Understanding Visitor's Recognition of Geosites by Analyzing Instagram Hashtags

인스타그램 해시태그(Hashtags) 분석을 통한 방문객들의 지오사이트 인식에 대한 분석

The objective of this study was two fold: firstly, we analyzed how the Geoparks have been run since the first one had been designated on December 31th, 2015. We then investigated how visitors' geographical and geological recognitions on the parks have changes. We visited geosites and investigated how well these sites accorded with the conditions for running Geoparks. In addition, scenery pictures and hashtags uploaded in Instagram between 2015 and 2016 were collected in order to analyze visitors preferences on the geosites along the, Hantan Imjingang River Geopark. Results showed that the hotspots were Bidulginang Waterall, Art Valley, and Jaein Waterfall. Compared to the ratio of geographical and geological references in 2015, the hashtags in all of these three geosites increased. The increases were as much as 3% in Bidulginang Falls, 0.6% in Art Valley, and 5% in Jaein Falls. In labelling the geographical and geological terms in Bidulginang Falls and Jaein Falls, the most frequently mentioned hashtags was "columnar joint", followed by "natural monument", "Geopark", and "basalt canyon". This study includes the study of visitors recognition which is one of the most important, but somehow neglected factor for the geopark's management.