Virtual Reality Destination Experiences Model: A Moderating Variable between Wisesa Sustainable Tourism Behavior and Tourists’ Intention to Visit

Abstract

Sustainable tourism in Indonesia is challenging because it must harmonize bringing in tourists and maintaining the sustainability of culture and nature. Environmental problems influence sustainability tourism in Indonesia. Aside from discussing the policy implementation, this research focuses on promoting the local wisdom of sustainable tourism coupled with a virtual reality application. This study is supported by various previous studies on sustainability coupled with digital technology. Placing tourism in the contexts of eco-tourism, ecosystem, and sustainability is based on belief in the existence of values, beliefs, and norms (VBN). This research aims at developing a virtual reality destination experience (VRDE) model as a moderating variable between sustainable tourist behavior (STB) and tourist visit intention (TVI). The portability variable strengthens VRDE, and the content quality variable supports VRDE. The research method used was purposive convenience sampling covering 204 respondents who visited the vicinity of Kebon Indah batik village in Klaten, Central Java, Indonesia. The research findings were H1—STB has a significant effect on VRDE (0.00 < 0.05), H2—VDRE has a significant impact on TVI (0.00 < 0.005), H3—portability has a significant effect on VRDE (0.039 < 0.05), and H4—content quality does not have an impact on VRDE (0.401 > 0.05). The novelty of this research is the VRDE application applied to community sustainable tourist behavior in developing countries. However, the content quality of VR has yet to meet respondents’ expectation.