The Impact of YouTube in Tourism Destinations: A Methodological Proposal to Qualitatively Measure Image Positioning—Case: Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The purpose of this research is, through a methodological proposal, to determine the representation of the image of a destination generated by the travel youtubers of the gastronomic segment. This is the case of Saudi Arabia and its gastronomic image. To identify the gastronomic image of Saudi Arabia, the theories of social representation, agenda setting, and framing will be used to analyze the videos of two important gastronomic youtubers and their effects on their audiences. Overall, this study supports the idea that new communication channels can be used to verify the effectiveness, adapting the methodologies used in traditional media as well as taking advantage of processing software for qualitative and quantitative data such as Atlasti. The proposed study can contribute to methodological development in the field, and the insights gained by its application can influence tourism marketing and media planning in tourism organizations. The results show several positioning attributes detected in the public frame as amazing, hospitality, delicious, and culture as well as in the media frame were found attributes such as delicious, fresh, camel, liver, lamb, ghee, spices, rice, etc.

1. Introduction

This paper is an extended version of a preliminary report that was presented at the III International Tourism, Hospitality and Gastronomy Congress: Digital Transformation and Sustainable Development October 2022, in Lima, Peru, organized by Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola.

For tourism organizations the technological developments and the digital transfor-mation of our society represent a challenge, but also an opportunity. A challenge in the sense that media communication used in press trips is both analog and digital from very different eras and social structures. Moreover, currently, the success of digital media is only measured quantitatively by indicators such as the number of likes, views, shares, and comments, and not qualitatively. The qualitative analysis of the impact of press trips would allow for analyzing the desired positioning and the positioning of the image of the tourist destination. According to this study, new communication channels, Youtube, in this case, could give us the opportunity to have this needed qualitative analysis.

1.1. Tourism Promotion and Mass Media

The media are a very important tool in the positioning of tourist destinations. McCombs [1] highlights that they are one of the main sources to know the world. For his part, Walter Lippmann [2] highlights that the process of opinion formation forces us to imagine distant places and times. In addition, it is the media that gives us the input to form opinions of the destinations. Likewise, the media participates in the formation of opinions about other countries Wanta et al. [3].

Heidegger [4] used the concept of wir sind über etwas im Bilde, “Being aware of something” (p. 73), to recreate the image of the world, that is, having information from distant places that we did not know allows us to have an image of these by data that arrive. This is the importance of the media for tourism promotion and a particular action, press tours.

Press trips are a publicity action. That is, it is information that organizations want to be published by the media without any payment which differentiates it from advertising. González et al. [5] affirm that, within the framework of tourism promotion developed by tourism marketing organizations, press tours are part of a plan to position the tourist offer with the help of the media in order to achieve the objective of attracting tourists.

Elliot and Lange-Faria [6] highlight that the development of new technologies is positive for the promotion of destinations and that social media has become the main source of information for travelers. The general use of the Smartphone has completely changed our world. Through this device, it is easier to create community and word of mouth for the travel decisions. For Montero [7], the influencer strategy is ideal for the tourism industry. The way of communicating and informing oneself has changed rapidly due to new communications technologies and other options have appeared to promote destinations, which have occupied the position of traditional media, as the main source of information.

The Internet is a source of information. Internet users can search for answers to the information they are looking for. It is also a means of communication that contains other media McLuhan [8]. Native media such as travel blogs were also born. In the new media, they also represent a challenge for the use of indicators that allow to know the return on investment for the promotion of the destination. An indicator to use is visits and comments on blogs. Social networks open space for the content of tourist destinations and travel experiences but are also a challenge to identify the metrics that help to know the return on investment of the tourism promotion action.

1.2. Literature Review

Farhangi and Alipour [9] highlight the effectiveness of social networks in order to position a good image of the tourism destinations despite the country’s problems. In their study, they used two theories: the social influence theory and the destination image theory.

