Digital Camera and Mobile Devices: Re-defining the Tourist Experience

Photography is an integral part of the tourist experience particularly due to the intangible nature of travel and tourism. Photos have been discussed by past researchers as means to construct memories, acquire an experience, congeal time of travel and visualize the experience that can later be shared with family and friends. The development of technology and social media platforms has widened the boundaries of photo-taking and photo-sharing, making the process easy, quick and inexpensive. Photos can be shared with a wider audience on an online platform, allowing people to talk about their travel experiences to an intended audience. Participating in such activities while traveling, however, could potentially diminish or remove one’s social engagement and interaction with the destination, thus altering the tourist experience. This paper aims to delineate the experience tourists seek by identifying their travel behaviors as well as engagement with the destination, digital lenses and mobile devices.