Virtual Reality as a Green Tourism Alternative: Social Acceptance and Perception

Growing environmental challenges and the need to practice sustainable human actions and attitudes make it necessary to search for new solutions that can minimize the negative impact of human activity on the environment. This also refers to the tourism industry. In this article, the authors propose the use of virtual reality (VR) to visit any destination worldwide as a potential green alternative to traditional forms of travel. The aim of this study presented in this article was to analyze public acceptance and user perceptions of VR as a tool supporting or replacing real-world tourism. This study involved 215 people who used the Google Earth VR application to visit their chosen destinations around the world. Respondents also completed a two-part survey (before and after the VR experience), in which they assessed, among other things, the realism of the VR visiting and the overall VR experience and expressed their opinions on the role of VR in tourism. The results indicate that while VR is not yet widely recognized as a full-fledged substitute for travel (46% of respondents stated that VR would not replace real travel but could be a good complement), it was rated as useful for people who cannot travel (79.1% of respondents) and before trips (79.1% of respondents). The realism of the Google Earth VR application received an average rating of 3.679 on a scale of 1 to 5, with a median of 4. This study addresses the yet unexplored area of VR in tourism, which has great potential given that the results show a quite positive attitude of participants towards using the application enabling virtual travel—nearly three-quarters of the sample (73.9%) expressed a willingness to return to VR-based sightseeing experiences.