VR Tourism
Technology has transformed every part of human life. Tourism is one of many sectors where new technologies have demonstrated their significant implications. This essay succinctly harnesses prominent repercussions of technology, especially the Virtual Reality technology in the Travel and Tourism sector. Virtual Reality (VR) Technology will also be elucidated by using the theoretical underpinnings associated with it.
Background/Context
The notion of Virtual Reality (VR) is associated with the videos and images that facilitate the people viewing them to explore the entire 360-degree views of any location or a scene. This technology encapsulates all areas of a location from a specific point. Burdea and Coiffet (2003) postulate that VR Technology uses computer graphics simulation to portray the real-world to the audience. It is also known as Augmented Reality (AR). VR technology creates a 3D visual experience for all types of purposes. This technology uses Helmet Mounted Displays (HMDs) to show virtual images. VR is the virtual and real-world integration with a clear purpose to educate about a specific notion by displaying its information within a virtual world (Nayyar et al., 2018). With the technological advancements and new emerging trends amid Covid19, VR/AR technology have major implications on the travel and tourism sector along with all other sectors.
Literature Review
The mechanism of the virtual reality head-mounted display works with the help of tracker receiver having its placement on the user’s head. With the change in head posture, the receiver’s position also changes. An electronic unit samples the individual’s head motion and sends it to the host computer. The computer utilises tracker data for calculating new directions of views associated with the virtual scene to render the image. That scene is converted into various video signals on two of the LCD screens. 3D sound generators and position trackers are also used (Burdea and Coiffet, 2003). Like any other field, Virtual Reality technology is also used in the travel and tourism sector in the 21st-century modern era. The widespread application of VR technology in the tourism sector is succinctly elucidated below. Proliferation
Virtual Reality in Travel and Tourism
The use of virtual technology in the tourism sector is new and is not a common phenomenon. However, people and tourism companies are shifting towards this new trend. With technology advancement, there is also a possibility of new technological up-gradation in virtual technology over time (Guttentag, 2010). Computer-generated imagery is used in the gaming industry, but in the tourism sector, it is different. In tourism, the concept of 360 VR is used that emphasises on the real world and not the imagery that is computer generated. This aspect makes it a powerful tool of showing a real location instead of showing a simulation. The two crucial VR technologies being used in the tourism industry encompass VR Photography and VR Video.
VR Videos: A VR video in the tourism industry acts like a normalised video that can be posted and viewed on websites and social media like all other real-world videos. The only difference is that in a VR 360 video, video is played related to one scene and the scene keeps playing, and the viewer could view the entire scene from 360-degree view by capturing every side of the scene. Only specialist cameras are used to capture the 360-degree scene of a location in the tourism industry. These cameras are called omnidirectional cameras. The video footage is stitched together after filming to create an entire VR Tourism video. The two types of videos in travel and tourism include the Stereoscopic VR Tourism video and Monoscopic VR Tourism video. The Stereoscopic videos in the tourism sector are created for virtual reality headsets and could not be viewed via ordinary devices. They are time-consuming as well to make and are expensive. The head tracking mechanism is used for these videos. On the other hand, the monoscopic videos could be sighted on normal devices encompassing computers and mobile phones.
VR Tourism Photography: Photography in the VR Tourism encompasses the 360 images production associated with various travel locations. These produced images could be viewed on computers and mobiles. VR Tourism images act as a VR video, but they remain images. Scrolling feature is enabled in 360 imaging mechanism to view a complete scene.
Leotta and Ross (2018) posit that different types of video contents, media, and television demonstrate a crucial role in shaping the tourist destination understanding among the folks. VR technology in tourism fosters the emotional and cognitive engagement of a tourist with a specific location being viewed through VR technology without physically visiting the destination. VR videos fulfil the human needs of travelling the entire world and exploring the most remote global destinations more cheaply without requiring the visitor to visit the destination personally. It is ensured through VR technology that the tourist gets the same experience of tourism through VR technology as he would have been experiencing while physically visiting a tourist destination. Virtual Reality is also a controversial topic. The critics of VR Technology argue that in the tourism sector, VR experience could no longer be the same as the vibes that a person experiences while physically visiting a tourist destination. Physical presence on actual tourist destination has far more pure emotional engagement as compared to getting the VR experience sitting on a sofa at home without any travel and struggle to feel the thrill and adventures of travelling to a destination. However, still, this technology is becoming famous because not everyone possesses adequate financial resources to travel physically to each country worldwide. In that case, VR is an attractive option.
