Tourism and photography: a bibliometric study of using image analysis methodologies in tourism research

Abstract This article aims at investigating the use of image analysis methodologies in recent (2012-2017) tourism research on national and international levels. Through exploratory research and a systematic review of literature-of a bibliometric nature-in a worldwide journal database, it sought to verify the main methodologies used in the field of tourism, in which areas these methods are mostly used, and how images for research are collected. As a result, we verified that tourism research makes use of traditional methodologies such as semiotics and content analysis in its analysis of images. Several methodologies have appeared on a lesser degree, such as volunteer-employed photography, visual anthropology/photoetnography, photoelicitation, Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET), and others, including iconography. It should be noted that the use of these methodologies in the studies analyzed was accompanied by other highly-regarded qualitative methods-in-depth interviews and participant observation, for example-as a way to validate the research results. However, as it was noted through this mapping, visual analysis methodologies can contribute to tourism research, capturing the tourist gaze and offering perspectives that neither surveys nor in-depth interviews are able to provide. Therefore, this article points towards new possibilities for tourism research