The dark side of metaverse tourism: exploring how resistance barriers and FOMO shape attitude and discontinuance behavior

Purpose This study attempts to examine how resistance barriers affect the attitude and discontinuance behavior of customers towards metaverse tourism, followed by the moderating role of the fear of missing out (FOMO) on the relationship between attitude and discontinuance behavior. Design/methodology/approach The responses were collected from 422 individuals having metaverse tourism exposure using a convenience-purposive sampling technique. The analysis was conducted with a two-step method using structural equation modeling (SEM) and artificial neural networks (ANN). Findings The findings demonstrated the substantial impact of resistance barriers on customers’ attitude further leading to discontinuance behavior towards metaverse tourism. The findings further revealed that FOMO moderates the relationship between the attitude and discontinuance behavior. Practical implications The study provides robust implications for metaverse developers/metaverse tourism operators that improvements in safety, privacy, policy, and ease of use of the metaverse might reduce customers’ apprehension of using metaverse tourism. Further, the study’s cross-sectional design limits causal interpretations, and its focus on tourism restricts generalizability to other metaverse contexts such as education, healthcare, or virtual retail environments. Originality/value The study contributes significantly to metaverse developers and tour operators that improvements in safety, privacy, pricing, and ease of use of the metaverse might reduce customers’ apprehension towards metaverse tourism.