Uses of VR Technology in Travel and Tourism
There are different uses of VR technology in the tourism sector. Most prominent are elucidated below.
Management and Planning: VR technology in tourism could be utilised for architectural, environmental and urban planning. It could serve as a colossal tool to formulate tourism policies. This technology enables planners to get access to the most realistic navigation tools that help planners in analysing the overall environment of a location. VR also enables rapid visualising of numerous changes at a specific location. It could facilitate tourism plan communication as well.
Marketing: VR technology is a useful tool for marketing. Its 360-degree video and imaging system enables the tourists to explore prominent parts of destination that fosters its marketing as well. Marketing prospects are successful with the help of sensory information provided to different tourists via VR technology. This technology facilitates the tourists to get a view of a location and decide about physically visiting that destination. Hotel selection decision making could also be done by using VR technology.
Entertainment: Entertainment and emotional needs fulfilment through realistic world videos is another key purpose of VR technology in the tourism sector. Aromas, 3D images, sounds, related to a specific scene and destination, entertain tourists emotionally.
Education: VR technology has a great potential to educate folks, especially its use in museums for educational purposes is highly effective. It enables tourists to explore the cultural heritage and sites of a country.
Heritage Preservation: Heritage site list is virtually accessed by using VR technology. 3D virtual models are shown globally associated with a specific heritage site.
Trends in VR Tourism
Tourism and travel trends are moving faster towards VR Tourism and automation. Reservation technology and VR plays a crucial role in current post-COVID19 tourism trends. Personalising buying experiences, booking on mobile, and sustainable tourism has now become the new era trends. More trends in the tourism industry include wellbeing travelling, once in a lifetime travel and solo travel are some trends prevailing in the tourism sector. VR technology, along with all its key components, has seen a rise in the recent years as the world is digitalising itself and the people are also fond of adopting new trends in every field including tourism. The future of VR Tourism is bright, but still, some people would always prefer physically travelling to tourist destinations as compared to virtual tourism.
Theoretical Framework
Flow Theory of Motivation
The Flow Theory model is a prominent model that analyses customer’s behaviour towards technological use. Furthermore, flow theory also serves as a tool to observe individual experiences regarding the virtual environment navigation in which the mediating relationship among the virtual tourist behaviour and involvement has been identified as a flow state. Flow state refers to the mediator related to the association between satisfaction, emotion, and e-servicescape in the hospitality and tourism industry context. A flow state has essential repercussions in the virtual environments linked with tourism and also between the intention and ease to travel along with between behavioural intention and usability. The mobile social media-related flow experience serves as a mediator between various types of motivations encompassing usefulness and enjoyment along with subjective wellbeing and among purchase intention and motivation. VR travel communities in tourism sector observe flow as a crucial element of mediation related to system quality, information quality, stickness, satisfaction, and word-of-mouth. Following are the critical factors in the flow theory associated with tourism and VR experience that could foster the consumer motivation to use VR technology for tourism purposes.
Flow State and Perceived Easiness Relationship
The notion of perceived easiness refers to the extent to which an individual believes that usage of a specific system would be effortless. Perceived easiness serves as a significant factor in adapting technology for tourism purposes.
Flow State and Perceived Usefulness Relationship
Perceived usefulness refers to the extent to which an individual believes that a specific system enhances his professional performance. Flow in VR tourism websites is mostly influenced by information quality and system that are included in usefulness.
