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Developing 360-degree stimuli for virtual tourism research: a five-step mixed measures procedure

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Abstract

Virtual reality has emerged as a powerful tool for the design of immersive tourism experiences. Prior studies have primarily relied on externally produced 360-degree stimuli, with the potential to undermine causal inference among concepts and increase risk of flattening real-world responses. Consequently, building on design principles embedded in human–computer interaction, this paper draws on an exemplar of an iconic nature-based tourism destination to elucidate the process which underpins the development of 360-degree stimuli, with an emphasis on the manipulation of ‘presence’. Emergent findings demonstrate the efficacy of a five-step procedure: (1) concept manipulation and location selection; (2) preliminary field filming; (3) expert evaluation and preliminary test; (4) re-filming and editing; and (5) confirmatory test. Physiological and self-report measures assessed the internal and external validity of the 360-degree stimuli, confirming the effectiveness of the manipulation. This research contributes to knowledge through the transfer of core principles from information technology and tourism into the design of immersive 360-degree stimuli to facilitate rigorous manipulation and multi-measurement in experimental design in tourism. Future research should focus on enhancing validity and reliability of internally produced immersive stimuli, overcoming methodological challenges with the design and manipulation of stimuli in tourism research.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the first author upon reasonable request, subject to compliance with the data privacy policy at Griffith University.

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Acknowledgements

This project is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.  42371242).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management, Griffith University, Parklands Drive, Gold Coast, QLD, 4222, Australia

    Biqiang Liu, Anna Kralj & Brent Moyle

  2. Griffith Institute for Tourism, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia

    Biqiang Liu, Anna Kralj & Brent Moyle

  3. School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 17 Science Museum Road, TST East, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

    Brent Moyle

  4. School of Tourism Management, Sun Yat-sen University, 135 Xingang West Road, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Yaoqi Li

  5. Key Laboratory of Sustainable Tourism Smart Assessment Technology, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Zhuhai, China

    Yaoqi Li

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  1. Biqiang Liu
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Liu, B., Kralj, A., Moyle, B. et al. Developing 360-degree stimuli for virtual tourism research: a five-step mixed measures procedure. Inf Technol Tourism (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40558-024-00287-y

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