IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/infott/v26y2024i4d10.1007_s40558-024-00298-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Modelling barriers to metaverse adoption in the hospitality and tourism industry

Author

Listed:
  • Ming Chi

    (Hainan University)

  • Yanli Chen

    (Hainan University)

  • Yongshun Xu

    (Hainan University)

  • Yuetong Wu

    (Hainan University)

Abstract

The emerging concept of the metaverse, which blends digital and physical realms to offer immersive user experiences, presents a disruptive opportunity for businesses operating in the hospitality and tourism industry. In this study, 11 barriers to metaverse adoption in the hospitality and tourism industry are explored through literature reviews and expert opinions, supplemented by news and industry reports. An integrated interpretative structural modeling-decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (ISM-DEMATEL) approach is used to model these barriers, identifying the hierarchical relationships and the strength of interrelationships between them. Moreover, cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis clusters these barriers. The results of this study indicate that immature infrastructure (MB8) is the foundational barrier to metaverse adoption, while the fusion of different technologies (MB2) significantly impacts the entire system. This study provides a comprehensive framework to guide stakeholders in overcoming these barriers and unlocking the transformative potential of the metaverse. It also conceptualizes the interaction of barriers for governments and related agencies, enabling the formulation of policies and strategies to increase the adoption and penetration of the metaverse in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Ming Chi & Yanli Chen & Yongshun Xu & Yuetong Wu, 2024. "Modelling barriers to metaverse adoption in the hospitality and tourism industry," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 26(4), pages 711-743, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:infott:v:26:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s40558-024-00298-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s40558-024-00298-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40558-024-00298-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40558-024-00298-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yogesh K. Dwivedi & L. Hughes & Y. Wang & A.A. Alalwan & S.J. Ahn & J. Balakrishnan & S. Barta & R. Belk & D. Buhalis & Vincent Dutot & R. Felix & R. Filieri & C. Flavián & A. Gustafsson & C. Hinsch &, 2023. "Metaverse Marketing: How the Metaverse Will Shape the Future of Consumer Research and Practice," Post-Print hal-04292610, HAL.
    2. Salvatore Monaco & Giovanna Sacchi, 2023. "Travelling the Metaverse: Potential Benefits and Main Challenges for Tourism Sectors and Research Applications," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-10, February.
    3. Kamble, Sachin S. & Gunasekaran, Angappa & Parekh, Harsh & Joshi, Sudhanshu, 2019. "Modeling the internet of things adoption barriers in food retail supply chains," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 154-168.
    4. Taehyee Um & Hyunkyu Kim & Hyunji Kim & Jungho Lee & Chulmo Koo & Namho Chung, 2022. "Travel Incheon as a Metaverse: Smart Tourism Cities Development Case in Korea," Springer Books, in: Jason L. Stienmetz & Berta Ferrer-Rosell & David Massimo (ed.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2022, pages 226-231, Springer.
    5. Chulmo Koo & Jookyung Kwon & Namho Chung & Jungkeun Kim, 2023. "Metaverse tourism: conceptual framework and research propositions," Current Issues in Tourism, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(20), pages 3268-3274, October.
    6. Pannee Suanpang & Chawalin Niamsorn & Pattanaphong Pothipassa & Thinnagorn Chunhapataragul & Titiya Netwong & Kittisak Jermsittiparsert, 2022. "Extensible Metaverse Implication for a Smart Tourism City," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-19, October.
    7. A. Koohang & J.H. Nord & K.-B. Ooi & G.W.-H. Tan & M. Al-Emran & E.C.-X. Aw & A.M. Baabdullah & D. Buhalis & T.-H. Cham & C. Dennis & Vincent Dutot & Yogesh K. Dwivedi & L. Hughes & E. Mogaji & N. Pan, 2023. "Shaping the Metaverse into Reality: A Holistic Multidisciplinary Understanding of Opportunities, Challenges, and Avenues for Future Investigation," Post-Print hal-04292613, HAL.
    8. Huo, Tengfei & Cong, Xiaobo & Cheng, Cong & Cai, Weiguang & Zuo, Jian, 2023. "What is the driving mechanism for the carbon emissions in the building sector? An integrated DEMATEL-ISM model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).
