-makers on one hand and international ones on the other. Eventually, five different VDI emerged after the anchoring step, one for each language. The difference of VDI developed in each Asian cultural area confirms the necessity to go beyond an opposition East-West in tourism studies5, especially when Asian destinations received more tourists from each of their neighbouring countries than from the West.
Mots clés : visual destination image|social representations theory|YouTube|Asian languages|DMO
A103032SA