Instagram Favorites: These are the most photogenic destinations in the world

"Instagrammable" is one of those unspeakable new English word creations for which there is luckily no need in German: We can save ourselves, because we have the beautiful word photogenic. This is exactly what is meant when something is "instagrammable" - it is apt to be photographed and successfully published on Instagram. It is photogenic, visual, as a motif chic or beautiful or impressive.

So it's about beautiful motives when the Big 7 media agency calls out the "World's Most Instagrammable Countries" this week. What emerges is quite different from the numbers of tourism statisticians: they are by no means the most popular, most frequently visited travel destinations, but the ones that reap the most "wow!" S on Instagram.

The results are partly comprehensible, partly bizarre. Thus, dictatorships and crisis areas certainly manage to swim somewhere in the midfield of all nations, while the sinking endangered, highly idyllic South Sea island Tuvalu lands on the 192nd and last place.

Not because it's ugly, but simply because there's a shortage of masses of Instagram-infectious cell phone vibrators that make it out there: in 2017, Tuvalu led the world's least-visited tourism poll in the world (about 2,000 a year). Basically, the last place in the Instagram travel ranking is something like a travel recommendation.

Anyway, you just have to be skeptical about rankings that only capture the popularity of a thing. They recommend what many know and appreciate, nothing more, nothing less.

As photo motifs on Instagram, Big 7 claims that these countries are the top 10 in the world:

photo gallery

10 pictures

1st place: Australia
2nd place: Hong Kong
3rd place: Canada
4th place: Indonesia
5th place: South Africa
6th place: Maldives
7th place: India
8th place: USA
9th place: Dubai, UAE
10th place: Singapore

What is noticeable? Europe does not feature in the top rankings. Germany ranks 27th in the global ranking - directly between Greece and Colombia. Far more popular are destinations in Southeast Asia and Oceania, as well as North America.

Not representative, but relevant

Why is that? About the survey method: Big 7 is an agency based in Dubai that operates various websites, maintains travel-interested communities, and monitors and records social media channels. The vast majority of users come from the US and other parts of the English-speaking world.

For the ranking, Big 7 recorded the frequency of country-specific hashtags, which were weighted as a result of 40 percent of the overall score. In addition, each of 30 percent included the opinions of "travel experts" and a survey of their own, Instagram-active user base, of which 8400 completed a corresponding survey form. There was a little censorship: North Korea, Myanmar, Syria and Nauru are completely missing in the ranking, so it's no coincidence that they have "political and ethical" reasons.

All this is therefore not representative, but still relevant: The observation of such Instagram trends to draw conclusions on the travel preferences of Instagram users, says Big 7. Instagram users understand the publications as recommendations that are followed very often: Around 67 Percent of the users polled by Big 7 would have opted for a destination that they became aware of on Instagram. For 33 percent, Instagram is the number one source of information in travel planning.

It is therefore quite possible that the reality of tourism will approach the distorted image of social media popularity in the medium term. For who did not want to travel to the coolest countries on earth according to Instagram? That is not completely wrong, as the view of the picture gallery proves: Chic is all that.