From virtual views to visit intention: The role of 360-video in promoting tourist destination

This research aims to analyze the use of VR marketing methods in 360 videos to influence tourist visiting intentions at tourist destinations. The SOR framework is adopted to construct a research framework describing how the stimulus process of 360 tourist destination videos affects tourist behavior. The stimuli in this research are vividness, which then influences presence, emotional involvement, and enjoyment as part of the organism. Visiting intention becomes the response that emerges from tourists who watch 360 videos of tourist destinations. This research employs a quantitative approach and obtains 620 research respondents with the criteria of having watched 360 videos of tourist destinations. The research results indicate that vividness influences presence, affecting enjoyment, whereas enjoyment affects tourist visiting intention. This research's originality emerges from employing the simple form of VR tools in the form of 360 videos that can be easily adopted by tourism destination managers, which also contributes to research on how to use VR content to attract tourists' visiting intentions.