Virtual Reality and Attitudes Toward Tourism Destinations

Recent developments in Virtual Reality (VR) technology present a tremendous opportunity for the tourism industry. This research aims to better understand how the VR experience may influence travel decision making by investigating spatial presence in VR environments and its impact on attitudes toward tourism destinations. Based on a study involving virtual walkthrough of tourism destinations with 202 participants, two dimensions of spatial presence were identified: being somewhere other than the actual environment and self-location in a VR environment. The analysis revealed that users’ attention allocation to VR environments contributed significantly to spatial presence. It was also found that spatial presence positively affects post VR attitude change toward tourism destinations, indicating the persuasiveness of VR. No significant differences were found across VR stimuli (devices) and across prior visitation