Analysis of reflections of tourism experiences on photographs according to tourist gaze typologies

The aim of this research is to examine the reflections of the experiences of tourists visiting Antalya, Turkey's one of the most visited tourist destinations, according to the tourist gaze typologies. Research questions were answered by choosing the mixed research method and conducted in two separate stages. The first stage is to find out the experiences of tourists with the photo-elicitation technique and the second step is to determine the tourist gaze. Firstly, the analysis of the experiences of the tourists visiting the destination through photographs and in-depth reviews of the experiences reflected on photos according to tourist gaze typologies have been provided. In this context, it is possible to say that the main problem of this research is "Can we examine the tourism experience through photographs taken according to the typologies of tourist gaze?" In related research, interviews based on photo-elicitation technique with local (1) and foreign (29) tourists were conducted on photographs taken by tourists themselves in order to search for answering research questions. In line with the interviews, firstly it was possible to examine the tourism experiences through the photographs, at the same time the empirical findings with tourist gaze theory were overlapped and according to the romantic and collective gaze, the similarities and differences about the experiences of the participants were obtained.