VISUAL EVIDENCE OF ALGORITHMIC BIAS IN TOURISM GEOGRAPHY: A CASE OF BALI'S DUAL DIGITAL LANDSCAPE

Abstract

Social media has transformed a hole of tourism mechanism. It’s affecting on algorithmic and shaping traveler choices. This study present visual evidence of how algorithmic bias on social media generates distinct tourism geographies within a single destination. The distinct echo chamber of users affecting on information consumption in build their decision on tourism destination choices. While the influence of social media on travel inspiration is well documented, their role in creating spatial experiences based on traveler origin remains underexplored. Focused on Bali as an international destination, a quantitative survey was conducted by 100 youth travelers equally divided between domestic and international respondents. Through free-listing method, each respondent named their three favorite destinations. Findings, international tourist huge concentrated with 59.3% on Global Digital Triangle consist of Ubud, Uluwatu, and Canggu. They are caught in a global algorithmic that filters Bali just into three themes: culture, nature, and hipster lifestyle. In contrast, the domestic tourist shows spread out pattern of Localized Digital Exploration, visiting a wider various destination across southern Bali. They are exposed to the same platform algorithm but in local or Indonesian version where the content more diverse and noisier, thus increasing FOMO. This study reveals that an identical digital platform such as Instagram and TikTok generates different tourism geographies within a singular destination, simply because the difference digital bubbles by user.