Effects of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality on Visitor Experiences in Museum

Exploring the implications of wearable virtual reality technology for museum visitors' experience: A cluster analysis

“…Recently, the launch of next‐generation wearable VR devices, such as smart watches, smart glasses (e.g., Google Glass), and HMDs (e.g., Samsung Gear VR) have increased the opportunities to create highly enjoyable and immersive experiences, thus enabling art galleries, cultural heritage sites, and theme parks to exploit them to elicit emotional reactions from visitors and render their visit experience memorable (Jung et al, ; Rincon, Tommasini, Rainoldi, & Egger, ; tom Dieck, Jung, & Han, ; tom Dieck, tom Dieck, Jung, & Moorhouse, ; Wei et al, ). A wearable device is able to extend the sensory, cognitive, and emotional status of its user while shaping the way by which tourists orientate, interact, and control their interactions within their experience setting (Kim, Lee, & Jung, ; Tussyadiah, Wang, & Jia, ).…”

“…Focusing on the on‐site visit phase of cultural tourism attractions, understanding of visitors' perceptions and/or attitudes towards VR applications is crucial to evaluate their capacity to produce the expected benefits, such as eliciting a more positive and immersive emotional status of visitors and to enhance their overall visit experience (Chung et al, ; Jung et al, ; Jung & tom Dieck, ; Tussyadiah, Wang, & Jia, ). In particular, the potential impact of VR on visitors' experiences and their behavioural intentions significantly depend on customers' attitudes towards technology (Guttentag, ).…”

“…However, customers' attitudes and behavioural intentions are also affected by intrinsic motivation, which refers to “doing an activity for the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself” (Ryan & Deci, , p. 71) and includes escapism, fun, curiosity, and enjoyment. In investigating the value of VR applications, recent works (Huang et al, ; Jung et al, ; Jung et al, ) have applied the so‐called experiential marketing perspective (Pine & Gilmore, ) that is built around intrinsic motivations. According to Pine and Gilmore (), the realm of experience is composed of four dimensions (education, aesthetics, entertainment, and escape) that are all required for developing memorable experiences.…”

“…According to Pine and Gilmore (), the realm of experience is composed of four dimensions (education, aesthetics, entertainment, and escape) that are all required for developing memorable experiences. Previous research has found that VR applications are able to provide visitors with experiential benefits, such as escaping their daily routine and reality (Jung et al, ), entertainment (Huang et al, ), enjoyment, and emotional feeling (Huang et al, ). As far as the latter point is concerned, Del Chiappa et al () showed that emotions can be considered as a suitable variable to segment visitors and suggested that further studies would be needed to expand our understanding about the influence that technologies can exert in positively shaping the emotional status of visitors during their visit experience at a museum.…”

“…In this respect, VR applications based on wearable devices (e.g., smart watches and head‐mounted displays [HMDs]) have been spreading in the tourism industry and are expected to dramatically transform how tourists experience an attraction or a destination by providing them with added‐value propositions and diversified experiences (Jung et al, ; Rainoldi et al, ; tom Dieck & Jung, ; Tussyadiah, ). Although scholars have recognized the value of VR applications and started to examine their role as a marketing tool for tourism destinations (e.g., Huang, Backman, Backman, & Moore, ; Li & Chen, ), empirical research on how VR applications based on next‐generation wearable devices (e.g., VR headsets) affect visitors' experiences and behaviours at destinations and attractions is still scarce (e.g., Jung, tom Dieck, Moorhouse, & tom Dieck, ; Wei, Qi, & Zhang, ).…”