How can short travel videos facilitate tourists’ decision-making about traveling to cultural heritage destinations? Evidence from the Wudang Mountain Complex

Purpose Tourist attractions promote their marketing campaigns by releasing short tourism promotional videos for their potential to promote tourists’ decision-making. However, few scholars have studied the impact of short videos of cultural heritage tourism sites on potential tourists’ destination decisions. Design/methodology/approach In this study, the Wudang Mountain Complex, a world cultural heritage site, was used as a case study, and stimulus-organism-response theory was applied to forecast the behavioral motives of prospective tourists. About 401 responses from those who watched the short videos of the Wudang Mountain Complex were collected for the structural equation modeling test. Findings The study’s findings have validated the link among tourists’ cultural involvement, cultural experience, positive emotions, cultural identity, destination image, cultural heritage value and destination decisions. Positive emotions and cultural heritage values directly and significantly influence decision-making. Meanwhile, cultural involvement is very important, and it indirectly influences decision-making through cultural experience, positive emotions and cultural heritage values. However, cultural identity and destination image do not significantly influence decision-making. Originality/value The research enhances comprehension of how short video promotions influence cultural heritage tourism. It sheds light on the development of tourism promotions for cultural heritage sites and the creation of short tourism videos.