Wang Qingjin, Shi Renbo, Zhang Kaiyun, Liu Xiao
Business School, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
School of Economic and Management, Beihang University, Beijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2024 Aug 30;14:1287765. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1287765. eCollection 2023.
The COVID-19 pandemic has deprived travelers of the right to continue their travel or leisure activities, while creating concerns about the safety of travel. In view of the great impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on travelers, we discussed the impact of virtual reality on travel anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic, and considered the regulatory effect of blockade intensity. In order to explore the relationship between virtual reality and travel anxiety in depth, this study conducted a questionnaire survey on 299 Chinese tourists who had experienced virtual reality activities related to travel, and empirically analyzed the questionnaire data using SPSS 26 software. The results show that virtual reality has a significant negative effect on travel anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic, i.e., virtual reality technology can provide a safer virtual travel experience for people and reduce their travel anxiety. At the same time, the relationship between virtual reality and travel anxiety varied to some extent depending on the intensity of the lockdown in each region, with the mitigating effect of virtual reality on travel anxiety being enhanced by high levels of lockdown. Therefore, we believe that although lockdown policies are necessary for some time to come, travel companies need to make further efforts to provide more convenient virtual reality services to alleviate travel anxiety caused by COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown to tourists. At the same time, virtual reality opens up new ideas for travel businesses under the impact of COVID-19 and contributes to the sustainable development of the travel industry.
新冠疫情剥夺了旅行者继续其旅行或休闲活动的权利，同时引发了人们对旅行安全的担忧。鉴于新冠疫情对旅行者产生的巨大影响，我们探讨了虚拟现实在新冠疫情期间对旅行焦虑的影响，并考量了封锁强度的调节作用。为了深入探究虚拟现实与旅行焦虑之间的关系，本研究对299名体验过与旅行相关虚拟现实活动的中国游客进行了问卷调查，并使用SPSS 26软件对问卷数据进行实证分析。结果显示，虚拟现实在新冠疫情期间对旅行焦虑有显著的负面影响，即虚拟现实技术可以为人们提供更安全的虚拟旅行体验并减轻他们的旅行焦虑。同时，虚拟现实与旅行焦虑之间的关系在一定程度上因各地区封锁强度的不同而有所变化，高强度封锁增强了虚拟现实对旅行焦虑的缓解作用。因此，我们认为尽管在未来一段时间内封锁政策是必要的，但旅游公司需要进一步努力提供更便捷的虚拟现实服务，以缓解新冠疫情和封锁给游客带来的旅行焦虑。同时，虚拟现实在新冠疫情的冲击下为旅游企业开拓了新思路，有助于旅游业的可持续发展。
