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The metaverse experience: a big data approach to virtual service consumption

Aikaterini Manthiou (Marketing Department, NEOMA Business School, Reims, France )
Van Ha Luong (Marketing and Sales Department, IESEG School of Management, Lille, France)
Kafia Ayadi (Marketing Department, NEOMA Business School, Reims, France)
Phil Klaus (Omnes Education Research Center, International University of Monaco, Monte Carlo, Monaco)

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

ISSN: 0959-6119

Article publication date: 30 August 2024

229

Abstract

Purpose

The experience of leaving the real world and entering a virtual service environment makes many individuals happy. This study heeds the call by multiple researchers to conceptualize, interpret and illustrate the impact of the perceived service experience in the metaverse in a holistic way. In particular, this study aims to understand how the consumption of experiences is perceived in a metaversal space.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors analyze mega virtual live events with famous artists broadcast in virtual worlds. The authors take a big data approach and include two studies to gain insight into the online public audience’s perceptions and experiences in the metaverse. In the first study, the authors analyze text from YouTube with Leximancer. In the second study, the authors go one step further to refine the conceptual model from Study 1. The authors scrutinize additional Facebook comments using seeded Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA).

Findings

The findings reveal that the meta service experience (MEX) encompasses four dimensions: immersion, metascape, immediacy and hedonism.

Originality/value

This research provides important guidance not only for consumer behavior scholars but also for service marketers and event planners. The study proposes research opportunities to advance service experience research in the metaverse.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Funding: The Complexity Advantage – Markets, Information & Complexity, Area of Excellence, Number: 415816, NEOMA Business School.

Citation

Manthiou, A., Luong, V.H., Ayadi, K. and Klaus, P. (2024), "The metaverse experience: a big data approach to virtual service consumption", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-08-2023-1305

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited

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