Non-place making: Chinese tourists’ production of tourist spaces through social media

This study develops the concept of non-place making to examine how tourism non-places emerge through the intersection of tourist practices, social media platforms, and local contexts. Using Otaru as a case study, it explores how Chinese tourists intentionally create transient, fluid, and asocial non-places during outbound travel, specifically through daka—the practice of taking photographs to mark one’s presence while performing aesthetic and vernacular expressions on social media. Drawing on sensory ethnography during personal travel and netnography on Xiaohongshu, a popular domestic platform for sharing travel experiences and lifestyles, the paper reveals how tourists transform Asari Station, Sumiyoshi Shrine, and Tenguyama’s snowy scenery into tourism non-places. These transformations are driven by performative practices that prioritize niche experiences and photogenic representations, particularly during the overcrowded snow season. This study advances tourism geography by conceptualizing non-place making as a performative process shaped by tourist subjectivity, platform aesthetics, and local spatial conditions. It provides a critical lens for understanding how social media-driven tourism reconfigures spatial experiences and meanings, shifting attention from the fostering of a sense of place to the aestheticization and erosion of local culture.