Purpose

The Metaverse is rapidly reshaping the understanding of tourism, yet the public perception of this new domain remains largely uncharted empirically. This paper aims to build on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and diffusion of innovations theory (DIT) to fill this gap, offering crucial insights that could inform scholars and practitioners in both the tourism and technology sectors.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a big-data approach, the authors applied machine learning to scrape comments made by social media users on recent popular posts or videos related to tourism in the Metaverse from three prominent social media platforms. The cleaning process narrowed down 15,461 comments to 2,650, which were then analysed using thematic, emotion and sentiment analysis techniques.

Findings

The thematic analysis revealed that virtual tourism evokes a complex range of public beliefs. While many express awe and excitement toward its immersive capabilities, others remain sceptical about authenticity compared to physical travel. Additional themes show people draw comparisons to real-world tourism, discuss technology’s role and note educational value and novelty. However, some comments raise concerns about potential societal harms, exploitation and mental health impacts. Sentiment analysis found over half of the comments positive, though some were negative. Emotion analysis showed contentment, happiness and excitement as most frequent, though sadness, worry and loneliness also featured. Overall, perceptions of Metaverse tourism encompass enthusiasm yet substantial ambivalence.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to comprehensively analyse public discussions on Metaverse tourism. It takes TAM and Rogers’s DIT a step further and provides fresh insights into how these theories can be employed in the emerging field of Metaverse tourism. The themes revealed new conceptual insights into multidimensional factors shaping public beliefs about Metaverse tourism and thus informing scholarly research on virtual interaction and technology acceptance regarding Metaverse tourism. In addition, the results can help tourism providers, platforms and marketers address salient public beliefs and sentiments/attitudes in developing marketing offerings, experiences and communications. Over time, this analysis methodology can be used to track the evolving public perceptions of Metaverse tourism.

中文翻译：

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探索新领域还是失去联系？评估公众对虚拟宇宙中旅游业的信念——一种大数据方法

 目的

虚拟宇宙正在迅速重塑对旅游业的理解，但公众对这个新领域的看法在很大程度上仍然是未知的。本文旨在以技术接受模型（TAM）和创新扩散理论（DIT）为基础来填补这一空白，提供重要的见解，为旅游和技术领域的学者和从业者提供信息。

设计/方法论/途径

作者利用大数据方法，应用机器学习从三个著名的社交媒体平台上收集社交媒体用户对元宇宙旅游相关的最新热门帖子或视频的评论。清理过程将 15,461 条评论缩小到 2,650 条，然后使用主题、情感和情感分析技术对这些评论进行了分析。

 发现

主题分析表明，虚拟旅游唤起了一系列复杂的公众信念。虽然许多人对其身临其境的能力表示敬畏和兴奋，但其他人仍然对其与实体旅行相比的真实性持怀疑态度。其他主题显示人们与现实世界的旅游业进行比较，讨论技术的作用并注意教育价值和新颖性。然而，一些评论引起了人们对潜在社会危害、剥削和心理健康影响的担忧。情绪分析发现，超过一半的评论是积极的，但也有一些是消极的。情绪分析显示，最常见的是满足、快乐和兴奋，但也有悲伤、担忧和孤独。总体而言，人们对虚拟宇宙旅游的看法既热情又矛盾。

 原创性/价值

据作者所知，这项研究是第一个全面分析公众对元宇宙旅游讨论的研究之一。它使 TAM 和 Rogers 的 DIT 更进一步，并为如何将这些理论应用于新兴的元宇宙旅游领域提供了新的见解。这些主题揭示了对塑造公众对元界旅游信念的多维因素的新概念见解，从而为有关元界旅游的虚拟互动和技术接受度的学术研究提供信息。此外，研究结果还可以帮助旅游提供商、平台和营销人员在开发营销产品、体验和沟通时解决突出的公众信念和情绪/态度。随着时间的推移，这种分析方法可用于跟踪公众对元宇宙旅游的看法不断变化。