Many tour providers have pinned their hopes on providing virtual tours to bring back visitors in the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this paper, we develop an analytical ...model to examine whether free virtual tours can help attract more visitors. We consider a tour provider deciding whether to provide a free virtual tour and its grade if any is provided to maximize visitors' physical presence. Potential visitors possess heterogeneous preferences and perceived equivalence, and the tour provider knows only their respective random distributions. The model is solved to maximize tour providers' physical demand. Our analysis finds that a free virtual tour can help if potential visitors significantly underestimate the physical tour and identifies the critical threshold; we also find that the COVID-19 pandemic reduces the likelihood that a free virtual tour can help. This paper contributes to the tourism management community by accentuating the dark side of virtual tours, suggesting that tour providers should be prudent before introducing any virtual tour. We also provide guidelines for virtual tourism, helping tour providers respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and other uncertain situations.
The continuous spread of the COVID-19 pandemic is causing people to feel anxiety and stress. This study constructs a four-layer research model to examine how a 360° virtual tour can reduce people's ...psychological stress through two types of presence (the sense of presence and telepresence) and affective-motivational states (enjoyment and involvement) in this extraordinary period of the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to test the moderating effect of involvement, partial least squares (PLS) analysis is employed to analyse valid data collected from 235 individuals. The results of this study indicate that telepresence has a higher impact in generating affective-motivational states than the sense of presence. Among the factors, enjoyment shows the highest effect on satisfaction with the 360° virtual tour experience and stress reduction; involvement moderates the effect of telepresence on satisfaction with the 360° virtual tour experience. This study also contributes to virtual reality research by distinguishing the concepts of ‘sense of presence’ and ‘telepresence’ as well as demonstrating the mechanisms whereby virtual reality technology influences people's psychological well-being. Timely recommendations are provided for people in order to reduce psychological stress during and after COVID-19 pandemic.
•Sense of presence and telepresence influence affective-motivational states.•Telepresence has the highest total effect on the satisfaction with the 360° VR tour.•Telepresence has the highest total effect on stress reduction.•Involvement mediates and moderates the effect of telepresence on the satisfaction.
Ambient Temperature in Online Service environments (ATOS) is a sensory cue not directly accessible in current online servicescape technology, but inferred from secondary cues, particularly visual ...ones. This study integrates research on cross-modal inferences with a situated cognitions framework and the stereotype content model to show that ATOS enhances judgment of service provider warmth, in turn influencing important service outcomes. A pilot study explores the linkages between consumer online and offline experiences, providing evidence for online service environments’ capacity (especially ATOS) to shape customer judgment and behavior. Study 1 examines a tropical island holiday resort to show that online representations of the environment evoke situated cognitions and preferences consistent with high ambient temperature. Study 2 uses virtual tours of cafés to demonstrate that ATOS, through judgment of service provider warmth, positively influences purchase intention and other managerially important service outcomes. Study 3 employs 12 service contexts to replicate ATOS effects, mediated through warmth, and to show that effects are stronger in contexts where service provision is directed more at objects (vs. people). Given that ambient temperature is ubiquitous in all types of service settings and easily adjusted by practitioners, managerial implications outline how service marketers can more effectively employ ATOS.
This study aims at explaining the use of virtual tours in learning English for tourism in the English for Tourism course at the Department of English Education, Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University. ...Technology is an alternative that is used as a human response. In the field of education, innovation was born through technological developments, namely virtual tour services which became a learning platform equipped with visual, audiovisual and interactive learning resources. Studying at home can be boring for both students and teachers due to the confined environment in the room. It is hoped that the visual service organized by the virtual tour application in Indonesia can provide educational, inspirational and recreational value as well as in learning English for tourism which is carried out online
The teaching-learning process from different educational institutions reveals that it is necessary to promote knowledge and appreciation of the artistic manifestations of the country’s cultural ...heritage. Finding effective ways to promote experiences related to art aimed at students is essential, since they are useful for developing multiple intelligences, especially spatial intelligence. In this sense, virtual tours are an important tool to appreciate art from anywhere in the world. Such tours allow students to virtually explore the cultural heritage from different museums and thus acquire their knowledge. This article presents an exercise conducted with the aim of identifying the impact of technology in artistic-cultural education. The documents present, first, a bibliographic review of the fundamental concepts and categories in this field. Subsequently, the methodology used for the research, a qualitative analysis of the information, is described. Next, the experience of three museums that offer virtual tours for the public –Museo Casa Guayasamín, Museo de San Francisco and Museo Interactivo de Ciencias (MIC)– in the city of Quito was analyzed. Finally, the conclusions and the bibliographical references are stated.
•Participants stayed longer with slow-tempo music than with fast-tempo music.•Music tempo exerted the greatest impact on participants’ duration of stay.•When visitor density reaches a crowded level, ...the tempo of music influences the duration of stay.
Investigations have been made into the effect of music tempo on the duration of stay in commercial spaces, but not in exhibition spaces. Previous research has frequently used the duration of stay as an indicator of exhibition learning. To understand how music tempo may influence this learning, this study investigated the effect of music tempo on the duration of stay in exhibition spaces. Because the density of visitors, exhibit elements, or music or exhibit element preferences may affect the duration of stay in exhibition spaces, further investigation was conducted to determine which factors had an impact on the duration of stay in exhibition spaces and which factors had the greatest impact. An online experiment was conducted with a virtual representation of the famous White Cube Gallery in London. To investigate the influence of three factors on the duration of stay in exhibition spaces, 36 scenarios were generated for objective evaluation: music tempo (fast, medium, slow, none), exhibit element density (high, medium, low), and visitor density (single, crowded, uncrowded). Then subjective evaluation was used to investigate whether music preference or exhibit element preference influenced the duration of stay during the above 36 scenarios. Additionally, through subjectively and objectively exploring all the factors affecting participants’ duration of stay (music tempo, exhibit element density, visitor density, music preference, exhibit element preference), this study sought to determine which factors exerted the greatest impact. The objective results revealed that participants stayed longer (by approximately 30 s) with slow-tempo music than with fast-tempo music. Moreover, when the influence of music tempo (fast, medium, slow, none), exhibit element density (high, medium, low), and visitor density (single, crowded, uncrowded) were considered, the results showed that when the visitor density reaches crowded conditions, fast- or slow-tempo music will exert an impact on the duration of stay. The subjective results revealed that, when the effect of exhibit element density or visitor density were considered alongside the effect of music tempo on participants’ duration of stay, exhibit element preferences will also exert an impact on the duration of stay. The subjective and objective results revealed that of all the factors that influence participants’ duration of stay, music tempo (fast or slow) exerted the greatest impact.
The virtual tour media based on Lebak local products is designed as an alternative learning media in social studies subjects. Given the situation and conditions at school show that teachers still ...teach naturally and have not creatively used learning media. The purpose of writing this article is to describe the use of virtual tour media based on Lebak local products in social studies learning so that learning is more meaningful and achieves goals. This research uses quantitative methods with survey techniques and observations of 100 respondents. The data collection technique used a questionnaire distributed to teachers. The results of this study indicate that the use of virtual tour media based on Lebak local products can encourage meaningful learning and achieve learning objectives such as describing Lebak local products including batik cloth, Baduy dyed and woven cloth, crafts, palm sugar and emping as part of the natural wealth and potential of the area where students live, thus encouraging active participation, creativity of students in social studies learning.
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