Gazing from the air: tourist encounters in the age of travel drones

Consumer drones can be increasingly spotted in tourist sites, and arguably the aerial technology has transformed how tourism in Singapore is experienced and represented. This investigation explores in empirical detail how the videomaking practices of DroneTubers contribute to the diversification of tourist encounters. Based on evidence from ethnographic fieldwork in the Southeast Asian metropolis and on digital platforms, this article maps tourist encounters facilitated by drone tourism and illuminates the formation of a platform ecology for travel drones. In recent years drone videos featuring Singapore's urban landscapes have rapidly gained popularity on YouTube. Drawing on analyses of situated drone practices in Singapore's Marina Bay and its audiovisual representation on digital platforms, this case study demonstrates how the platformization of drone tourism facilitates participatory gazing. This form of gazing made possible a prolonged negotiation of the meanings that the researched travel influencers and their audiences attributed to tourist attractions. The frequent use of travel drones in Marina Bay gave rise to an additional space of representation for the urban landscapes of Singapore. The ethnographic study finds that the videomaking practices of DroneTubers extended the scope of tourist encounters by establishing an everyday lived space where the allure of tourist attractions is negotiated through online co-presence. The findings of the study call into question long-standing conceptualisations of tourist encounters as place-bound practices and indicate how drone tourism established new interdependencies among local tourism professionals, tourists and platform audiences.