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Dr Anna Para
ORCID: 0000-0002-2371-7069

PhD, she works as lecturer and researcher at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Switzerland), at the Institute of Tourism and Mobility. Her doctoral thesis was defended at the Collegium of World Economy of the SGH Warsaw School of Economics (field: management). She conducts applied research on the impact of digitalization on tourism, focusing on the role of data, data ontologies, and data sharing infrastructure. Her teaching is centered on digital marketing, event management and the use of new technologies in tourism and mobility.

 
DOI: 10.33226/1231-7853.2025.10.4
JEL: M31, M37, Z32

Virtual influencers are non-human, digitally created with human-like qualities. This study investigates the visual self-presentation and branding strategies of Esther Olofsson on Instagram using systematic visual content analysis. Thereby exploring how Esther is visually constructed as a digital persona and how elements of tourism, human likeness and influencer aesthetics are integrated into her online representation. A sample of 107 pictures from 94 posts published between October 2022 and October 2023 was selected. Tourism is a key theme, particularly urban and cultural settings, positioning Esther as an aspiring travel figure. The study also highlights how virtual influencer challenge traditional notions of identity, presence, and trust in digital marketing. Overall, the study shows how visual cues are strategically used to construct a coherent yet ambiguous digital self that bridges human and virtual identities. It contributes to research on influencer cultures, visual communication, and the aesthetics of virtual entities in tourism and branding.

Keywords: virtual influencers; social media influencers; social media; tourism marketing; visual content analysis