Their study uses framing, agenda setting, and social representation as some theories that were effective to analyze the content in media such as newspapers and television. In this study, the hypothesis is that it is possible to know the representative image of a tourist destination in a new media channel such as YouTube using these theories of framing, agenda setting, and social representation that were successful with older media such as written media. This kind of study analyzes many aspects of the country´s image such as economic, political, and historical, but for this study, the focus is the gastronomical aspect of Saudi Arabia developed by two important youtubers. Oleaque [10], Ryzgkov [11], and Palacios [12] used all or some of these theories: framing, agenda setting, and social representation.

Although media evolves, the theories of communication sciences continue to be effective in analyzing content and its impact on audiences, and this is useful for the qualitative analysis of promotional actions for tourist destinations such as press trips. However, the methodological procedures have to evolve and adapt as well.

1.3. Social Representation Theory

The theory of social representation was developed by the psychologist Sergei Moscovici in 1961 to explain how humans formed images of things in their minds and how this influenced their social behavior. Jodelet [13], another important researcher of social representations, explains that representations have two dimensions, one is context and the other is belonging. The first refers to the process of interacting with the world and gaining experience, while the second is understanding and interacting with the known world after experience. Jodelet [13] studies media in order to identify the elements that build the representations of the images. For his part, another important researcher, Jean Abric [14], develops the sub-theory of the nucleus and the periphery. Here, the nucleus has characteristics of being made up of aspects of the image that are more difficult to modify, and the periphery is made up of aspects around said nucleus and has the functions of defending the nucleus, anchoring, and regulating aspects of the image that can change.

1.4. Agenda Setting Theory

Cohen [15] indicates that the media influences issues that we should be thinking about, such as economics, sports and politics, more than how we think. There are three aspects to consider: the media agenda, the political agenda, and the public agenda.

1.5. Framing Theory

Bateson [16], from the field of psychology, used the framing theory to explain the process of interpreting the reality of the people´s world through the study of the messages in the communications process. This theory is widely used in the field of communication sciences since it studies the part of reality communicated by the media. According to Goffman [17], this helps public opinion to form a common interpretation.

For Sábada [18], the press makes use of symbols that represent the message. The representation is elaborated on from the perspective of the journalist. This is related to the first part of the framing process, which is the building frame, with the journalist being the creator or also, in the field of social networks, the influencer. Two other parts of the process are the news frame (what is published in the medium) and the audience frame (the impact on the public). This study follows Scheufele’s [19] methodological proposal for the study of frames. That is, it makes an analysis of the macroscopic (media frame) and microscopic (audience frames) levels and their relationship.

Ardevol [20] indicates that the frames of interpretation of society are because of the messages from journalists through the media. Tewksbury et al. [21] share the same assertion. This study seeks to identify the frames of the media (YouTube) and the frames of the audience embodied through the comments of the videos on Saudi Arabian gastronomy elaborated by YouTube channels of Mark Wiens, with 9.7 million subscribers, and The Food Ranger, with more than 5.5 million subscribers, which will help to understand the social representation of the media and the social representation of the audience. The proposed agenda is gastronomy.

2. Methodology

The study is non-experimental with a mixed approach. The technique used is the documentary analysis of Youtube video transcripts and the comments made on these videos. To test the proposed methodology, the youtuber Mark Wiens, with 9.7 million subscribers, and Trebor James (The Food Ranger), with 5.5 million subscribers.

2.1. Reason for Select Youtubers and Saudi Arabia

The research objective is, through a methodological proposal, to determine the representation of the image of destinations generated by travel youtubers in the gastronomic segment. In that sense, the first goal was choosing the most important gastronomic and travel youtuber. According to many sources [22,23,24], at the time of the study, one of the best was Mark Wiens. The next goal was choosing a location visited recently by Mark and another important youtuber with the same segmentation. The country that complied with this requirement was Saudi Arabia. Mark Weins posted seven videos in February 2023 about Saudi Arabia and Trebor James was the other youtuber selected because he posted three videos between April and May 2022 about this same destination and is another famous Youtube food vlogger [25]. In short, the choice of youtubers was to contrast the representation of the image of a gastronomic destination to compare the information about the same object in a similar space and time.

