The Virtual Tour Guides on Tourists’ Satisfaction: Role of Sense of Presence

Abstract

The key to foster tourism industry during the pandemic would be the adaptation of virtual tours using digital technologies. The virtual tour aims to encourage tourists to participate virtually in the safety and comfort of their home. Hence, this study aims to explore virtual guides and tourists' satisfaction on virtual tours: mediating role of virtual presence, more specifically to determine the demographic profile of the respondents, asses virtual tour guide qualities, level of satisfaction, level of sense of presence of tourists, how the virtual tour guide qualities affect sense of presence and sense of presence affect the satisfaction of tourists and how the 3 variables mediate. The study is quantitative research since it used statistics to compute the data. As a result, pertaining to the level of sense of presence of tourists during virtual tour, respondents agreed that it is a crucial element which means, sense of presence must be acquired by the tourist to improve their unique experience. The researchers concluded that mediation occurred within the three major variables. This means that to satisfy the virtual tourist, tour guide qualities and sense of presence must be presented throughout the tour. A sense of presence acts as the mediator between the virtual tour guide qualities and tourist satisfaction which means sense of presence plays a vital role in attaining tourist satisfaction.