From swipe to visit: how short-form video features guide tourist behavior through psychological mechanisms

Tourism marketing increasingly utilizes short videos, yet uneven outcomes often hinder the conversion of viewers into tourists. To address this, this study investigates how tourism short videos influence potential tourists’ behavioral intentions, based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) theory and the foot-in-the-door effect. A total of 421 valid responses were collected from potential tourists, and the data were analyzed using SPSS 27 and SmartPLS 4.0. The findings indicate that the esthetics, trendiness, and scarcity of tourism short videos act as stimuli that trigger diverse psychological responses, such as skepticism, desire, and fear of missing out, which subsequently generate different behavioral intentions. Furthermore, the study confirms the crucial role of progressive behaviors, underpinned by the foot-in-the-door effect, in tourism marketing. This research offers a theoretical framework for understanding the impact of short-form video content on tourist psychology, providing practical recommendations for destination managers to promote actual visits.