2.2. Information Processing

Databases were created with all the transcripts of videos from the two youtubers in their reports on Saudi Arabia, as well as in the comments on said videos. These were in Excel. These documents were then uploaded to the Atlas.ti8 program (textual and visual information analysis program) to be processed and show the most repeated words. This can be seen in the middle of the word clouds. In order to determine the attributes, only adjectives, verbs, and nouns were considered. The other words excluded were conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and adverbs.

2.3. Information Discussion

The data gathered, as well as the methodology and theories as applied to a new means of communication such as YouTube, will allow us to determine the representation of the image through the destination attributes mentioned in the videos (media frame) as well as in the comments (audience frame).

Through the mixed analysis program, Atlast.ti8, the transcriptions of the seven videos by Mark Wiens and the three by Trebor James on his channel, The Food Ranger, were analyzed to know the representation of the image that represented the gastronomy of Saudi Arabia on their respective channels. It is worth noting that on YouTube, it is possible to obtain transcripts of videos and read them if required. The 10 videos together had 10,836,352 views. With Atlas.ti8, all the comments of the 10 videos were analyzed, which in total, as of 18 March, the day the data were collected, was 16,327. Said data were also processed through the Atlast.ti8 program to know the understanding of the image of the gastronomy of Saudi Arabia for the subscribers. The data were analyzed considering the theory of social representation, the agenda, and the framing (see Figure 1).

The data in

Table 1. The Food Ranger channel’s videos that were analyzed.

Videos	Date	Country	Minutes	Subscribers	Views	Likes	Commentaries
1. Video	10 April 2022	Saudi Arabia	16.08	5.5 millons	1.5 millons	21,263	1076
2. Video	24 Abril 2022	Saudi Arabia	19.52	5.5 millons	1.5 millons	26,502	1456
3. Video	28 May 2022	Saudi Arabia	18.37	5.5 millons	986,806	20,961	871

Source: The Food Ranger [26,27,28].

were collected on 18 March 2023 to later be processed and analyzed through the Atlasti.8 program. The data come from three videos on The Food Ranger’s channel about Saudi Arabian gastronomy, with which they created an image of it and generated an effect on their audience while showing the image they have of Saudi Arabian gastronomy. Video 1 titled: Most UNIQUE Street Food in Saudi Arabia—RARE Village Haneeth Making Process in DEEP South Saudi! [26]. Video 2 is titled: Most RARE Street Food Tour of Saudi Arabia—INSANE Camel Platter + FULL Day of Eating Saudi Food!!! [27]. Video 3 is titled: Going FULL ON for Street Food in Saudi Arabia! Fried camel, MASSIVE meat plates, and MORE! Let’s eat [28].

The data in

Table 2. Mark Wiens channel videos analyzed.

Videos	Date	Country	Minutes	Subscribers	Views	Likes	Commentaries
1. Video 1	4 February 2023	Saudi Arabia	31.28	9.7 millions	1.4 millions	30,374	2711
2. Video 2	7 February 2023	Saudi Arabia	20.12	9.7 millions	1 million	23,413	1739
3. Video 3	11 February 2023	Saudi Arabia	22.50	9.7 millions	839,751	20,907	2044
4. Video 4	14 February 2023	Saudi Arabia	30.31	9.7 millions	1.1 millions	23,459	1950
5. Video 5	18 February 2023	Saudi Arabia	38.01	9.7 millions	1 million	23,914	1524
6. Video 6	25 February 2023	Saudi Arabia	40.43	9.7 millions	803.166	18,766	1713
7. Video 7	February 2023	Saudi Arabia	29.13	9.7 millions	706,628	15,446	1243

Source: Mark Wiens [29,30,31,32,33,34,35].

