Exploring equitable opportunities and cultural preservation in smart tourism through sustainable and accessible Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) offers transformative potential to address the intertwined challenges of equity and sustainability in tourism. By providing immersive alternatives, VR enables individuals who face physical, financial, or logistical constraints to access enriching tourism experiences while also alleviating the pressure on vulnerable cultural and natural heritage sites. Beyond site-level applications, VR can support city-scale tourism strategies, including urban accessibility, visitor-flow management, and heritage corridor optimization, aligning with UN SDG-11 indicators for sustainable and inclusive cities. Given its growing significance, there is a need to review and consolidate existing knowledge. In this review, we explore the integration of VR into tourism strategies, focusing on technological infrastructure, architectural principles for immersive design, and its role in promoting inclusivity and environmental preservation. Key challenges such as cost, realism, and accessibility are critically examined, alongside innovative solutions in adaptive VR technologies and collaborative virtual environments. This review highlights how VR can revolutionize smart tourism by bridging research gaps and offering practical insights for resilient, city-level implementations, paving the way for a more inclusive and sustainable future while safeguarding global heritage for generations to come.