Framing Tourism Destinations on YouTube: Travel Content and Place Branding in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore

Digital platforms provide arenas in which tourism destinations are represented by diverse actors beyond the direct control of destination marketing organisations. This study examines how travel videos retrieved through YouTube searches represent Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, focusing on recurring destination attributes and the verbal, visual and narrative devices through which they are framed. Using an exploratory qualitative design, the study analyses twenty videos, ten for each destination. Thematic coding identifies shared emphasis on food, heritage, multicultural spaces, architecture and visitor attractions, alongside more frequent representations of transportation, museums and green environments in the Singapore sample. Framing analysis shows that Kuala Lumpur is frequently represented through cultural diversity, exploration and contrasts between historical and contemporary urbanism; affordability is explicitly articulated in one prominent video, while two videos position Kuala Lumpur relationally against Singapore. Singapore videos more often organise attractions through itineraries and practical guidance, while a recurring green urban modernity frame connects contemporary development with nature. The sample includes independent creators, travel-guide channels, commercial producers and sponsored content, including one video produced within the Singapore Tourism Board’s Made in Singapore campaign. Building on these findings, the study proposes an attribute–device–frame model of destination representation and derives from it a procedure that destination marketing organisations can use to monitor how creator-led, commercial and sponsored content reinforces, extends or reinterprets institutional destination narratives.