TikTok as a stage: How short video creators’ identity performance drives engagement with tourism experiences

Destinations are increasingly collaborating with short-form video creators to engage consumers. Through Goffman's dramaturgical lens, this study explores how creators' performed identities in travel videos relate to audience responses. Combining machine learning and AI-powered analyses of over 10k short-form videos and 176k viewer comments with a controlled experiment, we identified four identities that creators performed in these videos (the “showman,” “diarist,” “docent,” and “photographer”) and classified them at scale. Results showed that identity performance is associated with distinct configurations of audiences' behavioral engagement. The “docent” generated more audience engagement than other identities, including audiences' learning, endorsing, and intending to participate dimensions. Guided by the knowledge gap theory, a subsequent experiment showed that the “docent” identity increased engagement by sparking curiosity. These findings guide content creators in adopting effective identity performance strategies, destinations in partnering with well-aligned content creators, and platforms in using algorithmic curation to achieve desired marketing outcomes.