Digital Tourism Consumption: The Role of Virtual Reality (VR) Vacations on Consumers’ Psychological Wellbeing: An Abstract

Abstract

An important motivational driver for a vacation experience is to escape the stress and strains of routine day-to-day life (Su et al., 2020). Individuals increasingly partake in vacations with the aim of enhancing their wellbeing (Wang et al., 2021) Recently, scholars have drawn on the lens of positive psychology to understand how tourism experiences contribute to individuals’ hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. However, despite this growing body of literature, it remains unclear how tourists’ wellbeing adapts over the duration of a vacation (Su et al., 2020). More specifically, we have a limited understanding on the lasting wellbeing effects post-vacation (Li & Chan, 2020). Scholars have outlined that the positive outcomes of a vacation often have a limited lasting effect of up to 1 month (Etzion, 2003; de Bloom et al., 2010, 2011). Chen et al. (2013) found that tourists’ hedonic wellbeing was boosted immediately following a vacation but quickly faded after 2 months. In further support, Kwon and Lee (2020) outlined that individuals wellbeing rose 15 days prior to travel and lasted for 1 month following travel. Accordingly, given the advancements in technology and the inherent social presence and immersion of Virtual Reality (VR hereafter), this research uncovers that a related VR tourism experience post-vacation can play a role in positively prolonging the wellbeing effects of an individual’s vacation experience. In effect, a vacation transports one’s self to an alternative world, physically. Similarly, VR transports one’s self to an alternative world, virtually. Thus, in both circumstances individuals leave behind their day-to-day life in pursuit of an alternative way of life for a short duration. VR technology has the unique capability to make individuals feel like they have transported to and become ‘present’ within an alternative virtual world (McLean & Barhorst, 2021). Through a longitudinal experimental research design over a 3-month period, this research affirms the positive effect of a vacation experience on both the hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions of wellbeing, the rise tendency and fall tendency of wellbeing over the course of a vacation and the role of VR in boosting the positive wellbeing effects of a vacation.