Good news urban tourism researchers! 19 ways to enhance the usefulness of your observational video analysis research

Purpose The present article encourages urban tourism researchers use pre-recorded (like YouTube, TikTok and security camera footage) and self-recorded video data in research. The author highlighted the benefits of doing so for urban tourism scholars, as well as ways in which these investigators can use the observational video analysis technique to produce convincing findings and advance their field. Design/methodology/approach To accomplish the purpose, the author reviewed 25 scholarly articles on the topic from several fields. Findings One benefit of observational video analysis research (OVAR), the author highlighted, was the ability of scholars in different locations to simultaneously observe interactions, the focus of the study, in their natural setting and discuss them. This practice is not possible with traditional ethnographic research. Also, one way the author mentioned researchers can accomplish rigor in their OVAR project is through multimodal transcription. With multimodal transcription, verbal and non-verbal happenings in videos are transliterated and later analyzed. Research limitations/implications It is hoped because of the present article, increased use of the technique in urban tourism research will be seen. Originality/value The present article is the first, to the best of the author’s knowledge, to detail how rigor can be accomplished in OVAR in urban tourism.