Preface to Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing Special Issue on visual media and tourism

Seeing is believing. This idiom may not be true when virtual reality and perceived reality are ubiquitous in our daily life. However, visual (and audio) content is more effective in stimulating one’s affective emotions, while verbal cues are more likely to appeal to cognitive reasoning (Watson & Hill, 1993). In terms of tourism destination image (TDI) formation, the affective construct has more impact than its cognitive counterpart (Kim & Yoon, 2003). Hence, this Special Issue is dedicated to delve into the intricate and elusive relationship between visual media and its impact on tourism, be it fantasy creation, motivation/image formation, behavior conditioning, imagination congealing, or satisfaction evaluation.

As with other media, visual media comprise content and channel. In this Special Issue, two channels are mainly involved: television (TV) and films. As for the content, drama (created) and reality” (gathered) are discussed. With the content and channels analyzed, contributors to this Special Issue help us better understand the value of drama/films and their effect on visit intention and experience; reality TV shows and their relationship with tourist behavior and authenticity; and food video clips in stimulating our taste and olfactory senses, which in turn help promote gastronomical tourism. Highlights of nine articles in this Special Issue are outlined in the following.

Perusing cluster analysis, Sam Kim and Sean Kim categorize film tourists into four clusters and identify nostalgia as an important segmentation variable. Nostalgia in film tourism mainly involves “reminiscence of mimicking”, “memory of film backdrops”, and “memory of Hong Kong history and culture”. Through in-depth interviews, Yannik St-James, Jessica Darveau, and Josyane Fortin deepen and expand our understanding of how tourists manipulate and negotiate movies and TV programs to construct immersive experiences.

With an online survey of 430 Chinese respondents, Sam Kim and Sean Kim again expand our understanding of the involvement of the audience in Korean TV drama and their behavior intention by developing and testing a drama consumption model. On the other hand, Matina Terzidou, Dimitrios Stylidis, and Konstantinos Terzidis enlighten us with regard to the impact of another arguably more credible image formation agent: TV news and documentaries. Adopting participant observations and in-depth interviews, they found that broadcast images shape the image of Tinos, Greece, a religious tourism destination, and visiting patterns.

Three articles in this Special Issue delve into the topics of virtual travel, reality TV shows, and authenticity. Youngjoon Choi, Benjamin Hickerson, and Jinsoo Lee conducted an experiment with 213 participants to examine the impacts of technology affordances on virtual travel experience. Nicola Williams-Burnett, Heather Skinner, and Julia Fallon perform a qualitative thematic analysis of reality television portrayals of Kavos, Greece. The negative publicity generated by the reality TV show, according to the authors, may tarnish the image of Kavos. Sohye Kim, Sanghun Park, Carla A. Santos, and Kimberly J. Shinew, on the other hand, content-analyze a Korean reality travel program and take a closer look at authenticity, orientalism, the tourist gaze, and the second gaze.

Celebrity endorsing of products is common in advertising (Creswell, 2008). Filareti Kotsi and Natasa Slak Valek carry out research on the brand personality and its associations with two female celebrities featuring in TV commercials of two airlines in the Middle East. They found that celebrities’ perceived personalities correlate with brand personality and affect consumers’ decision process. The last article is related to food tourism and promotional video clips. Smell is alleged to be the sense that enables quick memory recall (Wilkie, 1994). Sam Kim, Ja Young Choe and Suna Lee analyzed the role of food value video clips which affect members of Generation Y and non-Generation Y. They compared significant differences between these two groups in terms of the perception of local food value, behavioral involvement with food featured in the clips, and intention to embark on culinary tourism at the featured destination.

Overall, nine articles in this Special Issue represent a well-balanced mix in terms of methodology (quantitative, qualitative, and a combination of both), content (film tourism, religious tourism, culinary tourism, and authenticity), and channels (movies, TV drama, TV reality shows, TV news and documentaries, TV commercials, online media, and promotional video clips). We hope and trust you will enjoy reading this Special Issue.