Exploring Web-based virtual tour experience: The effects of telepresence on destination image

Tourism is an experience and includes many intangible attributes, but does not offer the chances of trial experience. Due to the variety seeking tendency of tourists, previous experience of the destination often does not help tourists information search. In this context, virtual experiences using environmental simulations can be useful tools to provide tourists with information about travel destination. The development of information technology offers new opportunities for ‘virtual visits to destinations’. The advantages of the Web include enhanced accessibility and flexibility and offers the potential to make a Web-based virtual tour a powerful tool for marketing the destination. This study focuses on two research questions: (1) what are the factors determining the level of virtual experience? (2) what are the effects of the virtual experience? An experiment was conducted to address these research questions. Three elements in Web design were selected as technical elements influencing the level of virtual experience include: (1) ‘Links with categorical information’, (2) ‘links to enlarged photographs’ and (3) ‘the size of photographs’. Full factorial design was used to examine the interaction effects to create 8 different types of Web environments. A total of 200 subjects participated in the experiment and their perceptions about virtual environment, telepresence, new information acquisition, destination image, and confidence were measured using questionnaire.; The results of this study indicate that the elements affect subjects' perception of virtual environment in terms of participation, predictability and observation of virtual environment but do not significantly influence the level of telepresence directly. In contrast, perceptions of virtual environment are strongly related to the level of telepresence. The results also indicate that high-level telepresence assists users to retain more information during the virtual tour. It also leads users to create a positive functional and psychological destination image. The positive images help them evaluate the destination as a more valuable one. Higher level of telepresence also leads users to build stronger confidence about the destination image through more information about the destination.; This study confirmed Fakeye and Crompton's model of image formation process by finding that the image after virtual experience is different from the image before the experience. This study also confirmed Smith and Swinyard's model about the effects of trial experience on the strength of beliefs. Managerial implications for tourism information providers are discussed in creating effective virtual environment and to control other factors for efficient communication using virtual tour. Future studies about virtual tour are also discussed.