2014 Volume 18 Issue 1 Pages 76-92
The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that travel photos taken at tourist destinations have the ability to aid our understanding and measurement of a tourist destination's attractiveness and propose the Travel Photo Method (TPM) as a new research method. Many previous studies about tourist destination attractiveness revealed their attractiveness attributes by the use of questionnaires, but this research method has some limitations. Therefore, two studies were conducted to overcome those limitations. In Study 1, ten tourists were requested to show photos and explain the subjects. In Study 2, fifteen university students were requested to show photos of previous travel and classify those photos according to tourist experience categories. In addition, they were given a questionnaire to examine the correlation between the number of photos and travel motives. The analysis of the travel photos revealed the following: (1) The types of tourism resources and experiences that influenced tourists' evaluation of destination attractiveness, and (2) Travel photos reflected the perspectives and personal interests of the tourists. Based on these results, we discussed the advantages and possibilities of TPM.
