Analyzing touristic destination experiences through photographs: The case of Antalya Kaleiçi (Old town)

Alongside tourism approaches based on the rapid consumption of tourist destinations, understandings that prioritise the tourist's subjective experience in experiencing the city are becoming increasingly important today. In this regard, the concepts of flâneur and choraster which highlight the difference between tourists and travellers and are used in the literature to describe the observer and planner approaches to the city, respectively, are noteworthy. As a result of the proliferation of global tourism, accelerated city tours led by professional guides result in tourists experiencing the city superficially as passive observers. It is thought that travellers, much like chorasters, plan their own city tours, interact with the local population and, as a result, experience the city more deeply than mass tourists. The study examined the experiences of mass tourists and travellers at tourist sites in Antalya's Old Town, analysing the similarities and differences between these two tourist categories. It aimed to reveal the positive and negative aspects of an interactive experience-based understanding and whether mass tourists, exposed to artificially staged cultural representations, were able to access the city's natural and authentic appearance. In this study, which considers photography as a tool for making the tourist experience visible and is shaped through tourist photographs, the data obtained in the context of the relationship established with place in the tourist experience are examined within the framework of Urry's tourist gaze, MacCannell's staged authenticity, and Wearing & Wearing's choraster concepts. The research is a case study, a qualitative research method, and was conducted using a holistic multiple case design. The data obtained from semi-structured interviews with participants were subjected to thematic analysis, content analysis, and descriptive analysis, and comparisons were made. Tourist photographs were used as the visual data source in the study, and the data were examined using visual analysis methods. When the findings were considered together, meaningful patterns emerged in line with the objectives of the study and supported the theoretical framework. In this context, it was concluded that the research answered its fundamental and complementary questions. It is thought that this study, conducted with the understanding that Antalya Kaleiçi has a deeper value than just being a tourist area, will provide visual data for new tourism approaches that prioritise field experience.