were collected on March 16, 2023 to be later processed and analyzed through the Atlasti.8 program. The data come from seven videos on Mark Wiens channel about Saudi Arabian gastronomy, with which they create an image of it through YouTube (framing and media representation) and generate an effect on his public (framing and representation of the audience), which also shows the image he has of Saudi Arabian gastronomy. The seven videos analyzed were The Ultimate SAUDI ARABIAN FOOD Tour in Riyadh!! 5 Best Restaurants You Can’t Miss! [29], Street Food + SEAFOOD in Saudi Arabia!! _SA Best RED SEA Fish and Shrimp in Jeddah!! [30], Unseen SAUDI ARABIA Village Food!! Whole Goat RICE PLATTER in Jazan (Yemen Border)!! [31], World’s CRISPIEST Lamb!! King of MEAT & HONEY in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia! [32], Better Than GOLD!! Rare ARABIAN FOOD in World’s Biggest Oasis—2 Million Palm Trees! [33], They Serve 1000’s a Day!! BIGGEST SHAWARMA—Middle Eastern Food!! [34], and Extreme Hospitality!! SAUDI ARABIAN FOOD on Remote Farasan Islands in the RED SEA!! [35].

3. Results

3.1. Analysis of Youtube Channel the Food Ranger

This study’s objective is to know the representation of the image of the destination generated by travel youtubers’ gastronomic segment in order to help tourism promotion organizations to know if the desired positioning is being achieved. In that sense, by analyzing the video transcript of the video, Most UNIQUE Street Food in Saudi Arabia—RARE Village Haneeth Making Process in DEEP South Saudi! [26], and its comments through the program Atlast.ti8, it is possible to see the media and the audience frames, as shown in Figure 2. The cloud transcription shows the attributes represented by the Saudi Gastronomy through “media frames” and also, it shows the effect in the cloud commentaries. The most important media frames appear including Amazing, meat, eat, rice, bread, try, aroma, etc. On the other hand, it is possible to see the media frame effect in the cloud commentaries (audience frames) that let us know some positioning attributes that build the representation of the image of the destination Saudi Arabia. As the most important media frames appear to be Amazing, meat, eat, rice, bread, try, and aroma. While the most important “audience frames” appear to be food, amazing, delicious, and Saudi Arabia. The comparison lets us know the influence of this video on the audience.

By analyzing the video transcript and viewers’ comments of Most RARE Street Food Tour of Saudi Arabia—INSANE Camel Platter + FULL Day of Eating Saudi Food!!! [27] using the program Atlast.ti8, it is possible to seethe media and audience frames in Figure 3. The cloud transcription represents the image of Saudi Gastronomy through “media frames” and it shows the effect in the cloud commentaries. The most important media frames that let us know some positioning attributes that build the representation of the image of the destination, Saudi Arabia, appear to be Amazing, camel, honey, meat, WOW, go, try, and chef. Moreover, the most important “audience frames” appear to be food, like, amazing, Saudi Arabia, and delicious. The comparison lets us know the influence of this video on the audience.

Figure 4 shows us the analysis of the video transcripts and viewer comments on the third video: Going FULL ON for Street Food in Saudi Arabia! Fried camel, MASSIVE meat plates, and MORE! Let’s eat [28]. Through the program Atlast.ti8, it is possible to see the media and the audience frames, as shown in Figure 4. The cloud transcription represents the image of Saudi Gastronomy through the “media frames” and it shows the effect in the cloud commentaries. The most important media frames that let us know some positioning attributes that build the representation of the image of the destination Saudi Arabia appear to be WOW, amazing, bread, foul, meat, eat, try, camel, and Saudi. The most important “audience frames” appear food, Arabia, Saudi, nice, love, amazing, delicious, and camel. The comparison lets us know the influence of this video on the audience.

3.2. Analysis of YouTube Channel Mark Wiens

Figure 5 shows us the results of the second youtuber, Mark Wiens, regarding the video transcript and viewer comments of The Ultimate SAUDI ARABIAN FOOD Tour in Riyadh!! 5 Best Restaurants You Can’t Miss! [29] The cloud transcription represents the image of Saudi Gastronomy through the “media frames” and it shows the effect in the cloud commentaries. The most important media frames that let us know some positioning attributes that build the representation of the image of the destination Saudi Arabia appear to be eat, lamb, liver, rice, and try. The most important “audience frames” appear food, Arabia, Saudi, eat, hit, love, and riyadh. The comparison lets us know the influence of this video on the audience.

