Engagement and Experience Co-Creation: An Analysis of Hotel Instagram Profiles in Porto
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29036/3xhbty24Keywords:
Engagement analysis, Instagram, Accomodation, Co-creation of experiences, Tourism, Porto, PortugalAbstract
This article aims to delve deeper into tourists’ interaction with content uploaded to the Instagram social network by hotel profiles. Several research questions are stated regarding hotel characteristics, the co-creation dimension, and the type of media posted on Instagram that affect use, activity, audience, and engagement. Our work performs an engagement analysis of the Instagram profiles of 171 hotel establishments in Porto (Portugal). We examined 10,017 Instagram posts from the accounts' inception to July 2022, representing the entire dataset. Using complete and unfiltered data is crucial to perform robust and reliable analyses. Data were collected using Instaloader, an advanced Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) technique, widely validated in recent research. From the hotel's perspective, the results demonstrate carelessness in communication and little importance given to planning interaction and co-creation on social networks. In line with previous research, star-rated hotels and those with larger capacities tend to have a more active presence on Instagram. Regarding higher levels of engagement, focusing on quality over quantity in posts is recommended. Reinforcing content that includes photographs of the destination and hotel simultaneously (a holistic perspective of co-creation) seems to enhance engagement. Hotels should encourage customers to provide feedback to improve their experiences and leverage quality images to obtain higher engagement. More empirical research is needed in engagement analysis on social media. From a theoretical perspective, the study contributes to understanding the role of tourists in co-creation, reinforcing the need to foster engagement between tourists and hotels through Instagram. From a practical view, the methodology can be replicated by companies to analyze which content generates higher engagement and to develop better strategies for co-creating experiences and enhancing brand value. To our knowledge, this is the first work applying engagement analysis to hotel Instagram profiles in relation to post characteristics and co-creation.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Journal of Tourism and Services

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Journal of Tourism and Services (ISSN 1804-5650) is published by the Center for International Scientific Research of VŠO and VŠPP in cooperation with the following partners:
- Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Faculty of Economics and Tourism, Croatia
- School of Business and Administration of the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, Portugal
- Szent István University, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Hungary
- Pan-European University, Faculty of Business, Prague, Czech Republic
- Pan-European University, Faculty of Entrepreneurship and Law, Prague, Czech Republic
- University of Debrecen Faculty of Economics and Business, Hungary
- University of Zilina, Faculty of Operation and Economics of Transport and Communications, Slovakia
The publisher provides a free access policy to the Journal of Tourism and Services.