Vertical or horizontal? The interaction between frame orientation formats and visual content in tourism short videos

Purpose This study aims to investigate how the frame orientation format and visual content of tourism short videos interact to influence tourists’ travel intention. Design/methodology/approach Two scenario-based experiments were designed and conducted through Credamo. The researchers enrolled 187 participants for Study 1 using convenience sampling, measuring the impact of video frame orientation and visual content on travel intention by conducting a two-factor analysis of covariance. Study 2 retested the interaction effect using 237 sample data and conducted bootstrapping to examine the serially mediating effect of imagery fluency and travel inspiration. Findings Frame orientation formats and visual content interactively affect the video audience’s travel intention: For site-centric tourism short videos, the horizontal frame orientation format can help inspire audiences’ travel intention; However, for activity-centric tourism short videos, the vertical frame orientation format is more suitable. Imagery fluency and travel inspiration have serially mediated effects in the above interactions. Practical implications Destination marketers can use a combination of vertical format and activity-centric content (or horizontal format and site-centric content) to ensure the marketing effectiveness of short videos. Originality/value This study explores how frame orientation and visual content interact to influence video audiences’ travel intention. The findings challenge the traditional understanding of frame orientation selection in short videos, provide a meaningful extension of construal-level theory and contribute to the research on visual effects in short tourism videos.