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This study aims to investigate the impact of virtual museum tours on intentions to visit on-site museums. Furthermore, the role of an authentic virtual tour experience and its drivers is examined.

The results of two studies, a field study in collaboration with one of the most renowned museums in Austria (n = 227) and an online survey (n = 153), were analyzed with a series of mediation models.

Visual appeal and narrative quality were significant drivers of an authentic virtual tour experience. Curiosity mediated the positive effect of virtual tour usage intention on on-site museum visit intention.

Although virtual reality has been considered a promising marketing tool in tourism, no research has explored the drivers of an authentic virtual tour experience. The findings of this study not only add new insights into the role of a virtual tour’s visual appeal and narrative quality in generating authentic experience and thus prompting virtual tour usage intentions but also demonstrate that virtual tours positively impact on-site visit intentions driven by curiosity.

The Metaverse is rapidly reshaping the understanding of tourism, yet the public perception of this new domain remains largely uncharted empirically. This paper aims to build on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and diffusion of innovations theory (DIT) to fill this gap, offering crucial insights that could inform scholars and practitioners in both the tourism and technology sectors.

Using a big-data approach, the authors applied machine learning to scrape comments made by social media users on recent popular posts or videos related to tourism in the Metaverse from three prominent social media platforms. The cleaning process narrowed down 15,461 comments to 2,650, which were then analysed using thematic, emotion and sentiment analysis techniques.

The thematic analysis revealed that virtual tourism evokes a complex range of public beliefs. While many express awe and excitement toward its immersive capabilities, others remain sceptical about authenticity compared to physical travel. Additional themes show people draw comparisons to real-world tourism, discuss technology’s role and note educational value and novelty. However, some comments raise concerns about potential societal harms, exploitation and mental health impacts. Sentiment analysis found over half of the comments positive, though some were negative. Emotion analysis showed contentment, happiness and excitement as most frequent, though sadness, worry and loneliness also featured. Overall, perceptions of Metaverse tourism encompass enthusiasm yet substantial ambivalence.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to comprehensively analyse public discussions on Metaverse tourism. It takes TAM and Rogers’s DIT a step further and provides fresh insights into how these theories can be employed in the emerging field of Metaverse tourism. The themes revealed new conceptual insights into multidimensional factors shaping public beliefs about Metaverse tourism and thus informing scholarly research on virtual interaction and technology acceptance regarding Metaverse tourism. In addition, the results can help tourism providers, platforms and marketers address salient public beliefs and sentiments/attitudes in developing marketing offerings, experiences and communications. Over time, this analysis methodology can be used to track the evolving public perceptions of Metaverse tourism.

The purpose of this paper is to explore user engagement (UE) within the Metaverse (MV) environment, emphasising the crucial role of immersive experiences (IEs). This study aims to understand how IEs influence UE and the mediating effects of hedonic value (HV) and utilitarian value (UV) on this relationship. Additionally, the authors examine the moderating impacts of user perceptions (UPs) such as headset comfort, simulation sickness, prior knowledge and ease of use on the utilisation of the MV. This study seeks to elucidate the dynamics of virtual travel at a pre-experience stage, enhancing the comprehension of how digital platforms can revolutionise UE in travel and tourism.

This study used a triangulation methodology to provide a thorough investigation into the factors influencing UE in the MV. A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to frame the research context and identify relevant variables. To gather empirical data, 25 interviews were performed with active MV users, supplemented by a survey distributed to 118 participants. The data collected was analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) to test the hypothesised relationships between IEs, UPs, HV and UV and their combined effect on UE within the MV.

The findings from the SEM indicate that engaging in the MV leads to a positive IE, which significantly enhances UE. Additionally, it was discovered that HV and UV play a mediating role in strengthening the link between IEs and UE. Furthermore, UPs, including headset comfort, simulation sickness, prior knowledge and ease of use, are significant moderators in the relationship between IEs and MV usage. These insights provide a nuanced understanding of the variables that contribute to and enhance UE in virtual environments.

