Uncovering Representations of Environmentally Conscious Travel on TikTok
Bio
I am a fourth year student in TMU’s Professional Communication program with a minor in Events and Live Entertainment, graduating in Spring 2024. After taking a variety of courses throughout my time at the university, I found a passion in live events and project management. In my third year, I completed an exchange semester in Melbourne, Australia, igniting my interest in travel and sustainability. I look forward to entering the workforce and putting to use that all my time at TMU has taught me.
Research Summary
Environmentalism and sustainability has been rising in popularity over the last few years. Now a prevalent theme on social media and in everyday life, more people are inclined to live an environmentally-conscious lifestyle. However, travel continues to be a goal for most Canadians. 8-in-10 Canadians will travel in 2024 (Blue Cross Travel, 2024). Tourism is a major contributor to greenhouse gasses, particularly from plane travel. Social media proves influential in determining travel trends, from destinations, to tourist attractions, to viral social media posts. This project focuses on the ways social media, specifically TikTok content represents travel. The research involved collecting travel-based TikTok content by following a range of hashtags, from #traveltips, to #ecotravel, and more. I conducted an analysis of these videos based on text, audio, and video content, as well as metric data like views, likes, and saves. After gathering data, the TikTok content provided a small-scale view of the different approaches to travel content. While the visual content, format, and audio used across the videos was consistent with current trends, the views, amount of content, and engagement varied significantly between sustainable and non-sustainable videos. Hashtags focused on non-sustainable travel ranged from at least 130 thousand posts to over 7 million, while environmentally focused hashtags had under 10 thousand posts each. This study was conducted on a small scale, and further research is needed to provide a real-world application and conclusion on the representations of environmental travel on TikTok.
