Exploring the Potential of Nightscape Photography for Tourism: Preliminary Insights

Abstract

The analysis of photo imagery has all been done based on daytime images, not photographs taken by night. In this sense, it is relevant to study tourists’ perceptions of dark night pictures to understand how they can be used by DMOs and advertising agencies to promote the nightscape of a destina- tion. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to explore the perceptions and the emotions evoked by the nightscape pictures based on the principles of environmental psychology, compared to daytime landscape preferences. It also aims to understand if the elements presented in daytime pictures, which turn a certain landscape appreciated, apply to nightscape pictures and, consequently, how they can be used in tourism promotion and branding. An exploratory study was carried out based on the photo- elicitation method, demonstrating the benefits of the combined use of textual and pictorial data. Results show that elements that are key during the day are not the same at night, such as complexity and points of reference. On the contrary, the preferred nightscape is based on simple open spaces, where the human eye could prospect security.