Prof. Debarun Chakraborty’s co-authored research paper titled ‘Metaverse in Tourism: Tourist Involvement as a Moderator’ has been published in the Taylor & Francis Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research. Prof. Vardhan Choubeya, Professor at Symbiosis Institute of Operations Management, Nashik; a constituent of Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune, India; Prof. Aasha Sharma, Professor at Symbiosis Institute of Operations Management, Nashik; a constituent of Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune, India; Prof. Sangeeta Khorana, Professor at Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, UK and Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, Professor at School of Hotel and Tourism Management, Bournemouth University Business School, Bournemouth University, Poole, UK are his co-authors.
The research identifies barriers and enablers of the growing use of Metaverse in the fast-growing Tourism Sector by examining users’ intention to select a tourist location and hotel for vacation purposes. This study employs a mixed methods approach conducted in two phases: exploratory and confirmatory. It uses the grounded theory’s twin slate approach to extract the factors in the first exploratory phase. Meanwhile, the second (confirmatory) phase employs structural equation modelling for data analysis. It highlights factors like tourism barriers & tourism enablers besides Metaverse tourism involvement.