Recently, the paper “Rethinking Metaverse Tourism: A Taxonomy & An Agenda for Future Research,” co-authored by Prof. Ye Wang, an Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Science and Technology (FST) at the University of Macau (UM) and a member of the APAEM Smart Tourism Team, and Prof. Fiona Yang, an Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Business Administration (FBA) at UM, was awarded the Best Paper of the Year 2023 by the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research (SSCI, Q1). With an impact factor of 4.4 in 2023, the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research is an international scholarly research journal that publishes high-quality and refereed articles. The journal focuses on both conceptual and empirical original research to advance the knowledge base of the hospitality and tourism field.
Abstract of the paper:
The metaverse is expected to be a game changer that starts a new epoch for digital commons and content creation in all aspects of tourism. Both opportunities and challenges will ensue. Current tourism research remains minimal with regard to this “next generation of the Internet,” and the logic of its applications in tourism is still unknown. The metaverse does not only enhance customer experiences; it also, as reality and virtuality converge, changes the paradigms, norms, rules, and the way we define experiences. To fill this gap, in this conceptual paper we scrutinize the past, present, and future of the metaverse, with a focus on the tourism domain. In particular, this research sorts out the key technologies of metaverse applications and pioneers the exploration of virtuality–reality amalgamation by theorizing a “4Is” taxonomy of metaverse tourism: imitation, intensification, interaction, and integration. An agenda is set for future research.
Read the paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10963480231163509
Picture source: Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research