MetaUniTour: Enhancing Engagement and Intercultural Understanding through A Metaverse Tourism Platform

We propose "MetaUniTour", a remote tourism platform designed to address key limitations in conventional Metaverse-based tourism, including perceptual and experiential asymmetries between tourists and hosts, the lack of collaborative engagement due to individualized exploration and high barriers to participation. MetaUniTour is structured around three core design principles: (1) spatial design that creates "mixed spaces" integrating cultural elements from both tourists and hosts; (2) experience design based on semi-structured, group-oriented activities that balance individual autonomy and collective participation; and (3) a browser-based, device-independent system architecture that ensures broad accessibility. A two-month field deployment, "Reality of Kenya," virtually connected Higashiyama Zoo in Nagoya, Japan, with Kenya’s Maasai Mara and attracted 3,615 participants. A follow-up survey answered by 66 people revealed that over 60% perceived spatial integration between the two locations, also participants found the experience enjoyable and felt a sense of unity through experienced intercultural exchanges. Our findings demonstrate that MetaUniTour offers an effective design framework for fostering symmetrical cultural exchange and immersive shared experiences with any devices, suggesting promising potential for future applications in tourism, education, and cross-cultural communication.