Figure 6 shows us the results of Mark Wiens’s video: Street Food + SEAFOOD in Saudi Arabia!! _SA Best RED SEA Fish and Shrimp in Jeddah!! [30]. The cloud transcription represents the image of Saudi Gastronomy through the “media frames” and it shows the effect in the cloud commentaries. The most important media frames that let us to know some positioning attributes that build the representation of the image of the destination Saudi Arabia appear to be fish, eat, good, fresh, food, sea, spices, try, and sauce. The most important “audience frames” appear to be food, Arabia, Saudi, Arabia, Jeddah, visit, country, and yummy. The comparison lets us know the influence of this video on the audience.

Figure 7 shows us the results of Mark Wiens’s video: Unseen SAUDI ARABIA Village Food!! Whole Goat RICE PLATTER in Jazan (Yemen Border)!! [31]. The cloud transcription represents the image of Saudi Gastronomy through the “media frames” and it shows the effect in the cloud commentaries. The most important media frames that let us know some positioning attributes that build the representation of the image of the destination, Saudi Arabia, appear to be Coffee, goat, honey, bread, unique, and meat. The most important “audience frames” appear to be food, Arabia, Saudi, coffee, amazing, beautiful, try, visit, country, and culture. The comparison lets us know the influence of this video on the audience.

Figure 8 shows us the analysis of the video transcriptions and viewer comments on World’s CRISPIEST Lamb!! King of MEAT & HONEY in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia! [32]. The cloud transcription represents the image of Saudi Gastronomy through ”media frames” and it shows the effect in the cloud commentaries. The most important media frames that let us know some positioning attributes that build the representation of the image of the destination Saudi Arabia appear to be Lamb, eat, flavor, food, Saudi, Arabia, sauce, and honey. As a most important “audience frames” appear food, lamb, Saudi, Arabia, delicious, honey, amazing, and Jeddah. The comparison lets us know the influence of this video on the audience.

Figure 9 shows us the results of the video transcriptions and viewer comments on Better Than GOLD!! Rare ARABIAN FOOD in World’s Biggest Oasis—2 Million Palm Trees! [33]. The cloud transcription represents the image of Saudi Gastronomy through the “media frames” and it shows the effect in the cloud commentaries. The most important media frames that let us know some positioning attributes that build the representation of the image of the destination Saudi Arabia appear to be rice, bread, ghee, spice, dish, food, good, lamb, coffee, and Saudi. The most important “audience frames” appear to be food, good, Saudi, Arabia, amazing, beautiful, culture, and eat. The comparison lets us know the influence of this video on the audience.

By analyzing the video transcripts and its viewer’s comments on They Serve 1000′s a Day!! BIGGEST SHAWARMA—Middle Eastern Food!! [34] through the program Atlast.ti8, it is possible to see in Figure 10 the media and the audience frames. The cloud transcription represents the image of Saudi Gastronomy through the “media frames” and it shows the effect in the cloud commentaries. The most important media frames that let us know some positioning attributes that build the representation of the image of the destination Saudi Arabia appear to be rice, camel, bread, meat, shawarma, flavor, spices, and lamb. The most important “audience frames” appear to be food, Arabia, Saudi, shawarma, eat, best, amazing, and delicious. The comparison lets us know the influence of this video on the audience.

Figure 11 shows us the results of the last video analyzed: Extreme Hospitality!! SAUDI ARABIAN FOOD on Remote Farasan Islands in the RED SEA!! [35]. The cloud transcription represents the image of Saudi Gastronomy through the “media frames” and it shows the effect in the cloud commentaries. The most important media frames that let us know some positioning attributes that build the representation of the image of the destination Saudi Arabia appear to be fish, beach, dish, food, spices, bread, onions, meal, and good. The most important “audience frames” appear to be food, Arabia, Saudi, amazing, great, people, and fish. The comparison lets us know the influence of this video on the audience.

