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This paper aims to capture real-time images of tourists during their visitation. This effort is to clarify a debate among scholars that there is a lack of current effort to genuinely represent an accurate image of the tourist experience during their visit. Previous studies on destination image focused on measuring and successfully capturing the tourists' perceived image using the perspective of “before and after” visitation.

The paper applies volunteer-employed photography and questionnaire methods to capture real-time tourist images. The paper was conducted in Kuala Lumpur, involving 384 international tourists. The data are analysed by supplemental photo analysis, was categorised into manifest and latent content.

The paper provides empirical insights into the changes in tourists' image when visiting an urban destination. The insights suggest that a city's image during visitation continuously changes based on the tourists' movement and preferences.

The findings of this paper are critical in assisting tourism agencies and authorities in portraying an accurate image to achieve greater tourism satisfaction.

This paper contributes to the interpretation and portrayal of the real-time image of Kuala Lumpur based on the manifest and latent content of the photos taken.

The purposes of this paper are to outline the theoretical context for the study of brand love in the context of places and to report preliminary findings from an extensive study on place brand love.

Three places were chosen for the research: Orlando, Florida; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Las Vegas, Nevada. A study sample of 20 consumers engaged in a variety of methodological techniques including semi-structured consumer interviews, volunteer-employed photography and consumer collage creation.

Thirteen primary themes through which participants articulated their love in respect of the places under study were identified. These can be grouped into four categories: antecedents, relational themes (involving relationships between others, oneself and the place), experiential themes (relating to the experience of being at the place) and outcomes.

‘Brand love’ is an aspect of branding that has not been explored in the context of places, and preliminary results indicate that this may be a useful concept for both academics and practitioners to investigate further.

This chapter explores notions of authenticity in terms of the photographs taken by tourists while on holiday. Some tourists photograph attributes of the host’s culture that they perceive as “authentic”, while ignoring, editing, or erasing aspects that conflict with their “imagined” views. Drawing upon methods of participant-informed photo-ethnography used in a study of US tourists’ holiday photographs of Ireland, tourists will be resituated in this chapter as “editors” in their own photographic reproductions of place. Moreover, by focusing attention to how they confer meaning on destinations and the people who live in them, through the embodied performance of photography, this chapter explores tourists’ notions of authenticity.

In an increasingly competitive marketplace and with homogenization of destination brands occurring alongside globalization, enticing tourists to travel at all, let alone to a particular destination, can be a significant challenge. This paper aims to address this issue through exploration of the utility of the concept of brand love in the context of tourism destinations.

The investigation of the problem involved three large cities in the USA and utilized a variety of qualitative research methods, including tourist interviews, photos and collages. Additionally, the research included key informant interviews.

In total, 13 themes through which participants articulated their love were identified through thematic analysis of the tourist data, and these themes were drawn together in a model of destination brand love. Furthermore, three types of destination brand love were identified, and these coincide with three words for “love” in the Greek language.

The most significant managerial value of the article’s findings likely would come from tourism destination marketing organizations determining what type(s) of love is/are (or could be) prevalent among that destination’s most loyal tourists. Steps to do this are provided.

The complexity in tourists’ relationships with, and feelings of love for, destinations and their brands that this research has revealed demonstrates that there is opportunity for deeper understanding of how and why tourists come to love a destination and its brand. With this more complete knowledge, marketers would be better prepared to foster and grow brand love among their destinations’ tourists, resulting in increased visitation and revenue.

This study identifies and interprets the experiences and relationships of a host community to a marine national park in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, as it transformed from a local recreation site into an international tourist destination. This chapter elaborates on an original and innovative amalgamation of qualitative methods used to collect data consisting of verbal and pictorial techniques, including focus group interviews, visitor employed photography, and an adapted Q-methodology incorporating photo-elicitation. The research design for data collection is provided as a guideline to illustrate how the study progressed through two essential parts. This study contributes to a gap in method on how to extract pictorial measures on a collective basis to systematically to produce group place meanings. Recommendations are suggested based on the challenges faced in this study. This innovative qualitative method was successful in deriving sense of place for a marine park.

Regarding research on authenticity perception, this paper aims to pose the following questions: In different cultural regions, what are the different authenticity elements of old towns from a tourist perspective? What is the difference in authenticity perception in different cultural regions? How does the authenticity perception of old towns change in the tourismification process?

Combining eight cultural regions in China, this study focuses on 155 old towns to discuss the differences between authenticity perception of various old towns in different cultural regions and how the interactions between tourists and local places influence the perception of authenticity, with 11,387 user-generated photographs applied to interpret authenticity perception.

The study shows that the authenticity perceived by tourists varies greatly between farming and pastoral cultural regions; after authenticity loss, old towns with a long history of tourismification regain authenticity in tourists’ perception.

The findings could serve as a reference for tourism development and authenticity protection of old towns. Furthermore, the study explores a creative research method and theoretical framework for regional authenticity studies, which is significant in a global context. In the process of globalization, the implications of this study, including differences in authenticity perception within various cultural regions, will also be significant globally.

This study aims to identify the elements that characterise spaces for tourists and those that characterise spaces for locals in a shopping district based on the perspectives of local students. Forty-five local undergraduates took photographs of settings that impressed them in the shopping district in Naha-shi, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, and the reasons given by each respondent for photographing a particular setting were recorded. Frequently used nouns and adjectives were extracted for each category. The results suggest the importance of the types of commercial facilities and people on the perspectives of locals. Affordable and mundane products are associated with local spaces, while souvenirs may be regarded as symbols of touristic spaces. The absence of locals and the presence of tourists may be characteristics of touristic spaces whereas the potential attractiveness of encounters with locals for tourists is also implied.

The purpose of this study is to explore the benefits and drawbacks of visual methods, specifically architectural drawings, for assessing locals’ perceptions of proposed tourism development in a cultural tourism precinct.

To explore the use of visual methods 21 in-depth interviews were conducted with locals working in the tourism industry in Ubud, Bali. During the interviews, respondents were shown a series of architectural drawings depicting a new Western-branded hotel development.

The use of visual methods, specifically architectural drawings to gauge reactions from respondents revealed mixed levels of support for future tourism development. Respondents were supportive of an increase in visitors but were cautious about the nature of new development.

Visual research methods should also be considered in an interview setting to supplement traditional questioning techniques.

This study provides an outline of how visual methods can either support or detract from qualitative methodologies and allow for a considered design if incorporated into future studies.