Immersive Digital Tourism: The Role of Multisensory Cues in Digital Museum Experiences

Abstract

Facilitated by emerging technologies, the immersive digital museum reflects disruptive innovation in today’s tourism experience and offers a multidimensional experience different from traditional museums. To better understand how visitors respond to this innovative form of digital tourism, the current research investigates visitor experiences at the digital museum and achieves a threefold goal. First, this research delineates a three-dimensional digital museum visitor experience, namely, joviality, personal escapism, and localness. Built on this experiential framework, the present research further affirms that visual and auditory cues are the most powerful multisensory cue combination in enhancing a holistic visitor experience at the digital museum. This study also finds that emotional state and sense of presence mediate the relations between the multisensory cues and visitors’ digital museum experiences. This research contributes to the conceptualization of a digital museum experience, and provides a foundation for the future research endeavor of the new generation of digital tourism.