In Figure 12 and Figure 13, we can see the similarities in the representation of the image through the frames of the media built by the youtubers, as well as the similarity in terms of the representation of the image through the audience frames. In the clouds of the representation of the image, food is at the center of the cloud of the public agenda. That happened as an effect in all the videos of the two gastronomic youtubers, Mark Wiens and Trevor James (The Food Rangers).

4. Discussion

The methodology we followed allows us to know the representation of the medium of the image of the gastronomy of Saudi Arabia, as well as the representation of the image positioned as a media effect in the viewers of the video on the YouTube channels of Mark Wiens and The Food Ranger. The study chose gastronomy as the topic of the media agenda, and what is observed in the results is the appearance of the public agenda in the center of all the clouds of results presented. The study also worked on the frames of the medium that helps to know the gastronomic image of Saudi Arabia and the frames of the audience allows to know the representation of the image of the public. Other studies have successfully used these classic theories several decades ago, and although McLuhan [36] indicates the determinism of the media to explain the impact on changes in society, this does not imply that the theories used for media that lost prominence are obsolete for the emerging media. This study is proof of that due to its use of classical theories (social representation, agenda setting, and framing) in a new media such as YouTube. The variation and contribution that this study presents were in the methodology that adapts to the characteristics and opportunities offered by the medium, as well as the use of new data processing programs such as Atlas.ti which is used in this paper.

The study and its results can complement other efforts, such as that of Farhangi and Alipour [15], for demonstrating the effectiveness of social networks in positioning a positive image of tourist destinations. The results of the analysis of the youtuber videos helped to know the gastronomic image for the destination of Saudi Arabia with the attributes that appear in the final part of Figure 14.

The data analyzed show the relationship between gastronomy and the culture of Saudi Arabia. Other researchers included culture as a dimension of the country’s image [16,17] and another has taken it as a particular dimension [37] that helps to form the image of a country by the same as methodologies of marketing consulting that measure the tourism image of the countries [38] and include culture and gastronomy as a part of the attribute of leisure and entertainment [39]. The approach applied in this paper considered gastronomy as only one dimension of the country’s image representation but it recognizes the relation with the culture dimension because culture is a huge concept that also affects other dimensions such as politics, history, the economy, and society. Future studies could continue to be in this discussion. The results detailed above let us know the categories in the gastronomic positioning axes (gastronomy agenda), and their attributes also let us determinate the frames (categories) that will allow us to develop an instrument to continually measure the image of Saudi Arabia as a tourism destination and as a country.

5. Conclusions

Information Communication Technology (ICTs) evolution has consequences in our society and in many sectors such as tourism. Tourism organizations need to be conscious that human beings require media in order to know the image of the world, and the newest communication medias represent a challenge for their objectives.

Digital transformation presents challenges for the positioning of destinations, and knowing their effectiveness and efficiency is not only a matter of numbers or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that help us to monitor the social media strategies and also apply a qualitative analysis to know the representation of the image of the destinations.

This paper has identified several attributes that allowed us to determine the representation of the gastronomic image of Saudi Arabia as a culinary destination, based on the Youtube channels of gastronomic influencers (media frames) as well as of their public (audience frames) through a deductive qualitative analysis considering the theories of representation. social, agenda setting, and framing.

5.1. Theoretical Implications

The theoretical contribution of this study is to have demonstrated that to know the image of an object, it is possible to continue using, with effective results, the theories of social representation, agenda setting, and framing, even though the social structures have changed. However, adapting the methodologies to the possibilities offered by new media and new data analysis software.

5.2. Practical Implications

This study is presented as an aid for tourism organizations as it analyzes the relationship between positioning objectives and the representation of the image of destinations manifested in the videos of the youtubers invited to press trips, as well as their audience.

5.3. Limits and Future Research

A law or universal theory does not exist to describe which dimensions form a country’s image. Each research article builds their own proposal according to a deductive or inductive approach in order to determine the dimensions. This paper considers gastronomy as one dimension and one culture category. Other studies could continue the discussion in order to determine the dimensions that form a country’s image, and new mass media will be useful.