Multilinguistic exploration of travel vlogs: unravelling heritage tourism marketing dynamics in Malaysia

Purpose Digital promotional techniques like social media have helped new tourist destinations grow. Vlogs employ digital experience-based tourist promotion to attract new visitors by showing their visual appeal to different market segments. This study explores Malaysia’s digital heritage tourism marketing challenges. Considering how language and culture affect tourism market segmentation in Malaysia, the study will examine multilingual travel vlogs promoting urban heritage tourism. It will identify themes and segmentation driving multilingual digital experienced-based tourism promotion in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach The research used qualitative video-based content analysis (VCA) to analyse travel vlogs of heritage tourism destinations such as George Town, Ipoh and Melaka in English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. The study employed thematic content analysis to identify key marketing segmentation themes to better understand Malaysian social media users' heritage tourism digital consumption preferences. Findings The study identified food preferences, cultural affinity, experiential attractions and a sense of familiarity as key themes influencing different linguistic segmentation of vlogs of heritage tourism in Malaysia. As such, this study will also provide detailed insights for marketers seeking to tailor their strategies to diverse linguistic and cultural preferences in experience-based heritage tourism. The findings may assist SMEs, heritage food service providers, and other historical attraction businesses better understand the demands and appeals of linguistic-based heritage tourism marketing in Malaysia. Practical implications This study seeks to examine how language affects heritage tourism promotion and reception in Malaysia. Applications: Heritage tourism branding and marketing may employ the findings to produce content and attractions for segmented markets, especially in Malaysia. Originality/value This study examines linguistic market segmentation-based digital experience-based heritage tourism promotion themes. As branding and marketing in Malaysia is multicultural and multilinguistic this research presents a unique perspective on how digital experience-based heritage tourism differs based on these factors.