Psychology, technology and human behaviour: The case of immersive virtual tourism, a sustainable alternative to conventional tourism

Abstract

According to the World Tourism Organization, in 2019 there was a total number of 1.4 billion international tourists, which represented a turnover related to the sector of around 1 426 billion euros. Tourism industry involves several actors, from the tourists themselves through the tour operators to the entities responsible for the tourist points of interest, this high volume of tourism makes evident two problems that arise from it: (1) with the high number of destinations tourism, it becomes more challenging to create marketing strategies that differentiate certain tourist offers from others and; (2) the high tourist volume causes an overload on the resources of the tourist destinations themselves, putting their sustainability at stake.