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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Media Psychology
Volume 14 - 2023 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1287765
This article is part of the Research Topic The Metaverse, Immersive Virtual Reality and its Implications on Human Behavior View all 9 articles

Virtual reality and travel anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic: the moderating role of blockade intensity

Provisionally accepted
Qingjin Wang Qingjin Wang 1Kaiyun Zhang Kaiyun Zhang 1Renbo Shi Renbo Shi 2*Xiao Liu Xiao Liu 1
  • 1 Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
  • 2 Beihang University, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    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.

    Keywords: virtual reality, Travel anxiety, LockDown, Virtual travel, COVID-19

    Received: 04 Sep 2023; Accepted: 14 Dec 2023.

    Copyright: © 2023 Wang, Zhang, Shi and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Renbo Shi, Beihang University, Beijing, 100083, Beijing Municipality, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.