NEGOTIATING TRAVEL, CREATIVITY, AND COMMERCIALISATION: MOTIVATIONAL DRIVERS AND DUAL-ROLE INTEGRATION OF TRAVEL VLOGGERS

Abstract

Travel vloggers influence travel intentions by creating and sharing content across social media platforms. This study analyses their motivational drivers and dual-role integration. Using a qualitative approach, 17 online in-depth interviews were conducted with established Bangladeshi travel vloggers, and 40 travel videos were analysed. Guided by self-determination theory, the findings show that passion for documentation and storytelling are the intrinsic motivations, while career transition and income opportunities are the extrinsic motivations for initiating travel vlogging. These motivations are reinforced by audience validation, financial rewards, and self-satisfaction. Travel vloggers operate within a hybrid tourism-digital environment where personal travel experience, creative expression, audience expectations, and commercial obligations intersect. Their dual roles as tourists and content creators require negotiation between experiential travel and professionalised content production, while sponsors may constrain autonomy. The study contributes to tourism and influencer literature by explaining how motivations evolve through platform visibility, economic dependency, and audience engagement within the creator economy.