Application of The Tourist Gaze and Virtual Tourism to Brunchloverslyon

Following the development of digital media, and in particular social media, tourism began to be more than just a physical experience. Social media allows tourists to share their holiday destinations as memories which can lead to influencing holiday destinations of others. It is contributing to this idea of digital tourism, were people undergo the tourist experience through digital mediums and without physically being at the location. This develops the idea of virtual tourism, in which a virtual tourist gaze is developed. It creates the idea of expectation vs experience. Many forms of virtual tourism come from the viewing of travel blogs or Instagram accounts. In cases of review blogs or Instagram accounts that recommend places to visit, the concept of virtual tourism has developed. It can be argued that the Instagram account BrunchLoversLyon does this, however it may be unintentional. Through Instagram, this account is constructing a view of Lyon from a local’s perspective and thus potentially impacting how tourists perceive Lyon’s food culture. Using virtual tourism, I will analyse how BrunchLoversLyon is altering tourist expectations of food in Lyon.

Two locals from Lyon decided to share their passion of local cuisine, with a specificity on Brunch, and constructed an Instagram account that showcase their favourite places and food choices. This account is named BrunchLoversLyon. The creators would visit different cafes, take photos of the food and post this on Instagram (and their blog) with a description of the food, the place and whether the café offers vegetarian and/or vegan options. The account is written in French so it can be argued that it is aimed solely at locals. However, this can actually be used as an incentive to tourists outside of France. There is a growing rate of tourists checking review sites such as TripAdvisor before embarking on their holiday because of the personal opinions offered. The opinions expressed are provided by choice rather than to gain financial benefit. Tourist travel sites typically want to express the best information possible, to increase the destinations economy and financial gain. These opinions have been provided free of charge and are not seeking out money through these recommendations. It is merely an opportunity to share an opinion. Tourist content created on social media is typically ‘a mixture of fact and opinion, impression and sentiment, founded and unfounded tidbits, experiences, and even rumour’ (Blackshaw & Nazzaro 2006: 4). ‘BrunchLoversLyon’ does exactly this in their description, expressing their opinion of the food because of their passion. It’s a wholesome motive, and tourists may find themselves drawn to this ideal. This passion arguably leads to why people prefer reviews rather than tourist company recommendation. Schmalleger and Carson argue that one reason for this ‘is certainly the higher perceived credibility of consumer opinions as compared to traditional tourist information sources’ (2008: 100). They have a goal to encourage people to travel there based on multiple features, whereas this blog is solely dedicated to brunch. Their focus on a particular subject highlights the importance and perhaps excellence of the cuisine. This authentic feel leads tourists to rely more on user-generated content, and thus this account becomes a part of a virtual gaze.

However, the virtual gaze is arguably inaccurate and selective because of the content displayed. Iris Lo and Bob McKercher argue that digital photographers allow ‘the photographer to frame reality in an idealised manner’ and ‘to manipulate the image to create an ideal image of what could have been’ (2015).  Take the photo above for example, everything about this picture has been edited to fit an ideal the page is trying to maintain. The foreground is brought into focus while the background has a faint blur to make sure the food is the focal point. There is a filter applied to the image to maintain the beige look they have applied to all of their photos. Unless you are a trained photographer it can be difficult to notice many more drastic changes, but those few say enough. The image has been edited to suit a purpose and has framed the food to look as delectable as possible. When tourists find themselves gazing upon this post, assumptions are made. Urry and Larsen argue that ‘gazing is not merely seeing, but involves cognitive work of interpreting, evaluating, drawing comparisons and making mental connections between signs and their referents, and capturing signs photographically’ (2011: 7). When a tourist finds themselves looking at this post, a number of factors contribute to their assessment. The aesthetics, their personal taste of the food itself, the framing, the filter and even the description. Because the description is just as much a part of this virtual gaze as the photo itself is. The key part to take away from this description in the first paragraph ‘Photo 1 or photo 2? 😀 Difficult to choose at @bartholomelyon so we chose both. At first, we think to share then finally … We make a look and we eat each in our corner while ensuring the others fork does not come close to the plate’ (loose translation). There’s a couple of things to note here, the use of emojis, the engagement with the viewer and the fun story. It’s all very comforting, engaging and fun. This description is likely to impact how the viewer see’s the food and will likely frame it a much more positive light. In fact, the engagement becomes very reminiscent of actually going on a physical food tour. They are providing information, a look at the food and engaging with the audience in a light manner. It’s entertaining and the viewer is likely to pick up on this. By just gazing at this post, their virtual gaze is affected, and they may come out feeling as though they know this place and have a desire to visit Bartholome in Lyon. Sally Everett argues that ‘food is increasingly regarded as a multidimensional, everyday artefact which encompasses the very identity of a place or individual’ (2008: 340). This virtual tour of different places to eat in Lyon is constructing part of Lyon’s cultural identity. It could be argued that this account has portrayed the city as a place where you could find amazing brunch which could influence the overall appeal of food in Lyon in general. Nonetheless, this viewpoint is still very limited and can have adverse effects on how Lyon’s cuisine is seen. On this page, there are no negative reviews, and after a while you can see that the cafes are repeated albeit with different food. It’s a limiting perspective but the tourist viewing the page may not know this. They may come away assuming that all of Lyon is like this, and this may become their standard expectation of not only the cafés mentioned but any café in Lyon.

To conclude, through an analysis of BrunchLoversLyon it is clear they have a role in virtual tourism and how tourist’s expectations on food in Lyon may be changing. It could lead to tourists expecting a specific experience in every café, not just the ones mentioned in on the page, because of how similar all of their images look. While the continuous use of a beige colour throughout makes the page more professional it also sets a standard that tourists may take with them when physically visiting Lyon. It also paints the food in a positive light, making the food appear appealing and delectable when in reality it may not be quite as good. Food preference is just as based on sight as it is taste, and these photos cannot begin to convey how the food tastes, rather expectations that the food will taste amazing is based on reviews and photographs. These types of Instagram accounts build up people’s positive expectations and if those expectations are not met when visiting Lyon, the city could end up tarnished.

Bibliography

• Urry, J. and Larsen, J. (2011) The Tourist Gaze 3.0 London: SAGE
• Blackshaw, P. and Nazzaro, M. (2006) Consumer-generated Media (CGM) 101: Word of Mouth in the age of the web-fortified consumer. New York: Neilsen Buzz Metris
• Schmallegger, D. and Carson, D. (2008) ‘Blogs in tourism: Changing approaches to information exchange’ Journal of Vacation Marketing [online] 14(2), 99-110. available from <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1356766707087519> [3 April 2020]
• Lo, I S. and McKercher, B. (2015) ‘Ideal image in process: Online tourist photography and impression management’ Annals of Tourism Research [online] 52, 104-116. available from <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738315000419> [3 April 2020]
• BrunchLoversLyon (2019) Instagram page. 25 November. available from <https://www.instagram.com/p/B5SMG6gobqC/> [10 April 2020]
• Everett, S. (2008) ‘Beyond the visual gaze? The pursuit of an embodied experience through food tourism’ Tourist Studies [online]8 (3), 337-358. available from <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1468797608100594> [15^th April 2020]