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Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2017 pp 229–239Cite as

Virtual Reality and Attitudes Toward Tourism Destinations

Abstract

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.

Keywords

  • Virtual reality
  • Spatial presence
  • Attitude change
  • Virtual tourism
  • Non-travel

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Acknowledgements

Authors received financial support from the School of Hotel & Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Grant #1-ZVH2).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Hospitality Business Management Carson College of Business, Washington State University, Pullman, USA

    Iis P. Tussyadiah

  2. School of Hotel & Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

    Dan Wang & Chenge (Helen) Jia

Authors
  1. Iis P. Tussyadiah
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  2. Dan Wang
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  3. Chenge (Helen) Jia
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Iis P. Tussyadiah .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Tourism, HES-SO Valais-Wallis, Sierre, Valais, Switzerland

    Roland Schegg

  2. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom

    Brigitte Stangl

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Tussyadiah, I.P., Wang, D., Jia, C.(. (2017). Virtual Reality and Attitudes Toward Tourism Destinations. In: Schegg, R., Stangl, B. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2017. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51168-9_17

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