The impact of mental simulation on subsequent tourist experience – dual evidence from eye tracking and self-reported measurement

ABSTRACT

Tourism research has always sought to find ways to improve tourists’ experience evaluation and create added value for them. However, the academic community has focused on the on-site and post-travel stages of tourists, and neglected the pre-travel stage. This study examines the influence of guided mental simulation of an upcoming tourist experience on subsequent on-site tourist experience and experience evaluation. The research simulated real-world experience with tour videos shot from the first-person perspective, and measured the variables using both eye movements and self-reporting. Multivariate ANOVA and multigroup analysis were then performed on the data. The results showed that a process simulation of tourists having an engagement experience and an outcome simulation of tourists having a sight-seeing experience resulted in a higher engagement level and higher emotional response during the on-site experience, higher evaluation of the experience, and a greater impact of engagement level on their evaluation. This study expands the research on tourists’ psychological experience in the pre-travel stage. Results indicate that the period from the moment consumers book or purchase the tourist product to the moment they actually embark on the tourist experience is a valuable marketing window.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourist experience
• mental simulation
• engagement
• emotion
• experience evaluation

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Mr. Changlin Song, Pan Yang and Dr. Zhiguo Wang, eye-tracking engineers from SR company in Canada, for his help in designing the eye-tracking experiment of this study.

Disclosure statement

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

Ethics

This research followed all required ethical procedures by the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics. Before the experiment, the process was introduced to these participants; Each participant signed the informed consent form; Each participant filled out the questionnaires anonymously; Each participant could withdraw from the experiment if an uneasy reaction arises; During the experiment, each participant was not harmed psychologically or physically; The data collected is for research purposes only.