Standards in Virtual Worlds Virtual Travel Use Case Metaverse1 Project

Abstract

Nowadays, tourism has become a very important industry in the international economy. Information and communication technologies are in constant development; they progress worldwide and across sectors. Their applications in tourism and tourist resources is rapidly increasing, reaching new, innovative and sometimes amazing results in terms of effectiveness, productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction. Exploring the interaction between technologies and tourism is difficult and challenging. Specifically, using virtual world technologies as a new means of information for potential tourists is a big challenge where the actual methods, goals and needs still need to be exactly identified.This paper aims at analyzing why and how virtual worlds can become an important platform for tourism-oriented areas to promote a destination in general, and their local heritage and tourist added-value services in particular. The document will also introduce the design of the first prototypes and the validation results of the four specific technologies tested at the Virtual Travel Use Case (Soundscape generation, Multilinguality, Video streaming and Path and Camera Planning). Finally, the contribution to the MPEG-V standard will also be detailed in the paper.

The Impact of Virtual Reality (VR) Tour Experience on Tourists’ Intention to Visit

“…For example, Wei et al's [21] research investigating the role of VR in enhancing the experience and behaviors of theme park visitors has shown that visiting theme park visitors or a destination through VR technology results in a strong intention to visit the destination or theme park. Similarly, for the museum experience, the VR tour generates a high intention to visit the museum [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. By inference, VR technological tools [45] and rich content [38] make it possible to increase individuals' visit or travel intention because certain components of the VR visit experience, including telepresence, lead to a visit intention [49].…”

“…However, little research has paid attention to the phenomenon of VR in the tourist context [23,24]. Past research has investigated the role and effect of mental imagery in the context of a 2D website on the behavioral, emotional, and attitudinal responses of consumers [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. Yet, to our knowledge, very little research has addressed mental imagery and VR, especially in the context of domestic tourism.…”

“…This research builds on previous research (e.g., [6,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27]) to address the effect of the VR visitor experience on tourists' visit intent. The literature has explained the relationship between VR and consumer behavior in the tourism context, but it is crucial to mention that gaps persist in the literature.…”