How Travel Vlogs Contribute to Destination Marketing: A Comparison with DMO Promotional Videos and the Moderating Role of Destination Competitiveness

ABSTRACT This two‐part study examines how travel vlogs influence tourist behaviors and, consequently, their value in destination marketing. A convenience sample of 196 North Americans who belonged to Generation Y was collected via an online experiment. The first part adopted the Attention‐Interest‐Desire‐Action (AIDA) principle as the theoretical underpinning of how travel vlogs influence Gen Y travel behaviors, contrasting them with Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) promotional videos. It was found that travel vlogs impact tourist behavior by attracting tourists' attention, delivering realistic destination information, and inspiring them. The second part examined the relationship between destination competitiveness levels and willingness to pay (WTP), and the impact of travel vlogs and DMO promotional videos on this relationship. It was shown that destination competitiveness levels exert different impacts on WTP between travel vlogs and DMO promotional videos. This study enriches the tourism destination marketing literature and suggests that DMOs tailor their strategies based on destination competitiveness.