Tourists' experience of Virtual Reality applications

Virtual Reality (VR) has enjoyed a significant upswing of interest from researchers and businesses generally but also specifically from the tourism sector. However, qualitative research on tourists' experience of VR applications is scarce. Therefore, the present study aims to explore tourists' experience of VR using the Lake District National Park as a case study. 35 VR experiments and interviews with tourists were conducted and analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings show a positive attitude towards the use of VR in the tourism context as tourists were fully immersed in the experience which appeared to influence their behavioral intention to visit the destination in the future.