Exploring tourist engagement through immersive technology: virtual reality and augmented reality

This thesis explores the contribution of Virtual reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to promote tourism engagement (TE). The thesis is structured in three articles addressing three key gaps: the lack of (1) synthesized scholarly knowledge of VR and AR applications to promote TE, (2) an understanding of the features of VR/AR mobile applications (apps) that influence tourist behavioral engagement (TBE), and (3) limited comparison of VR and AR in establishing emotional bonds between tourist and destination. The first article employs a hybrid integrative review by analyzing 236 peer-reviewed documents. The computer science perspective dominates the discussion of TE via VR/AR tourism, overshadowing tourism research. The potential of VR/AR tourism apps is highlighted as a promising avenue for enhancing TE. The second article analyzes 6,998 Google Play reviews from the top ten VR/AR tourism apps. The results indicate that utilitarian gratification, perceived usefulness, ease-of-use, and immersive features are key drivers of TBE. The third article is a comparative study that analyzes 3,217 VR with 2,057 AR tourism app reviews. The outcomes showed that VR/AR utilitarian gratification strongly drives the feeling of groundedness. While AR social gratification evokes a sense of groundedness, VR social gratification has no effect. The groundedness-intentions link for AR is moderated by behavioral and emotional engagement, while for VR, it is moderated by cognitive and emotional engagement. This thesis contributes to deepening our understanding of the role of VR and AR in enhancing TE. It also identifies core design attributes in VR/AR apps for boosting TBE through large-scale analysis of user-generated content. Additionally, it compares emotional outcomes between VR and AR by introducing the concept of “feeling of groundedness” as a fresh perspective on virtual tourism. The thesis offers practical insights for destination managers to adopt these technologies to boost TE and suggests using VR/AR differently based on purpose. The thesis also provides guidance for developers on designing apps to promote TBE.

Name thesis:degree_name

Tese de doutoramento em Gestão (especialidade em Marketing e Estratégia)

Grantor

Universidade do Minho

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Omran, Wajdy

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Casais, Beatriz Graça Luz
• Ramos, Ricardo Filipe Carreira

• Virtual Reality
• Augmented Reality
• Tourist Engagement
• Tourism
• Immersive Technologies
• Realidade Virtual
• Realidade Aumentada
• Envolvimento Turístico
• Turismo
• Tecnologias Imersivas

Statement dc:rights

• embargoedAccess (1 Year)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1822/98493

OAI record oai:identifier

http://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dim&identifier=oai%3Arepositorium.uminho.pt%3A1822%2F98493