Title: Understanding the virtual experiential value and its effect on travel intention

Authors: Eldon Y. Li; Fang-Kai Chang; Anila Jan

Addresses: College of Management, National Chung Cheng University, No. 168, Sec. 1, University Rd., Minhsiung, Chiayi 621301, Taiwan ' College of Business, Feng Chia University, No. 100, Wenhua Rd., Xitun Dist., Taichung City 407102, Taiwan ' College of Management, National Chung Cheng University, No. 168, Sec. 1, University Rd., Minhsiung, Chiayi 621301, Taiwan

Abstract: This paper explores how tourism virtualisation enables consumers to experience memorable feelings in the virtual world and affects the experiential value of virtual tourism and customers' intention to travel in the future. A virtual reality system, The Panoramic Palace Museum, is utilised to conduct a sequence of experiments in tourism experience, and two phases are designed to analyse travel intention. Before using the virtual-reality system, the theory of planned behaviour constructs and involvement are employed to explore travel intention. Two identical experiments are conducted on 243 subjects independently, and 211 valid samples are collected. The results show that travel intentions before and after a virtual visit are significantly different and that experiential value significantly increases the intention to travel.

Keywords: virtual experience; experiential value; service experience; virtualisation; travel intention.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIMA.2023.133340

International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 2023 Vol.19 No.3/4, pp.263 - 285

Received: 17 May 2023
Accepted: 19 May 2023
Published online: 12 Sep 2023 *