Analysis of Instagram Content of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism)

Abstract

The aim of this study is to discover what kind of posts are shared on the official Instagram page of the World Tourism Organization and the general information (number of followers, followed, number of posts, etc.) of the account. For this purpose, 213 photos and texts shared on the official Instagram account of the World Tourism Organization between 1 January 2023 and 1 January 2024 (one year) were subjected to content analysis. As a result of the content analysis; 12 main themes were identified: "celebrations", "country promotions", "tourism statistics", "tourism reports", "guidelines", "declaration", "tourism programs and strategies", "important days", "announcements", "news", "tourism types" and "tourism ambassadors". According to these themes, it has been determined that the World Tourism Organization used particular importance to strategies for ensuring both environmental and cultural sustainability in tourism, innovation and digitalization practices in tourism, global climate change and the development of tourism education. In addition, the World Tourism Organization focuses on the development of alternative tourism types such as "sustainable tourism", "gastronomy tourism", "responsible tourism", "rural tourism", "mountain tourism", "greener tourism", "event tourism", "marine tourism", "indigenous tourism", "sport tourism" and "accessible tourism", which enable tourism to spread to twelve months in destinations, reduce environmental destruction, protect local cultural values and transfer them to future generations and provide tourists with different experiences. This study contributes to the enrichment of the relevant literature by revealing the tourism strategies and policies that the World Tourism Organization has recently focused on and the alternative tourism types that have become a trend.