Zoom photo taking as a new trend in gastronomy smart tourism

The Covid-19 restrictions compelled tourism suppliers to reconfigure their offer in fully digital formats, especially through the use of video-conferencing platforms, such as Zoom. That has brought about the outburst of a new trend in tourism photography: the ‘Zoom photo taking’, which is a capture of the Zoom screen, then posted in social media to share the memorable moments of the smart tourism experience. This study, conducted in the gastronomy tourism sector, explores this new trend to understand how video-conferencing platforms are reshaping the consumption of smart tourism experiences, giving rise to new self-presentation and social practices. We conducted a netnographic research, which revealed the emergence of three Zoom tourism consumption experiences. Our findings contribute to the smart tourism literature by illustrating how Zoom is being shaped as a new tourism destination for smart tourists. Our study also advances the consumer culture domain by highlighting how the Zoom platform has become the locus where acculturation, socialization and performativity practices are constructed and consumed.