Cognizing tourist loyalty during covid-19 pandemic through virtual reality lens

ABSTRACT

This study examines tourist loyalty toward tourism destinations during the COVID-19 pandemic, involving experience and satisfaction with virtual reality (VR) as determinants. The data, collected using an online survey, are from 300 tourists who have experience visiting a tourism destination via VR. Exploratory factor analysis on the dimensionality of experience with VR tourism attraction identifies three dimensions: enjoyment, learning, and immersion-social interaction. Among the identified dimensions, enjoyment has the biggest impact on experience with the VR tourism attraction. Next, the partial least square analysis reveals that experience with the VR tourism attraction determines tourists’ VR satisfaction, intention to re-visit, and intention to endorse, while their experience with the VR system only drives their intention to re-visit. Finally, tourists’ past visiting experience to the destination does not moderate the association between VR experience, VR satisfaction, and loyalty.

KEYWORDS:

• Virtual reality tourism
• tourist loyalty
• satisfaction
• experience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology [grant number 085/SP2H/LT/DRPM/2021].

Notes on contributors

Dwi Suhartanto

Dwi Suhartanto is Professor in Marketing at the Business Administration Department, Politeknik Negeri Bandung, Indonesia. His research interests include the hospitality & tourism, consumer behavior, and Islamic marketing. His works have been published in various reputable journals including Journal of Business Research, Current Issues in Tourism, British Food Journal and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.

David Dean

David Dean is Associate Professor in Marketing at Lincoln University, New Zealand. His latest research direction is the marketing of experiential products (specifically Food and Wine) with a focus on consumer behaviour and two-way social media strategies (major social media platforms, blogs, and internet forums). He also publishes in the area of services marketing with a focus on modelling service quality, mostly in the tourism (airlines, hotels, spas, resorts) industry.

Transmissia Semiawan

Transmissia Semiawan completed PhD from Leeds Metropolitan University – UK. She is now Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics, Politeknik Negeri Bandung. Focusing on Information Management and Information Systems, her research interests include the area of ontology, grounded theory, and data science.

Lusianus Kusdibyo

Lusianus Kusdibyo is Associate Professor in Marketing at the Business Administration Department, Politeknik Negeri Bandung, Indonesia. His research interests include tourism marketing, online marketing, and consumer behavior. His works have been published in some known journals.

Aditia Sobarna

Aditia Sobarna is a research assistant at the Business Administration Department, Politeknik Negeri Bandung, Indonesia. He has research interests in tourism and development, consumer behavior, e-service quality, and creative tourism.