ASEAN Journal on Hospitality and Tourism

Virtual Journeys, Real Benefits: Understanding the Nexus Between Innovativeness, VR Travel, and Quality of Life

2026-02-10T10:07:58+07:00

This study investigates the relationships among virtual reality (VR) traveler innovativeness, VR travel experience, and perceived quality of life. Drawing on online survey data from [A1.1][A1.2]544 respondents recruited via Prolific, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to establish construct reliability and validity, followed by structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships. The results show that innovativeness significantly enhances VR travel experience, which in turn positively affects perceived quality of life, supporting an indirect, experience-based mechanism. At the dimensional level, novelty seeking and hedonic experience seeking emerge as the primary drivers of innovativeness, while esthetics and entertainment contribute most strongly to VR travel experience, with escapism playing a comparatively weaker role. These findings advance the understanding of VR tourism by identifying innovativeness as a key antecedent of experiential outcomes and highlighting VR travel as a meaningful leisure activity that can promote well-being beyond physical tourism contexts. Practically, the results suggest that VR travel developers and marketers should tailor experiences to innovative users by emphasizing novelty and hedonic engagement, promote quality-of-life benefits as a key value proposition, and strengthen immersive features to enhance user engagement and overall experience quality.

Developing an IMC Strategy for Ethno-Wellness Tourism in Sidorejo Tourism Village

2026-02-24T11:26:01+07:00

This research investigates the implementation and effectiveness of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) for promoting Pawukon-based ethno-wellness tourism in Sidorejo Tourism Village, Indonesia. Using a mixed-methods approach, data were collected through tourist surveys, management interviews, and field observations to analyze the five IMC components: advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relations, and direct marketing. The findings identify a critical implementation gap. The village’s strategy relies heavily on organic personal selling, which is effective for on-site visitor conversion, but lacks coordinated advertising, digital marketing, and proactive public relations to build broader market awareness. This creates a paradox where communication deepens the experience for existing visitors but fails to attract new audiences. The study concludes that Sidorejo’s current promotional efforts are fragmented and not strategically integrated, significantly limiting its growth potential. The main argument is that transitioning from an informal, community-based promotional model to a structured IMC strategy is essential. Such a strategy must amplify authentic narratives through digital content and media engagement to bridge the gap between the destination’s unique offerings and its market visibility.

Virtual Travel and the Digital Economy: Redefining Tourism in the Age of Innovation

2026-02-25T14:22:08+07:00

This study is based on a qualitative exploratory research design to examine the convergence of virtual tourism, consumer behaviour and digital innovation via an integrative conceptual framework connecting technological drivers, user adoption, economic outcomes and sustainability dimensions. We performed a systematic literature review using the PRISMA protocol. We screened 545 records from Scopus and Web of Science and included 58 sources for thematic synthesis. The study revealed five major themes: Digital Transformation of Tourism Experiences; 2) Consumer Adoption; 3) Sustainability as the Emerging Paradigm of Virtual Tourism; 4) Digital Business Model Innovation in Tourism; 5) Governance, Ethics, and Future Research Agenda. Findings show that immersive technologies (AR/VR), AI and blockchain enable scalable tourism solutions, but claims of inclusivity and sustainability are often overstated: digital fatigue, authenticity gaps, infrastructural inequality and environmental costs of digital hardware limit the contribution of virtual tourism. After a rigorous literature review, the study identifies specific gaps, such as the lack of an integrative conceptual model, weak empirical grounding, and asymmetric treatment of sustainability benefits and costs, and proposes a framework to guide future theory building and empirical validation. The paper contributes to tourism policy by advocating for strategic frameworks where inclusivity and sustainability are viewed as contested, evidence-based results (rather than as a natural benefit of digitalisation).

Inclusive Tourism in Public Spaces: An Accessibility and Visitor Experience Study of Mobility-Impaired Individuals on Malioboro Street

2025-11-25T11:40:25+07:00

Everyone has the right to tourism, including individuals with disabilities. Unfortunately, not all tourist destinations can ensure a positive experience for disabled travelers. For instance, even popular sites like Malioboro Street in Yogyakarta may fail to provide an accessible and inclusive experience for people with disabilities. This study investigates the experiences of wheelchair users regarding facilities, culinary areas, and community responses in the Malioboro Street area. The research methodology employed in-depth interviews, observational fieldwork, and data documentation. Interviews were conducted with 10 participants who were wheelchair users and had visited Malioboro Street. The findings reveal that wheelchair-using tourists could not provide positive feedback on the facilities, culinary zones, or community responses in the area. This is attributed to the lack of accessibility in navigating facilities and dining areas, which were not adequately designed for wheelchair users. Additionally, the low awareness among local residents and workers–such as street vendors and shop staff–in assisting disabled tourists with special needs further contributed to their negative experiences. These barriers hindered participants from forming favorable impressions, underscoring the need for improved accessibility and inclusive practices in public tourism spaces.

