Using Instagram hashtags to recruit Asian youth travellers

A research article co-authored by CTR researcher, Dr. Hayato Nagai has been published in e-Review of Tourism Research.

 

Title

Using Instagram hashtags to recruit Asian youth travellers

 

Authors

Yirang Im, Keio Research Institute at SFC

Hayato Nagai, Wakayama University

 

Source

e-Review of Tourism Research

Vol.18. No.5, pp.764–778
https://journals.tdl.org/ertr/index.php/ertr/article/view/593

* Indexed in Scopus
Journal details: https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/21100205110

Abstract

Social media has attracted a growing number of users over the past two decades. In response to this trend, academics have become interested in using social media as a sampling tool in their empirical research. This paper explores the use of Instagram as a sampling tool, given its increasing popularity among young people in particular. To investigate the practicality as well as the advantages and the challenges of adopting this tool, a qualitative study recruited Japanese and Korean youth travellers was used as an example. This paper makes a methodological contribution to tourism research and is expected to encourage discussions on the use of Instagram and other emerging social media tools for sampling in the field. Due to the diversity of social media usage for different generations and cultural settings and its continuous development, future studies are also suggested to extend the current discussion.

Keywords

Instagram; sampling; social media; youth travellers