The Influence of Media Types on the Presence Perception and Behavioral Intention of Virtual Tourists: a case study of Sanxingdui Heritage Site

Abstract

Different types of tourism media have different effects on tourists’ interest and behavioral intentions. Based on the SOR model, this study tests 489 college students from 9 universities in mainland China on their virtual tourism experiences. The study selects four media types materials (text and graph, short video, photo roaming, and digital roaming) for virtual tourism experiences of Sanxingdui heritage site in China to test the media on the virtual tourists’ sense of presence, interest differences, and net recommendation values. Results show that all four virtual tourism media types have a positive impact on the degree of interest of virtual tourists. Among them, the media content of digital roaming has the most significant effect. Differences of the impact of the four media types on the sense of presence and net recommendation values have been distinguished, i.e., digital roaming having a much higher net recommendation value than the other three types. The study also analyzes the performance of demographic characteristics such as gender and academic background in these differences, and find that male subjects have an overall bigger interest differences than female subjects. Female, high-grade, and arts-majored subjects are comparatively more sensitive to live short video media type contents than their counterparts.