The strange case of dating apps at a gay resort: hyper-local and virtual-physical leisure Oskaras Vorobjovas-Pinta and Isaac Jonathan Dalla-Fontana Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report novel information about the use of gay apps by the patrons of an exclusively gay resort in Queensland, Australia. This novel research environment facilitates an understanding of the embeddedness of gay dating apps within contemporary gay culture and community and the spatial reorientation that comes alongside the juxtaposition of physical and digital geographies. Design/methodology/approach – An ethnographic study was conducted at the resort, and qualitative data presented here are drawn from semi-structured interviews with 27 gay-identifying male patrons of the resort. Critical ethnography provided beneficial access to situated perspectives and realities. Findings – These data indicate that gay apps remain a pervasive way of making connections, even in an environment where common homosexuality is a reasonable expectation and where open self-expression is permitted and even encouraged. This complicates assumptions that gay apps’ emergence was in response to a need for privacy or anonymity for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in wider, straight society. Originality/value – This paper reports the results of an ethnographic survey conducted in a highly novel research environment and particularly seeks to address divergent experiences of social and cultural change by LGBT people, including generational divides. It has value in demonstrating clear differences, ambiguities and mixed implications of gay apps and their relationship with changing LGBT spaces. Keywords Digital space, Dating apps, Gay resort, Gay space, Gay travel, Grindr Paper type Research paper Introduction Recent years have witnessed an increase in academic attention given to dating apps and the uncertain intersection of online representations and lived realities; research has concerned variously impression formation, ‘self-branding’, sexual harassment, the changing organisation of urban space and qualitative interaction of motivations and experiences (Beier and Aebli, 2016; Birnholtz et al., 2014; Duguay, 2017; James, 2015; Newett et al., 2017; Shaw, 2016; Sumter et al., 2017). Dating apps have also been described as supplementary tools ‘to access a wide variety of people to digitally match, and meet face- to-face’ (Newett et al., 2017, p. 13). Gay dating apps such as Grindr, Scruff or Hornet were likewise given an elevated interest, when addressing these focal issues, and LGBT-specific concerns, such as HIV prevention and changing gay publics and politics (Albury and Byron, 2016; Blackwell et al., 2015; Bumgarner, 2013; Davis et al., 2016; Licoppe et al., 2016; Race, 2015; Roth, 2014; Van De Wiele and Tong, 2014). However, little scrutiny has been given to these apps’ specific potential to extend and alter experiences while travelling and the instrumental role of apps in patterns of gay mobility. Arguments advanced in the Oskaras Vorobjovas-Pinta is Lecturer at Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia. Isaac Jonathan Dalla- Fontana based at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia. Received 3 March 2017 Revised 7 July 2017 31 October 2017 12 January 2018 Accepted 12 January 2018 The authors would like to thank The Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of Tasmania for a financial support through a PhD Writing Up Fellowship. PAGE 1070 j TOURISM REVIEW j VOL. 74 NO. 5 2019, pp. 1070-1080, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1660-5373 DOI 10.1108/TR-03-2017-0035