Siegel, Lauren ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2117-8492 (2026) Resident resistance to the Tourist Gaze in the Mediatized Age. In: 33rd ENTER26 eTourism Conference: "Advancing Tourism Technology for a Better Future", 27th - 30th January, 2026, Breda, Netherlands.

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Abstract

Tourists are outsiders in general and culturally distant first-time visitors in particular, are extreme outsiders (McKercher et al., 2008). In places that see increased levels of tourism, negative attitudes towards tourists are becoming more common (Font & Lynes, 2018). Moreover, new media technologies like smartphones and social media have changed the scope of travel motivations and behaviors so that there is a shift towards aspirational consumption in lieu of meaningful cultural connection (Kim & Tussyadiah, 2013; Liu et al., 2018; Lyu, 2016; Siegel et al., 2022). The Japanese city of Kyoto is an iconic tourist site with visitors flocking to the temples, tea houses and geisha districts. Yet the extreme success of Kyoto’s incoming tourism has led to growing tensions with local residents, especially in the Gion district, which is home to the highest concentration of geiko in Japan. The magnitude of resident opposition and the disruptive impact of tourist photography exceeded tolerable limits, prompting municipal authorities to adopt restrictive interventions in the form of a photography ban in the Gion neighborhood instituted in October 2019. Using the results of the survey circulated among the community of Gion, this paper examines the emerging contestation around photography in Kyoto as a lens through which to explore the negotiation of digital tourist practices and local everyday life. The analysis situates the smartphone both as a tool of documentation and as an intrusive technology that reshapes power relations between visitors and residents (Tribe & Mkono, 2017). This study seeks to explore the following research objectives:
• How do residents interpret the encroachment of smartphone photography into their private and communal spaces?
• Which specific tourist behaviors do residents feel are intolerable?

Item Type:	Conference or Conference Paper (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	smartphone photography; social media-induced tourism; Kyoto tourism; tourist behaviour
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Greenwich Business School Greenwich Business School > School of Management and Marketing Greenwich Business School > Tourism and Marketing Research Centre (TMRC)
Related URLs:	Organisation
Last Modified:	28 May 2026 11:53
URI:	https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/53590

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