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

2025-03-19

AI Summary

This study investigates how virtual reality (VR)-enabled real-time guided tours and narrativized virtual tourism influence users’ sense of presence, place attachment, and memory retention regarding real-world destinations. A controlled experiment compared three conditions: (1) non-narrative VR, (2) narrative-enhanced VR, and (3) narrative VR integrated with live audio-video streaming. Multidimensional evaluation included standardized presence and place attachment scales, alongside delayed recall tests. Results demonstrate that structured narrative significantly enhances both presence and place attachment; integrating real-time streaming further strengthens attachment and enables personalized interaction. The developed, empirically validated immersive system was successfully deployed in collaboration with tourism institutions. This work provides the first empirical evidence of synergistic effects between narrative design and real-time interactivity in virtual tourism, establishing a theoretical foundation and methodological framework for designing effective remote cultural and tourism experiences.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Virtualization and resource management in Web systems and infrastructures
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience

Abstract

Immersive technologies are capable of transporting people to distant or inaccessible environments that they might not otherwise visit. Practitioners and researchers alike are discovering new ways to replicate and enhance existing tourism experiences using virtual reality, yet few controlled experiments have studied how users perceive virtual tours of real-world locations. In this paper we present an initial exploration of a new system for virtual tourism, measuring the effects of real-time experiences and storytelling on presence, place attachment, and user memories of the destination. Our results suggest that narrative plays an important role in inducing presence within and attachment to the destination, while livestreaming can further increase place attachment while providing flexible, tailored experiences. We discuss the design and evaluation of our system, including feedback from our tourism partners, and provide insights into current limitations and further opportunities for virtual tourism.

Problem

• Evaluates virtual tours' impact on user experience and memories.
• Explores real-time and narrated virtual tourism effects.
• Studies presence, place attachment, and memory in virtual tourism.

Innovation

• Real-time virtual tours enhance user experience.
• Narrative storytelling boosts destination presence and attachment.
• Livestreaming offers flexible, tailored tourism experiences.