This study analyses the social media engagement (SME) received by Instagram posts from a tourism destination based on communication and mental imagery theories. This research considers both the type of sender (tourists vs. residents) and the content of the message (pictorial stimuli: places of interest vs. hospitality services; centricity stimuli: people vs. without people). Web scraping technique is used for data collection. Content analysis is then applied on 27,088 Instagram posts using artificial intelligence techniques (machine learning and deep learning); and a univariate generalized linear model is conducted to analyze differences in SME. Results show that pictorial stimulus determines SME, being higher for images focused on places of interest, and photographs with people get higher SME too. The type of sender also influences SME and exerts a moderating role reinforcing the effect of centricity on SME for tourists. These results provide interesting insights for destination marketing managers and Instagram users.

中文翻译：

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了解与旅游目的地的 Instagram 帖子的互动情况


本研究基于沟通和心理意象理论分析了来自旅游目的地的 Instagram 帖子收到的社交媒体参与度 （SME）。这项研究同时考虑了发送者的类型（游客与居民）和信息的内容（图片刺激：名胜古迹与酒店服务;中心性刺激：人与没有人）。Web 抓取技术用于数据收集。然后使用人工智能技术（机器学习和深度学习）对 27,088 个 Instagram 帖子进行内容分析;并采用单变量广义线性模型来分析 SME 的差异。结果显示，图片刺激决定了 SME，专注于感兴趣地点的图像更高，与人物的照片也获得了更高的 SME。发件人的类型也会影响 SME，并发挥调节作用，加强以为中心的对游客的 SME 的影响。这些结果为目的地营销经理和 Instagram 用户提供了有趣的见解。