This research contributes original insights into the burgeoning field of digital tourism by focusing on the MV, a rapidly evolving platform. It addresses the gap in the existing literature by delineating the complex interplay between IEs, UPs and value constructs within the MV. By using a mixed-method approach and advanced statistical analysis, this study provides a comprehensive model of UE specific to virtual travel platforms. The findings are particularly valuable for developers and marketers in the hospitality and tourism sectors seeking to capitalise on digital transformation and enhance UE through immersive technologies.

This study aims to investigate the effect of virtual reality experience quality on destination visit intention and virtual reality travel intention through the technology acceptance model (TAM).

Quantitative data gathered from questionnaires applied to 198 people after undertaking an imaginary three-dimensional (3D) destination experience were analyzed with PLS-SEM.

Virtual reality experience quality influences perceptions and intentions. The perceived ease of use affects perceived usefulness, perceived usefulness effects attitude and destination visit intention, while perceived risk affects only virtual reality travel intention. Attitude affects both intentions.

The main limitation of the study relates to the quality of the experience offered, which is limited to the technical capacity of the virtual reality glasses used. Virtual reality can be used as a new economic offering and create a realistic destination experience. Virtual reality experience quality is an important determinant of intention in physical and imaginary travels, in shaping perceptions and minimizing travel risks. The explanatory power of the model can be increased by adding the perceived risk variable to TAM. The study has brought new perspectives, new insights and suggestions for developing tourism.

In the study, a 3D imaginary destination with its mise-en-scène and story, which includes more than one destination type, was designed. This study contributes to the literature by analyzing real and virtual visit intentions, combining the fields of the experience economy, risk perception and TAM.

本研究通过应用技术接受模型, 探讨虚拟现实体验质量对目的地参访意愿和虚拟现实旅游意愿的影响。旨在识别这些变量之间存在的关系, 并解释这些关系的因果链接。

本研究从198名参与虚拟三维目的地体验后填写的问卷中获得定量数据并通过PLS-SEM方法进行分析。

虚拟现实体验的质量影响用户的感知和意愿。虚拟现实旅游意愿仅受感知风险的影响。感知易用性影响感知有用性。意愿受态度影响, 但感知有用性不影响虚拟现实旅游。

本研究的主要局限性与提供的体验质量有关, 该质量受到虚拟现实眼镜技术能力的限制。虚拟现实可以作为一种新的经济提供方式进行开发。通过将感知风险变量添加到技术接受模型中, 可以增加模型的解释力。本研究为旅游业的发展提供了新的视角、见解和建议, 并解释了虚拟现实提供的真实目的地体。

为了研究的目的, 本研究设计了一个虚拟的三维目的地, 包含多个目的地类型。该目的地有自己的布景和故事情节。本研究通过分析真实和虚拟参访意愿的领域, 将体验经济、风险感知和技术接受模型领域相结合, 为文献做出了贡献。

This study explores tourists' virtual reality experiences during the transition to the Metaverse.

Qualitative approach was employed to capture tourists' virtual reality experiences and knowledge of the Metaverse at two five-star hotels in Kusadasi (Republic of Turkey). The data were collected from Kusadasi using a purposive sampling technique. The research design focused on data collection with the structured interview technique. The interview form consisted of 7 questions in total, and a voice recorder was used to record the answers of the participants. After the first 4 questions were asked, the participants were presented a virtual reality experience with the virtual reality (VR) glasses. The interview was held face-to-face with thirty-five participants consisting of domestic and foreign tourists in two five-star hotels in the summer season of 2022. The collected data were analyzed with the content analysis technique and themes were created.

This study's findings enhance the conceptual capital in this emerging field and provide insights into many of the participants who have and have never experienced virtual reality applications and who are familiar and unfamiliar with the Metaverse as a concept.

This study generates empirical data that informs contemporary debates about virtual reality and the Metaverse.

The findings show that most participants have never experienced a virtual reality application. Hotels and travel agencies should be aware of this new futuristic technology before the Metaverse transition. Metaverse is for generation Y and Z instead of Baby Boomers and generation X.

This study is unique in terms of depth and fills the gap as it provides useful insights regarding the evaluation of tourists' virtual reality experiences in the transition process to the Metaverse.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the implicit and explicit attitudes of Generation Z (Gen Z) individuals toward the experience of visiting and getting to know traditional or virtual museums.

