Virtual Voyages: Evaluating the Role of Real-Time and Narrated Virtual Tours in Shaping User Experience and Memories

Research Background and Issues

• Challenges Identified by the Authors:

  • Despite the growing attention to the potential of Virtual Reality (VR) technology in tourism experiences, controlled experiments exploring how users perceive these technologies are scarce.
  • Existing literature primarily focuses on technological development in virtual tourism, with limited attention to designing high-quality user experiences.
  • Current virtual tourism content is mostly pre-recorded, lacking real-time interactivity and narrative depth.

• Significance of the Research:

  • Virtual tourism can serve as a way to reduce carbon emissions and provide accessible travel experiences for everyone, especially for individuals unable to visit physical locations due to health, financial, or visa constraints.
  • In the context of overtourism and increasing environmental pressure on tourist destinations, virtual tourism can help divert physical visitors and promote sustainable use of cultural and natural attractions.

• Research Motivation:

  • Investigate how real-time streaming and narrative content impact user experience in virtual tourism, particularly in terms of spatial presence, place attachment, and memory formation.
  • Develop a virtual kayaking experience based on real-world environments in collaboration with local tourism operators to examine user perceptions of these elements.

Solution

• Proposed Solution:

  • Developed a VR system combining 360° video, spatial audio, and narrative content, allowing users to participate in two ways: watching pre-recorded videos or engaging in a "real-time streaming" experience.
  • Designed a narrative-driven approach to provide environmental information and cultural knowledge through virtual reality tourism experiences.

• Innovations:

  • Proposed a virtual tourism solution integrating real-time (Real-Time) and narrative (Narrative) elements, which have been rarely studied systematically in previous research.
  • Introduced the study of place attachment in virtual environments, exploring how organizational design influences user perception and memory.

• Implementation Steps and Techniques:

  • Used professional equipment (360° cameras and spatial audio recorders) to capture content for the kayaking journey and collaborated with local tourism practitioners to design narrative scenarios.
  • Controlled experimental conditions in user research by providing the following four experiences:
    1. Pre-recorded video without narrative.
    2. Pre-recorded video with narrative.
    3. Pre-recorded video without narrative, but users were misled to believe it was "real-time streaming."
    4. Pre-recorded video with narrative, and users were misled to believe it was "real-time streaming."
  • Analyzed the impact of narrative and real-time elements on user perception using experimental scales (e.g., IPQ scale, place attachment scale) and participant interviews.

Research Results

• Specific Findings:

  • Narrative Effects: The inclusion of narrative significantly enhanced users' spatial presence and place attachment to the destination, while improving the overall quality of the tourism experience.
  • Real-Time Effects: Real-time elements did not significantly increase users' spatial presence but did significantly enhance their emotional connection to the destination.
  • Memory Distortion: Participants' memories of the experience were influenced by emotional changes, with more positive emotions tending to result in "beautified" memory images.

• Advantages Over Existing Solutions:

  • Compared to other virtual tourism solutions relying on static 3D reconstructions or one-way narratives, this study emphasizes the potential of dynamic elements (e.g., water surfaces, wildlife) and real-time interaction to enhance user immersion and engagement.
  • By collaborating with real-world tourism practitioners, the study tightly integrates theory with practice, providing a virtual tourism case acceptable to users and enhancing the external validity of the research.

• Experimental and Evaluation Results:

  • Users in narrative conditions scored higher on overall spatial presence compared to non-narrative conditions (p < 0.001).
  • Users in real-time conditions scored higher on place attachment compared to non-real-time conditions (p = 0.02).
  • A significant "positive memory effect" was observed among users, indicating that virtual experiences can positively influence long-term memory formation.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Limitations:
    • The "real-time streaming" content in the experiment was actually disguised pre-recorded video, which may have interfered with user perception.
    • Due to hardware limitations, the resolution and interactivity of the 360° video were insufficient, with a lack of detail potentially reducing the sense of presence.
  • Future Directions:
    • Fully implement genuine real-time streaming to explore the impact of real-time interaction on user experiences.
    • Consider incorporating multi-sensory elements (e.g., wind, temperature, or scent) to enhance virtual immersion.
    • Redesign and validate existing tourism experience measurement tools specifically for virtual environments.

Conclusion

This study provides a systematic exploration of virtual tourism, demonstrating the distinct roles of narrative and real-time elements in user experiences. The research not only aids future virtual tourism system developers in understanding the impact of dynamic content on immersion and place attachment but also highlights the practical applications of virtual tourism in cultural dissemination, environmental conservation, and tourism marketing.