Virtual reality, YouTube, or social media? Assessing promotional effects on tourism destination

Abstract

This study investigated how virtual reality affects the tourism image and flow experience compared with YouTube videos and Facebook and travel pages and examined the moderating effect of the acceptance of new technologies on the relationship between tourism marketing effects and different communication tools. The virtual reality group exhibited higher levels of advertisement effects, tourism image, and four flow factors (friendliness, telepresence, interactivity, and realness) compared with YouTube and Facebook groups. A two-way analysis of variance test revealed a significant interaction between the type of marketing tools and the acceptance of new technologies with respect to the tourism image, a flow-friendly experience, and a flow interactivity experience.