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While the spatial dimensions of augmented reality (AR) have received significant attention in the marketing literature, to date, there has been less consideration of its temporal dimensions. This paper aims to theorise digital timework through AR to understand a new form of consumption experience that offers short-lived, immersive forms of mundane, marketer-led escape from everyday life.

The authors draw upon Casey’s phenomenological work to explore the emergence of new dynamics of temporalisation through digitised play. An illustrative case study using AR shows how consumers use this temporalisation to find stability and comfort through projecting backwards (remembering) and forwards (imagining) in their lives.

The proliferation of novel digital technologies and platforms has radically transformed consumption experiences as the boundaries between the physical and the virtual, fantasy and reality and play and work have become increasingly blurred. The findings show how temporary escape is carved out within digital space and time, where controlled imaginings provide consumers with an illusion of control over their lives as they re-establish cohesion in a ruptured sense of time.

The authors consider the more critical implications of the offloading capacity of AR, which they show does not prevent cognitive processes such as imagination and remembering but rather puts limits on them. The authors show that these more short-lived, everyday types of digitised escape do not allow for an escape from the structures of everyday life within the market, as much of the previous literature suggests.

The authors argue that corporations need to reflect upon the potential threats of immersive technologies such as AR in harming consumer escapism and take these into serious consideration as part of their strategic experiential design strategies to avoid leading to detrimental effects upon consumer well-being. More nuanced conceptualisations are required to unpack the antecedents of limiting people’s imagination and potentially limiting the fully fledged escape that consumers might desire.

Prior work has conceptualised AR as offloading the need for imagination by making the absent present. The authors critically unpack the implications of this for a more fluid understanding of the temporal logics and limits of consumer escapism.

The purpose of this study is to conceptually integrate business to consumer (B2C) into business to business (B2B), with a holistic consumer-centric, technology-reinforced, long-term vision for tourism industries and companies to survive and succeed in the era of new technologies 4.0. The research suggests that the tourism-marketing-new technologies decision-making involves customers as the center of the design and decision process.

The research design includes a qualitative study with 94 in-depth interviews, a literature analysis and a conceptual proposition. The qualitative study follows the tourism consumer desire data analysis, from categorization to integration. The literature analysis applies a systematic literature review approach based on the 29 most up-to-date new-tech papers from peer-reviewed journals. The analysis compares qualitative research findings and literature analysis results and matches the new technology applications with consumer desire understanding. The conceptual framework of tourism marketing/advertising is proposed based on qualitative research and literature analysis.

The qualitative research deciphers that consumers, based on their imagination and memorization, desire therapy and sceneries and connect such desires to the empathetic and resonating advertising messages. The literature analysis synthesizes the new tech applications in tourism and matches the qualitative research findings with the deciphered desires in tourism. The conceptual model proposes that B2C should be integrated into B2B to provide value for both consumers and businesses and opens avenues of research on this topic.

This research has made the following theoretical contributions: it offers an in-depth understanding of consumer desire, often hidden or subconscious, in the field of tourism. Consumer desires regarding tourism are mostly subconscious and exist long before consumers are exposed to advertising messages. These desires reflect the search for therapy and sceneries and become “embodied” – they exist on multisensorial levels and become part of the body and life and will lead consumers into positive perceptions when marketing communications/advertisements resonate with them. In the latter case, they will subjectively judge advertising as “good,” regardless of the advertising design quality. The research also connects consumer research with a new technologies research review and proposes a conceptual framework to integrate business to consumer (B2C) with business to business (B2B). As such, the research makes theoretical contributions to the integration or the “boundary blurring” between B2C and B2B research and practical suggestions that involved industries and consumers may all benefit from such integration. Conceptually, there is a lack of discussions of the pitfalls of new technologies, a dearth of empirical verification of the applications of new technologies in the proposed fields and a shortage of discussions about ethical issues. Qualitative methods, offering an efficient tool for understanding consumer desires in the tourism industry, have their own limits, as discussed in previous research. The sample is limited to the state of New York population and may be influenced by geographic, demographic and psychological characteristics related to the region.

