Reaching audiences through travel vlogs: The perspective of involvement

Travel vlogs are popular, but how audiences get involved while watching remains unclear. This study explored audience involvement along with expressions of travel intention. A systematic sampling procedure was developed, filtering 132 ‘highly involving sessions’ from 25 videos in Bilibili, a Chinese video-sharing platform. Qualitative analyses were applied, and the findings were threefold. Firstly, a five-category video content typology was highlighted, including frame aesthetics, video editing, fandom, humour, and tourist experiences. Secondly, bullet comments were deconstructed into six dimensions through examining concepts of ‘audience involvement’. Lastly, to address possible patterns of travel intention linked to the video content types, three propositions were made. This work serves as an exploration of audience involvement in the travel vlog phenomenon, an elaboration of travel intention expression in this context, and a method of assessing tourist-generated videos through bullet comments. Practical implications were discussed.