Two studies were conducted. The first study assesses the implicit attitudes of Gen Z individuals through Implicit Association Tests (IAT) toward the experience of visiting traditional versus virtual museums. Considering the results of the study one, the second study proposes and validates a conceptual model through PLS-SEM approach about the explicit attitudes of this generation toward virtual museums.

In the first study, it was found that virtual museums are more successful at engaging and immersing participants than traditional museums for Gen Z. The second study emphasized the significance of meeting Gen Z expectations and ensuring effortless access to information in virtual experiences as this can lead to increased satisfaction and inspiration among this generation.

The originality of this study lies in its focus on Gen Z's attitudes toward virtual museums and the use of both implicit and explicit attitude measures to gain a comprehensive understanding of these attitudes. An interesting aspect emerges from the implicit attitudes displayed by Gen Z, indicating their preference for virtual museums as more captivating compared to traditional ones.

In order to encourage customers to try experience virtual tourism, researchers and practitioners pay more attention on how to improve customers' perception of authenticity.

Using the theory of cross-sensory compensation, through 4 experiments, this study examines the impact of social interaction and cross-sensory strategies on the relationship between virtual reality (VR) and improving customers' perception of authenticity and customer experience.

Through experimental research, this paper finds that (1) VR immersion has a significant positive impact on perception of authenticity, which in turn acts on customers' virtual tourism experience. (2) In addition, social interaction strengthens the relationship between VR immersion and customers' perception of authenticity. (3) The cross-sensory compensation has a positive effect on VR immersion to enhance customers' perception of authenticity.

The research conclusion provides a direction for further discussion on how to improve customers' perception of authenticity and provides theoretical guidance and reference for the virtual tourism industry.

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.

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).

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

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.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors influencing the encountering information adoption of virtual live streaming from the perspective of the immersion experience. In addition, the paper aims to provide new theoretical perspectives and analytical frameworks for virtual live information behavior.

Based on a review of relevant literature and theories, a model of the encountering information adoption of virtual live streaming users is constructed. In order to complete the empirical study, two experiments and questionnaires have been designed to investigate the relationship between high and low immersion experiences. A total of 1,332 valid survey samples were collected and analyzed, utilizing the structural equation model. In order to delineate the regimes, Gradient Boosted Regression Tree (GBRT) and Lasso regression were further utilized.

The research findings indicate that users' immersion experience in virtual live streaming has a positive effect on perceived usefulness, trust, and commitment. Furthermore, perceived usefulness and trust have a positive effect on users' emotional arousal and enhance the content experience, while commitment has a negative effect on the content experience. The emotional arousal and content experience of users contribute to their encountering information adoption. The effect of immersion experience on encountering information adoption is partially mediated by perceived usefulness, trust, commitment, emotional arousal, and content experience. The relationship between content experience and encountering information adoption is moderated by digital literacy to a significant extent. In the context of virtual live streaming, the factors influencing users' encountering information adoption can be divided into three distinct regimes. The most significant factors affecting encounter information adoption are trust and commitment, which are located in the first regime. Emotional arousal and digital literacy are situated in the third regime, with the least significant influence on encountering information adoption.

This study constructs a model of virtual live streaming users' encountering information adoption and explores the formation mechanism of encountering information adoption from the perspective of immersion experience, which provides a new perspective for further understanding the influence of virtual live-streaming users' encountering information adoption.

This paper aims to examine the impact of metaverse experiences on customers’ offline behavioral intentions: How do customers’ visits to a hospitality business’s virtual property in the metaverse affect their intentions to visit the physical property in the real world?

Based on the general learning model and social cognitive theory, this research hypothesizes the positive impact of metaverse experiences on customers’ visit intentions and explores two boundary conditions for positive impact: user–avatar resemblance and servicescape similarity. Two experimental studies were conducted.

Metaverse experience has a significant impact on customers’ visit intentions, and this impact is moderated by user–avatar resemblance and servicescape similarity.

This research addresses the call for empirical studies regarding the effects of metaverse experience on people’s behavioral intentions.

As one of the earliest empirical studies on the marketing effects of the metaverse, this research provides a basis for future metaverse studies in the hospitality field.