What's there beyond the sun and the sea?: Detecting tourists' interest towards nature in a mass tourism destination using social media data

Abstract

Nature-based tourism is a rapidly growing subsector of the international tourism industry. However, capturing broad-scale patterns of nature visits during touristic trips or visitors' appreciation of nature may be difficult using traditional data sources and methods. In this study, we harness geotagged social media data to understand the scale of nature visits and the interest towards nature among tourists in the mass tourism destination and a biodiversity hotspot of the Canary Islands, Spain. We collected all geotagged Flickr posts posted between 2004 and 2022 (N = 723,012). We then combined spatial analysis and computer vision to analyse interest towards nature from place-based and content-based perspectives. We applied multiple validation strategies to contextualize our results. The place-based analysis showed that one third of Flickr posts were made in natural areas, of which three quarters were in protected areas and a smaller proportion in non-protected natural areas. The majority of all Flickr users had posted at least once from a natural area, with distinct variation between users from different countries. The content-based analysis showed that one fourth of Flickr photos featured primarily nature-related content and were posted both inside and outside natural areas. However, photos depicting people formed the largest cluster of content posted from nature, highlighting an important social component of nature visits. Our findings suggest that nature, beyond coastal areas and urban environments, plays an important role in the tourism of the Canary Islands. If tourism in the islands continues to grow, the pressures on natural areas are also likely to intensify. Understanding the role of digital representations of nature experiences may provide further insights into how social media channels demand and shape expectations that may exacerbate overtourism and threaten conservation goals. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.