Travelling with Platform Metrics

Abstract

This chapter describes in empirical detail the collaborations between travel influencers and local tourism professionals. Drawing on ethnographic evidence from two creators’ camps in Tallinn, the chapter unveils how forms of enumeration materialised in the situated practices of ‘influencer events’. The increased demand for platform-orientated labour in the global tourism industry reshuffled its system of professions. New tasks and job profiles emerged for tourism professionals. The taskscapes of tourism professionals in Estonia have been pervaded by platfomisation processes. The case of the creators’ camps reveals that the encounter between destination stakeholders and travel influencers is governed by numerical indicators built into the metrical affordances of YouTube and other digital platforms. The career advancement and professional collaborations of the researched travel influencers were deeply entangled in metric systems. Competing over watch time, subscriber numbers and video clicks on YouTube, they embodied a metrified sense of self-evaluation.

Citation

Ritter, C.S. (2024), "Travelling with Platform Metrics", Locating the Influencer: Place and Platform in Global Tourism, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 51-63. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80262-597-420241004