Virtual tourism and the virtual tourist experience: Implications for destination marketing

Destination marketing organisations, due to the constant increase of competition, are implementing innovative methods of attracting demand, and technologies are now paramount for destinations. Among the technological advances provided by destinations are the virtual reality tours, which can be enjoyed by users by a variety of reasons, but all impacting destinations' tourism development. One debates how the tourist experience can be improved through the use of virtual reality as a destination marketing tool, drawing upon experiential marketing conceptualisations. With that intent, a semi-systematic literature review was conducted, allowing us to introduce rigour and objectivity into the analysis and discussion. However, conducting an exploratory study also have its disadvantages, as it is an interpretive exercise and therefore, heavily dependent on the researcher's own perspective. We provide a new framework, that addresses the interrelationship between virtual reality, virtual reality experiences and destination marketing. At the end, possible future research avenues are outlined.