From Experience to Instagrammable: The Role of Experience Economy Dimensions in Malaysian Agritourism: A Conceptual Paper

The increasing integration of social media into tourism has altered how tourists evaluate and communicate their travel experiences. Destinations are no longer assessed solely on the quality of the physical experience, but also on visual representation and social media sharing. This trend is particularly relevant to agritourism, where experiences offer distinctive visual and experiential content. This conceptual paper adopts Experience Economy Theory and proposes that four dimensions of the Experience Economy—namely aesthetic, escapism, educational, and entertainment—influence tourists' perceived Instagrammability at agritourism destinations. Perceived Instagrammability is conceptualized as tourists' subjective evaluation of an agritourism experience as visually distinctive, photo-worthy, and suitable for digital representation and social media sharing. The paper develops four research hypotheses and argues that Instagrammability should be extended beyond the physical attractiveness of agritourism destinations to incorporate experiential value. The proposed framework contributes to tourism literature by extending Experience Economy Theory and introducing perceived Instagrammability as a digital representational outcome of agritourism experiences. From a practical perspective, the proposed framework provides guidance for agritourism operators in designing experiences that are meaningful to tourists and attractive for digital representation.

agritourism; Experience Economy Theory; perceived Instagrammability; esthetic experience; escapism; educational experience; entertainment experience

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