Characterizing sentiments on captions of digital photos featuring UNESCO natural heritage sites: insights from Instagram

Emotions play a crucial role in tourism, shaping perceptions, experiences, and management. While examining emotions in tourism data in the digital space is extensive, the analysis of digital photo captions from visits to natural heritage destinations remains limited. This study sought to examine tourists’ sentiments through 18,599 captions of Instagram posts depicting visits to notable UNESCO-declared natural heritage sites in the Philippines, of which 3,643 were analyzed using Phronetic Iterative Qualitative Data Analysis (PIQDA). To enhance the trustworthiness of the emerging findings, a member-checking procedure was also conducted. Notably, a tabular model comprising three emotional spaces, namely anticipative, appreciative, and reflective, was identified, highlighting tourists’ contexts, dominant emotions, motivations, and mindsets. This research offers insights into natural heritage tourism by enhancing our understanding of tourist sentiments, thereby contributing to both theory and practice.