From views to visits: The role of YouTube influencers in shaping travel destination choices in Japan

Abstract

Social media play a key role in how people choose where to travel with influencers shaping many of these choices. This study investigates how YouTube influencers shape travel destination related interest in Japan by analyzing viewer comments on two highly popular itinerary travel videos. Viewer comments were collected using Python scripts and prepared for analysis through standard data-cleaning procedures. The analysis combines transformer-based language models and aspect-based sentiment analysis to examine sentiment, emotions, key destinations and itinerary-related themes in viewer comments. The findings show that itinerary-focused influencer content generates mainly positive sentiment and emotional engagement, along with planning-related viewer responses such as itinerary consideration, destination-specific questions, and reflections on past or intended future travel. The study offers practical insights for the tourism industry, policymakers and destination management organizations (DMOs) by showing how influencers’ content supports destination visibility and interest formation, with implications for promoting lesser-known destinations and managing overtourism.