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Exploring consumer behavior in virtual reality tourism using the theory of planned behavior
Tourism Tribune ; 36(8):15-26, 2021.
Article in Chinese | CAB Abstracts | ID: covidwho-1771991
ABSTRACT
Virtual museums, virtual exhibitions, and other virtual reality (VR) forms have been developing significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. VR has been widely used in planning, management, marketing, education, heritage preservation, and other tourism-related areas. It has attracted some scholars' attention and related studies have also gradually increased. However, the relationship between VR tourism experience and on-site tourism needs to be further explored. It is likely important to solve the following questions what are the main factors affecting the VR tourist behavior and what is the transformation mechanism between VR tourism and on-site tourism? This study developed a theoretical framework to conceptualize VR tourism experience, VR attitude, VR intention, and actual tourism activities in the context of COVID-19 pandemic based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB). To examine the theoretical model, the Likert 7-scale was used to design the questionnaire. Via social network service, surveys were widely distributed to the potential VR tourists such as the surfers of tourism portals. There were 568 questionnaires collected, and 358 of them were effective samples. Using SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 22.0, factor analyses and structural equation modeling were employed to empirically test the hypotheses. The Bootstrap method was further applied to examine the transformation mechanism of tourists' VR behavioral intention to actual tourism behavior. The results suggest (1) VR tourism experience, perceptual behavioral control, and subjective norm could significantly influence VR tourist attitude, but only VR tourism experience and attitude could directly affect the onsite tourism intention. (2) VR tourism experience was the most influential factor to promote actual tourism intention. It is likely that VR tourism experience could bring relevant information about the destination to potential tourists and further affect their perceptions. This may reduce the external control effect on the on-site tourism activities. (3) Tourists' attitude was not a significant mediator between the VR tourism experience and actual tourism intention. The development of VR tourism is still in the early stage with limited in-depth experience contents, which still needs more efforts to promote the on-site tourism activities by changing the attitude of VR tourists. (4) the COVID-19 pandemic did not show a statistically significant influence on tourists' attitude or actual tourism intention. It is thus believed that the anxiety and fear brought by the COVID-19 did not play a great role in the intention of tourism activities. This research provide both a new theoretical perspective and an empirical evidence for the transformation and combination of VR tourism and actual tourism activities in the future. The findings also sheds some light on tourism recovery and development after the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Full text: Available Collection: Databases of international organizations Database: CAB Abstracts Language: Chinese Journal: Tourism Tribune Year: 2021 Document Type: Article

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Full text: Available Collection: Databases of international organizations Database: CAB Abstracts Language: Chinese Journal: Tourism Tribune Year: 2021 Document Type: Article