Virtual Voyages: Evaluating the Role of Real-Time and Narrated Virtual Tours in Shaping User Experience and Memories

TL;DR

This study investigates how real-time livestreaming and narrative storytelling influence presence, place attachment, and memory in virtual tourism by deploying a novel VR kayaking experience of Ōkārito Lagoon using 360° video and ambisonic audio. A preregistered, between-subjects design manipulates real-time versus prerecorded delivery and the presence versus absence of live narration across four conditions, with a fixed 15-minute video to control for streaming variability. The results show that narrative content significantly elevates presence and place attachment, while live narration further boosts attachment and the perceived quality of the experience; affect at encoding relates to memory recall, consistent with rosy retrospection in the pleasure dimension. These findings provide actionable insights for designing high-quality virtual tourism experiences and highlight practical and ethical considerations for practitioners, such as the potential to complement or substitute physical travel and the need to address memory and attachment dynamics in VR contexts.

Abstract

Immersive technologies are capable of transporting people to distant or inaccessible environments that they might not otherwise visit. Practitioners and researchers alike are discovering new ways to replicate and enhance existing tourism experiences using virtual reality, yet few controlled experiments have studied how users perceive virtual tours of real-world locations. In this paper we present an initial exploration of a new system for virtual tourism, measuring the effects of real-time experiences and storytelling on presence, place attachment, and user memories of the destination. Our results suggest that narrative plays an important role in inducing presence within and attachment to the destination, while livestreaming can further increase place attachment while providing flexible, tailored experiences. We discuss the design and evaluation of our system, including feedback from our tourism partners, and provide insights into current limitations and further opportunities for virtual tourism.

Figures (12)

• Figure 1: Our process for designing the virtual kayaking experience. (A) Early visits to the location to understand the environment and how a guide usually operates their kayak tours. (B) A 15-minute ride into one of the channels was recorded using an Insta360 One X2 360$^\circ$ camera and a Zoom H2n attached to the front of the kayak with a custom 3D-printed mount. (C) We worked with a paid actor and our tourism partners to write a script which was used for the narrative component of our user study.
• Figure 2: (Left): The route followed during the virtual tour shown to participants. (Right): Screenshots taken from this experience at points A, B, C, and D along this route.
• Figure 3: The Affect Grid, which we administered before and after the virtual kayaking experience. The grid consists of separate scales for Pleasure-Displeasure and Arousal-Sleepiness and tasks users with picking which point on the grid best describes their current affect.
• Figure 4: The setup used for our user study. A) Participants were seated on a low beanbag roughly the same height as the $360^\circ$ camera to give the illusion they were seated in a kayak. The experience was presented in a Meta Quest 3 with semi-open back headphones connected to play the ambisonic audio. The study media was also present and monitoring the experience through a laptop. B) In the RT-WN condition, a paid actor pretended to pilot the kayak but was actually in a sound booth with their own Meta Quest 3 and providing narrative via VoIP.
• Figure 5: The five images participants could choose from to visually represent their memory of the experience. One was an actual screenshot, two were edited to look worse (less saturated, etc.) and two were edited to look visually better (higher saturation, more wildlife, etc.).