Tourism and Community Resilience: Evidence from Pandin Lake, Philippines

2026-03-17T12:44:08+07:00

This study examined the relationship between tourism structures and community resilience at Pandin Lake, San Pablo City, Philippines, using a quantitative descriptive-correlational design. A sample of 104 stakeholders was surveyed, and data were analyzed through Pearson’s product-moment correlation, supplemented with standardized regression coefficients and effect sizes. Findings revealed that social structures were the strongest predictors of resilience, with moderate positive correlations across economic development (r = .533, p < .001), social capital (r = .513, p < .001), and information and communication (r = .503, p < .001). Effect sizes indicated that social structures explained up to 28% of the variance in resilience outcomes, underscoring the primacy of cooperative-based tourism in fostering trust, collective action, and efficient information sharing. Cultural structures showed weaker but significant associations (r = .338–.380, p < .001), suggesting that cultural identity provides psychological cohesion but limited direct impact on technical resilience capacities. Physical structures contributed minimally, and the relationship with community competence was non-significant (r = .151, p = .127), reinforcing the “infrastructure paradox” that physical assets alone do not enhance adaptive capacity. Limitations include reliance on cross-sectional, self-reported data and the inability of correlations to establish causation. While Pandin Lake demonstrates high baseline resilience, the results suggest that current strengths may be undermined without targeted interventions in resource management.

Smart Museum Dimensions: Museum Visitor Satisfaction Analysis

2026-05-26T12:05:13+07:00

This research aims to examine the validity of smart museum indicators and identify priority indicators that influence visitor satisfaction at the Sonobudoyo Museum, Yogyakarta. Unlike previous studies that mainly evaluate smart tourism at the destination level, this study focuses on a single cultural museum by assessing smart museum attributes from the perspective of visitors’ expectations and experiences. This study uses a descriptive quantitative approach by distributing questionnaires to 200 respondents at the Sonobudoyo Museum. The research instrument includes six dimensions of a smart museum: technology utilisation, interactivity, adaptability, systematic efficiency, technology integration, and affordability. Data were analysed using the Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) method to measure overall satisfaction levels and Importance–Performance Analysis (IPA) to map indicators that require improvement based on the comparison of visitors’ expectations and experiences. The research results show that the level of visitor satisfaction falls into the “Very Satisfied” category with a CSI score of 84.83%. However, the IPA analysis identified 12 indicators that do not meet visitor expectations. The main findings indicate a significant gap in the aspects of device maintenance, the security sensor function that disrupts comfort, and the limited accessibility for disabled and elderly visitors. On the other hand, the ease of accessing information through QR codes and data privacy guarantees are the main strengths of this museum. These findings suggest that smart museum development should not only emphasize technology adoption, but also prioritize reliability, comfort, accessibility, and visitor-centred digital service improvement.

Books as Souvenirs and Itineraries: Grassroots Literary Tourism in Bandung, Indonesia

2026-07-09T16:54:45+07:00

This article examines how a form of literary tourism can instead be assembled from below, by a micro-scale bookshop entrepreneur, without state initiative and without inherited literary fame. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Deni Rachman, founder of Lawang Buku/Toko Buku Bandung, and Gan Gan Jatnika, founder of Geowana Ecotourism, the study traces how a curated line of Bandung-themed books sold as souvenirs (Oleh-Oleh Boekoe Bandoeng) and a programme of literary trips built directly from books and co-narrated by their authors both convert an ordinary book trade into a visitor attraction. Read through bonding, bridging and linking social capital and the place branding also tourist souvenir literature, the findings show that each pathway rests on a distinct but structurally similar relational infrastructure: long-standing ties with book and literary communities, bridging ties with visitors and influencers, and linking ties with tour guides, publishers and authors formalised through informal revenue-sharing. The retail pathway commodifies the book as an object to be carried home; the itinerary pathway commodifies the book as a route to be walked. The article theorises both as expressions of grassroots literary tourism for a place branding, a mode of city branding assembled as an adaptive response to small-business constraints rather than as a designed campaign, and situates the informants' shared emic notion of a 'book ecosystem' as a vernacular framework theory from the Global South for understanding the fragilities, permitting barriers and thin margins that threaten this alternative tourism pathway.

Role of Cultural and Environmental Factors in Tourists’ Satisfaction: A Study of French-Speaking Health Tourists

2026-02-24T13:58:00+07:00

This study investigates the impact of cultural and environmental factors—specifically cultural opportunities, environment and destination management, hospitality, and physiography—on the satisfaction of French-speaking health tourists who have visited or are currently visiting India. Recognising that health tourism satisfaction is a multi-faceted concept influenced by a range of factors, including cultural and environmental aspects, this research aims to contribute to the understanding of these nuanced influences in the Indian context. Data were collected from 83 respondents through online and offline surveys, employing purposive and snowball sampling techniques. After data cleaning, 81 valid responses were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling with SmartPLS. The findings underscore that among the four independent constructs examined, cultural opportunities exert the strongest influence on the satisfaction of French-speaking health tourists, followed by physiographical attributes and hospitality factors. Accordingly, marketers should meticulously design itineraries that prioritise opportunities for immersive cultural engagement, showcase the region's natural beauty and diverse landscapes, and foster authentic hospitality experiences.