Can virtual reality tourism replace the real experience of travel?

The answer

The VR tourism market reached $12.5 billion in 2024, with platforms offering immersive experiences of destinations worldwide. Google Arts & Culture provides virtual tours of over 2,500 museums and heritage sites. The British Museum, Louvre, and Smithsonian offer detailed VR walkthroughs. National Geographic's VR experiences place viewers in Antarctica, the Amazon, and Machu Picchu with photorealistic 360-degree video. Marriott Hotels launched VR travel postcards in 2015, and airlines including Emirates and Qantas offer VR destination previews. Studies by the University of Bath found VR tourism generates 60% of the emotional response of physical travel. For accessibility, VR enables people with mobility limitations to experience otherwise impossible destinations. However, research consistently shows VR tourism more often stimulates desire for physical travel rather than replacing it.