Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of immersive virtual reality (VR) media and the influence of user’s age in the context of destination marketing by exploring their impact on cognition (presence), affection (arousal), and behavioral (intention to visit and intention to recommend the destination) outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach

A laboratory experiment was conducted to compare the impact of using immersive VR (vs. 2D desktop) to experience a 360-degree virtual tour of Valencia on consumers’ behavior. The sample included 187 participants. Both self-reported and physiological measures were collected during the experimentation.

Findings

Results showed that participants in the immersive condition experienced a stronger sense of presence and higher physiological arousal than those exposed to nonimmersive content. Presence significantly mediated both the intention to visit and the intention to recommend the promoted venue. Physiological arousal mediated the relationship between media typology and the intention to recommend the destination. Upon introducing age as a moderating variable, the effect of physiological arousal on behavioral outcomes proves to be significant.

Practical implications

The study presents destination marketing organizations with a compelling use case for immersive technologies. It also offers design principles, potential applications and targeting strategies for VR marketing in hospitality management.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the combined effect of physiological arousal and presence on behavioral intentions in VR destination marketing, while also examining the impact of age as an individual characteristic.

中文翻译：

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沉浸式技术如何影响目的地营销中的行为反应：生理唤醒、存在感和年龄的作用

 目的

本文旨在通过探索沉浸式虚拟现实（VR）媒体对认知（存在）、情感（唤醒）和行为（访问意向和意向）的影响，研究沉浸式虚拟现实（VR）媒体的有效性以及用户年龄在目的地营销中的影响。推荐目的地）结果。

设计/方法论/途径

我们进行了一项实验室实验，以比较使用沉浸式 VR（与 2D 桌面）体验瓦伦西亚 360 度虚拟之旅对消费者行为的影响。样本包括 187 名参与者。在实验过程中收集了自我报告和生理测量数据。

 发现

结果表明，与接触非沉浸式内容的参与者相比，沉浸式条件下的参与者体验到更强的存在感和更高的生理唤醒。存在感显着介导了参观意图和推荐所推广场地的意图。生理唤醒调节媒体类型与推荐目的地意图之间的关系。将年龄作为调节变量后，生理唤醒对行为结果的影响被证明是显着的。

 实际影响

该研究为目的地营销组织提供了令人信服的沉浸式技术用例。它还提供了酒店管理中 VR 营销的设计原则、潜在应用和目标策略。

 原创性/价值

据作者所知，这项研究首次调查了 VR 目的地营销中生理唤醒和存在对行为意图的综合影响，同时还研究了年龄作为个人特征的影响。