Flow State and Perceived Enjoyment Relationship
Human while using technology considers enjoyment as a significant factor of motivation to adopt the technology. Same is the case with VR in tourism. It signifies human attitude towards a specific technology such as VR technology. Consumers could get the motivation to visits a destination if they find a location exciting, and there are enjoyment prospects for them via a virtual platform.
Flow State and Subjective Wellbeing Relationship
Subjective wellbeing refers to satisfaction, happiness, and experiencing a positive impact by using technology in tourism. There is a positive and significant relationship between subjective wellbeing and the flow state. Increase in a person’s passion results in an increasing experience of flow in a specific activity that results in higher subjective wellbeing. Consumers with increased experience of flow associated with mobile social media have more probability of getting a higher rate of subjective wellbeing in the tourism sector.
Flow State and Continuous Usage Relationship
Continuous use refers to the intention of the consumer to utilise information systems repeatedly having initial usage where experience is the crucial aspect to foster continuous use. The continuous usage also depends on consumer’s vibes of enjoyment, satisfaction, and happiness, in tourism while using the VR technology.
Subjective Wellbeing and Continuous Usage Relationship
After getting subjective wellbeing from specific technology use, consumers tend to use that technology continuously. In the case of virtual reality, the experience of contentment while using virtual social worlds foster continuous use of technology. Psychological wellbeing after using VR technology in the tourism sector increases consumer satisfaction that results in continuous use of VR tourism.
Moderating repercussions of non-visitors/visitors
The behaviour of visitors and non-visitors towards VR tourism is different. The perception of a visitor about London would be different than a person who had never been to London in his life. Therefore, both types of visitors have different perceptions.
Challenges for VR Tourism
The key challenge for VR Tourism include firstly, the VR technology is mostly being used in the gaming industry, but still, VR Tourism lags. Despite valuing VR Tourism marketing and the use of VR technology in it, still, the trend of VR Tourism is not increasing with a rate at which it should have been increasing. Another challenge for VR tourism could be that the data being used by VR Tourism for heritage preservation might be of shorter lifespan as compared to tangible record books and this is a challenge (Guttenag, 2010). Furthermore, despite ample technological advancements in VR Tourism about auditory output and re-creation sites accuracy, a challenge still remains that advancements are still needed in the areas of photorealistic avatars, real-time movement’s rendering, accurate and effortless simulation of the sound stage of a person. Advancements in future associated with VR technologies are also unclear (Guttenag, 2010). Therefore, challenges persist, and utilities of VR technology in tourism are not free of limitations.
Opportunities and Covid19 Repercussions on Tourism
There are several vital opportunities available for VR Tourism. VR Tourism is not much common these days as the VR Technology is mostly being used in the gaming field. People still prefer to go physically to worldwide destinations instead of seeing the destinations on VR Tourism. On the other hand, as a cheaper alternative to a physical visit to the tourist destinations, still, a large number of people show interest in the VR Tourism. There is a lot of scope in virtual marketing related to tourism that could foster the tourism business tremendously.
On the other hand, Covid19 has also increased the scope for electronic digital technologies encompassing the VR Tourism technologies. In the Covid19 lockdowns, people would not be allowed to leave their homes, and the airline industry would remain closed. VR Tourism is the crucial technology-based tourism that would then experience the boom. Covid19 would have disastrous repercussions for physical tourism, but VR Tourism will still prevail. Overall, there are better prospects for VR Tourism.
Conclusion
It is evident from the facts mentioned above that the world is observing a boom in VR Tourism, but the process is slow because of most of its use in the gaming industry and due to a controversy where people like to travel personally to the destinations instead of using only VR Tourism that could not provide same satisfaction and vibes that physical tourism could deliver to its fullest. Furthermore, despite ample technological advancements in VR Tourism, still, some areas need technological advancements and improvement. Covid19 has also increased the demand for virtual tourism, especially in VR Tourism marketing, there is a lot of scopes. Overall, like all other sectors, the tourism sector is also getting the benefits from virtual technology, especially in the post-Covid19 era, while experiencing lockdowns as well.