A Study Of Anti-photography Tourists Behavior From The Perspective Of Self-construal Theory

If modern transportation shortens the tourism space distance, the technique of photography makes it possible to stop the time. As pocket camera and Digital Single Lens Reflex become cheaper, more and more tourists take photos during their travel, however, some tourists excluded. Why do they not take photos apart from those people restrained by objective conditions, such as economic conditions? It can be identified that there is a kind of tourists who are tired of going after fame by taking photos and being ashamed of the mold of mass tourism:"sleeping during driving, pee when parking, taking photos when stopping and knowing nothing the next day". If terming these people "anti-photography tourists", the author wonders to know what the basic characteristics of them are and how to classify them.Therefore, the thesis takes tourists after travel who do not take photos during traveling as the research object. On the other hand, this thesis adopts qualitative method where the author collects data by semi-structured interview, and employs category analysis and scenario analysis to analyze the qualitative data. The purpose of the thesis is to describe the image of anti-photography. In other words, the author tries to explore what the photography and tourism is in the eyes of participants, summarize the characteristic of anti-photography tourists, and then classify them from the perspective of self-construal theory.The research significance can be discussed from the following aspects.. Firstly, the thesis perfects the current studies about photography behavior. Secondly, the thesis expands the self-construal theory in the field of tourism. Thirdly, based on self-construal theory and from the angle of situation, this thesis not only classifies the anti-photography tourists, but also divides the whole tourist group. So it confirms the categories of the relationship between tourist world and living world, which can help systemize the current theories in this field.The research results are organized as follows:At first, the thesis explores the anti-photography tourists starting from the group who do not take photos during traveling. In other words, it researches what the photography and tourism are in the opinion of anti-photography tourists, and then summarizes the characteristics, psychological mechanism and the quality of tourism experience of anti-photography tourists from the perspective of observers. In the eyes of anti-photography tourists, photography can be considered as a way that scenery symbol covers scenery itself, and can also make the journey more fantastic. As a result, the anti-photography does not take photos or take moderate pictures. If they do no take photos, they will compensate themselves by external behavior or internal behavior, and even some of them do not have any regret. In the eyes of the observers, the anti-photography obsesses explicit tourism motivation, and cherishes the internal thoughts and emotion. The relevant characteristics are similar to the peculiarity of the independent self-construal. Compared to the other tourists, the anti-photography mainly adapts to external stimulus by accommodation, and they are easy to get high quality of tourism experience.Secondly, the dominant self-construal involves three kinds of change from living world to tourism world. On the other hand, there are three types of recognition of relationship between tourism world and living world, which is the dividing basis of the anti-photography. The first category, named as "the body at home, but the thought on the road" tourist, they are independent self-construal in both life world and tourism world. Their thought is exploring the world even though their bodies are at home. Thus they can take photos at will even they does not agree with the attitude of mass tourism. The second category, named as "the body on the road, but the thought at home" tourist, they are interdependent self-construal in both life world and tourism world. They are surrounded by familiar air bubble even on the road. So it explains some characteristics of interdependent self-construal in anti-photography tourists. The third category, named as "modern pilgrim" tourist, they are interdependent self-construal at home, but independent self-construal on the road. They can achieve the goal to find themselves entirely, and they are inclined to be an anti-photography tourist.This thesis also includes some limitations. Firstly, the data are not enough abundant because of the problem setting, the age range and the level of education of the participants, the insufficient experience of the author and the limited data resource. Secondly, because of the limited knowledge of the author, the data are not analyzed more deeply and from other perspective. Thirdly, due to the limited time and the budget restraint, foreigners are not interviewed.