Agency-Curated Journeys: A Netnographic Account of Mediated Tourism and Digital Storytelling in Pakistan

Abstract

Aim of the Study: This netnographic study examines how tourist experiences in Northern Pakistan are produced as mediated and networked phenomena. It also focuses on how travel agencies and social media platforms collectively organize, shape, and stabilize particular ways of experiencing, interpreting, and narrating travel. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) provides the framework, enabling the study to trace interactions among human and non-human actors, such as tourists, tour guides, travel agencies, landscapes, itineraries, smartphones, and digital platforms.

Methodology: Drawing on ethnographic and netnographic design, the study adopts participant observation, in-depth interviews, and social media content for data collection. Fieldwork was conducted across key tourist sites, including Dolai Waterfall, Pir Chanasi, Ganga Choti, Mushkpuri Top, Nathia Gali, and the Pipeline Track in Ayubia National Park. A purposive sample of 31 participants was selected, from diverse backgrounds, who traveled through different travel agencies. The analysis followed thematic coding to identify key themes related to the lived experiences of tourists.

Findings: The findings reveal that tourist experiences are co-produced through interconnected online and offline networks. Travel agencies curate itineraries that guide embodied movement and perception, while social media translates these experiences into aestheticized digital narratives. Digital platforms enroll tourists into specific ways of seeing, moving, and storytelling, stabilizing representations of Northern Pakistan as scenic, peaceful, and aspirational.

Conclusion: The study concludes that tourism in contemporary Pakistan is a hybrid, affective, and technologically mediated practice.  By applying the ANT lens, it reveals how tourist experiences emerge relationally through networks of mediation, challenging individualistic and place-bound understandings of travel.