4.5 Article

Living the Experience Before You Go . . . but Did It Meet Expectations? The Role of Virtual Reality during Hotel Bookings

Journal

JOURNAL OF TRAVEL RESEARCH
Volume 61, Issue 6, Pages 1233-1251

Publisher

SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/00472875211028313

Keywords

virtual reality; mental imagery; authentic experience; online hotel bookings; immersive VR hotel experience

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Virtual reality (VR) is considered an important technological development that affects the tourism industry, especially the hotel sector. Research through experiments and surveys has shown that VR plays a positive role in helping tourism consumers learn about hotels, form visit intentions, and manage expectations.
Virtual reality (VR) is considered an important technological development to impact the tourism industry. Hotels are constantly attempting to overcome the challenges they face in the presentation of their facilities in the virtual environment. This research has made one of the first attempts to understand VR's ability to influence tourism consumers' attitudes and behavioral intentions during the prepurchase phase and postpurchase phase of their purchase journey across three hotel preview styles, namely, (1) VR immersive headsets, (2) 360 degrees VR tour, and (3) a static image website. Through a lab-based experiment with 270-participants, study 1 outlined the positive role of VR on learning about the hotel and visit intentions. Through a questionnaire with 409 actual tourism consumers following a hotel stay, study 2 detailed that VR plays a significant role in managing tourism consumers' expectations through providing an authentic experience and stimulating the development of detailed mental imagery prior to their visit.

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