    9. Kamble, Sachin S. & Gunasekaran, Angappa & Sharma, Rohit, 2020. "Modeling the blockchain enabled traceability in agriculture supply chain," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    10. Komulainen, Ruey & Nätti, Satu, 2023. "Barriers to blockchain adoption: Empirical observations from securities services value network," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    11. Mkedder, Nadjim & Das, Manish, 2024. "Metaverse integration challenges: An in-depth ISM and MICMAC analysis," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    12. Nripendra P. Rana & Sunil Luthra & Sachin Kumar Mangla & Rubina Islam & Sian Roderick & Yogesh K. Dwivedi, 2019. "Barriers to the Development of Smart Cities in Indian Context," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 503-525, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nadeem, Waqar & Ashraf, Abdul Rehman & Shahid, Shadma, 2025. "What drives metaverse retail environments (non)usage? A behavioral reasoning theory perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Singh, Gaganpreet & Roy, Sanjit K. & Apostolidis, Chrysostomos & Quaddus, Mohammed & Sadeque, Saalem, 2025. "Identifying the metaverse value recipe(s) affecting customer engagement and well-being in retailing," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    2. Stelios Ioannidis & Alexios-Patapios Kontis, 2023. "Metaverse for tourists and tourism destinations," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 483-506, December.
    3. Gupta, Rohit & Rathore, Bhawana & Biswas, Baidyanath & Jaiswal, Mahadeo & Singh, Raunak Kumar, 2024. "Are we ready for metaverse adoption in the service industry? Theoretically exploring the barriers to successful adoption," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    4. Bilgihan, Anil & Leong, Aliana Man Wai & Okumus, Fevzi & Bai, Jingyi, 2024. "Proposing a metaverse engagement model for brand development," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    5. Nadia Palmieri & Flavio Boccia & Assunta Di Vaio & Daniela Covino, 2025. "The Great Filter? A Preliminary Study on Metaverse and Sustainable Food Consumer," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-17, February.
    6. Pillai, Rajasshrie & Sivathanu, Brijesh & Rana, Nripendra P., 2025. "Unveiling virtual interactive marketplaces: Shopping motivations in the Metaverse through the lens of uses and gratifications theory," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    7. Heidemann, Gerrit & Schmidt, Sascha L. & von der Gracht, Heiko A. & Beiderbeck, Daniel, 2024. "The impact of the metaverse on the future business of professional football clubs – A prospective study," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    8. Rituraj Singh & Gourav Dwivedi, 2025. "Agri-food Supply Chain Management: A Review Using Bibliometric, Network, and Content Analyses," SN Operations Research Forum, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 1-48, June.
    9. Kumar, Aman & Shankar, Amit & Behl, Abhishek & Pereira, Vijay & Kapoor, Payal & Papa, Armando, 2025. "Implementing enterprise metaverse as a means of enhancing growth hacking performance: Will adopting the metaverse be a success in organizations?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    10. Hyeon Jo, 2023. "Tourism in the digital frontier: a study on user continuance intention in the metaverse," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 307-330, September.
    11. Kumari, Vandana & Bala, Pradip Kumar & Chakraborty, Shibashish, 2024. "A text mining approach to explore factors influencing consumer intention to use metaverse platform services: Insights from online customer reviews," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    12. Lim, Weng Marc & Kumar, Satish & Donthu, Naveen, 2024. "How to combine and clean bibliometric data and use bibliometric tools synergistically: Guidelines using metaverse research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    13. Gandhi, Mohina & Gaur, Aakanksha & Kar, Arpan Kumar & Dwivedi, Yogesh K., 2024. "Crafting user experiences in the metaverse: A design science study," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    14. Lnenicka, Martin & Rizun, Nina & Alexopoulos, Charalampos & Janssen, Marijn, 2024. "Government in the metaverse: Requirements and suitability for providing digital public services," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    15. Aiolfi, Simone & Luceri, Beatrice, 2024. "See you on the Metaverse: A bibliometric expedition through the Metaverse landscape," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    16. Taab Ahmad Samad & Rohit Sharma & Kunal K Ganguly & Samuel Fosso Wamba & Geetika Jain, 2023. "Enablers to the adoption of blockchain technology in logistics supply chains: evidence from an emerging economy," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 327(1), pages 251-291, August.
    17. Di, Kaisheng & Chen, Weidong & Shi, Qiumei & Cai, Quanling & Liu, Sichen, 2024. "Analysing the impact of coupled domestic demand dynamics of green and low-carbon consumption in the market based on SEM-ANN," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    18. Dwivedi, Yogesh K. & Balakrishnan, Janarthanan & Mishra, Anubhav & Bock, Koen W. De & Al-Busaidi, Adil S., 2024. "The role of embodiment, experience, and self-image expression in creating continuance intention in the metaverse," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    19. Rehman, Anisur & Behera, Rajat Kumar & Islam, Md Saiful & Elahi, Yasir Arafat & Abbasi, Faraz Ahmad & Imtiaz, Asma, 2024. "Drivers of metaverse adoption for enhancing marketing capabilities of retail SMEs," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    20. Priom Mahmud & Sanjoy Kumar Paul & Abdullahil Azeem & Priyabrata Chowdhury, 2021. "Evaluating Supply Chain Collaboration Barriers in Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-28, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:infott:v:26:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s40558-024-00298-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.