This research provides advertising practitioners, new technology innovators and tourism industries with a framework to face the combined challenges of understanding hidden consumer desires and applying adequate technologies that resonate with consumer desires to tackle relevant issues. The conceptual proposition of this research fills the gap between qualitative consumer research without concrete practical resolution and new technologies applications without in-depth consumer understanding. Through the conceptual framework, the author provides insights into how industries may benefit from consumer understanding. The business relationships among the industries of marketing, tourism and new technologies should be centered around consumers. Thus, B2C and B2B should be naturally integrated into business practices.

Social implications of this research include three major points: first, the understanding of consumer desire for therapeutic power in tourism, which invites more attention to tourism as part of social well-being design instead of a purely for-profit business. Second, a profound comprehension of what consumers need and desire, without which the applications of new technologies may cause severe societal problems. Third, a way to tailor to consumers’ individuality and desires for advertising/marketing that may be considered abusive, stressful and socially destructive if applied in a nonpersonal manner.

Conceptually, this research adds consumer desire, an originally B2C concept, to the B2B context regarding the new technology applications in tourism marketing/advertising. It contributes to the B2B literature by proposing a strong consumer-centric approach, especially the consumer desire understanding, that is not yet investigated in the B2B literature; and a combination of empirical study and literature analysis and the matching of the two for better practice of advertising/marketing, tourism and new technologies applications.

Tourism via virtual reality (VR) technology has become an interesting option for consumers to “travel.” The best approaches to optimizing the VR tourism environment, improving the interactive experience of tourists and encouraging tourists to adopt VR are not yet fully understood. This study explores the willingness of tourists to adopt VR tourism from the dual aspects, richness and dynamics, of virtual social cues.

To examine the effects of richness (multiple vs. few cues) and dynamic (changeable vs. static cues) on consumers' willingness to adopt VR tourism, three virtual tourism scenes were designed and presented by head-mounted displays. The data were collected for participants in the VR laboratory and tested by ANOVA and partial least squares–structural equation modeling.

Virtual social cues can generate mental imagery through interactivity, vividness and parasocial interactions, thus increasing the consumer's likelihood of adopting VR tourism. It was also found that imagination moderates mental imagery and adoption intention. When the consumer's imagination is stronger, their mental imagery stimulates a stronger willingness to adopt VR tourism.

The authors innovatively utilize concepts of parasocial interaction and mental imagery and discuss the various influences and mediation mechanisms of social cue characteristics on consumers' adoption of VR tourism. The conclusions may provide new insights for VR tourism managers and tourism scholars.

This study aims to examine the role of authenticity in tourists’ destination selection, analyze the factors that influence tourists to form their initial opinions and explore how tourists construct the authenticity of traditional villages. The authors selected Chengkan village in Huizhou district, Huangshan city, as a case. In the study, the authors constructed an attribute-hardware-software research framework and analyzed tourists’ authentic emic experiences from the perspective of constructivism. The findings of this study suggest that tourists’ destination selection is influenced by authenticity. The destination culture brokers who interact with tourists play an essential role in forming authentic experiences. According to differences in how tourists construct authenticity, the study divided tourists into three types: primitive imagination, aesthetic reality and rational cognition. The results of this study provide a deeper understanding of various viewpoints about authenticity research and contribute to the academic discussion on how to understand the authenticity of unique cultural heritage sites such as traditional villages in the context of tourism development.

Religion and philosophy satisfy the basic human needs of understanding, belonging, and finding meaning. They provide tranquility of mind and satisfy the desire to be loved and lovable. However, they present their own failings and can counter each other in positive and negative ways, that threaten the communities of beliefs they form and their interactions. An appropriate institutional framework can control the fanaticism and sectarianism that can come with established religion and philosophy.

The purpose of the research paper is to investigate the relationship between personality traits and investment decisions in the crypto market, including cryptocurrencies and NFTs. The study aims to explore the effect of dark personalities and the big five personalities on investment decisions in the crypto market.

The research was conducted through two online questionnaire studies. In Study 1, data were collected from the general public, while in Study 2, data were collected from crypto investors. The researchers analyzed the effect of dark personalities and the big five personalities on investment decisions in the crypto market.

The present research found that Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopath, sadism and extraversion have positive effects on having crypto investments. In addition, focusing on actual crypto investors, the present paper showed that personalities including Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopath, consciousness and extraversion have statistically significant effect on investment decisions such as making investments in Bitcoin.

The study is original in exploring the relationship between personality traits and investment decisions in the newly emerging crypto market, including cryptocurrencies and NFTs. The research provides insights into how different personality traits affect investment decisions in the crypto market, which can be valuable for investors in making informed decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between trait and situational empathy, and the effect of educational activities on empathy of nursing students towards people living with dementia.

This embedded mixed-methods study compared trait and situational empathy examined situational empathy pre/post didactic and experiential activities with nursing students and used qualitative data from focus group discussions to corroborate the quantitative data.

There was no significant difference between trait and situational empathy. Post intervention scores (situational) demonstrated improvements on empathic concern, shared affect, empathic imagination, helping motivation and cognitive empathy. Focus group discussions supported quantitative findings and also included distress.

Limitations include lack of generalizability, single group threats and exclusion of stakeholder input. Single group threats include absence of a control group, familiarity with the CSES from pre-test to post-test and reactive measurements, as the students were observed by faculty while completing the Dementia Live activity. The perspective of stakeholders would strengthen the impact of the results on implementation.

Information gleaned from this study can help inform administrators in education and in practice. CliftonStrengths assessment and Dementia Live simulation activities can be used for administrators, faculty and students in schools of nursing as well as administrators and health-care workers.

Information from this study can impact those living with dementia as well as their caregivers.

Most studies involving health-care students and empathy do not delineate between trait and situational empathy. This study is unique in that it measured both and sought a relationship between the two. Determining one's personal attributes such as trait empathy, can help students capitalize on their strengths and ultimately enhance patient care.

This study aimed to identify subgroups of esports players based on their gaming behavior patterns across game genres and compare self-efficacy, social efficacy, loneliness and three dimensions of quality of life between these subgroups.

324 participants were recruited from prolific academic to complete an online survey. We employed latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify subgroups of esports players based on their behavioral patterns across genres. Additionally, a one-way multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was conducted to test the association between cluster memberships and development and well-being outcomes, controlling for age and gender as covariates.

LPA analysis identified five clusters (two single-genre gamer groups, two multigenre gamer groups and one all-genre gamer group). Univariate analyses indicated the significant effect of the clusters on social efficacy, psychological health and social health. Pairwise comparisons highlighted the salience of the physical enactment-plus-sport simulation genre group in these outcomes.

This study contributes to the understanding of the development and well-being benefits experienced by various esports consumers, as well as the role of specific gameplay in facilitating targeted outcomes among these consumer groups.

This paper proposes a way of reflexing on how we think within critical disaster studies. It focuses on the biases and unthought dimensions of two concepts – resilience and development – and reflects on the relationship between theory and practice in critical disaster studies.

Premised on the idea of epistemic reflexivity developed by Pierre Bourdieu, and drawing on previous research, this theoretical article analyses two conceptual biases and shortcomings of disaster studies: how resilience builds on certain agency; and how development assumes certain political imagination.

The article argues that critical disaster scholars must reflect on their own intellectual practice, including the origin of concepts and what they do. This is exemplified by a description of how the idea of resistance is intimately connected to that of resilience, and by showing that we must go beyond the capitalist realism that typically underlies development and risk creation. The theoretical advancement of our field can provide ways of thinking about the premises of many of our concepts.

The paper offers an invitation for disaster researchers to engage with critical thought and meta-theoretical reflexions. To think profoundly about our concepts is a necessary first step to developing critical scholarship. Epistemic reflexivity in critical disaster studies therefore provides an interesting avenue by which to liberate the field from overly technocratic approaches and develop its own criticality.