Why the metaverse will not replace travel?
Because people won’t stop flying. (*mic drop*) Just kidding ! Of course metaverse won’t be a solution to reduce tourism issues. Let’s go back to the limits of metaverse experience from a marketing perspective, and explain why even environmentally concerned people won’t stop flying.
The concept of experience in marketing
The concept of experience is largely used my marketing practitioners and researchers to study and understand the reasons why consumers and users interact with an offer, a service. Two approaches can be distinguished :
- A pragmatic approach : people interact with an offer because it’s easy, it’s simple (Loureiro et al., 2014). There is no obstacle to solve their problem, they can access to the solution (Dixon et al., 2010).
- A symbolic one: people interact with an offer because they perceived several benefits to create value (Vargo et al., 2008). According to the offer (a ski trip, a visit to a museum, a concert, etc.), consumers perceived different types of benefits: for the environment, for fun, for socialisation, for money (Holbrook, 1994).
In the case of metaverse experience
- From the pragmatic approach: metaverse today is not mainstream. Every users do not have easy access to metaverse experience because of a lack of material and sometimes, cognitive capabilities (digital literacy).
- From the symbolic approach: not a surprise — metaverse experience can’t compete with tourism experience (e.g. physical benefits : what your body can feel). An example with this parody of Meta announcement made by Iceland to promote its destination (and make fun of limits of metaverse):
And why people won’t stop flying?
Car use and air travel are often pointed out as the most contributing human actions to greenhouse gases emissions — at a consumer scale, we don’t deal with industry and companies’ responsibilities here. So, the solution seems simple : reduce car use and air travel thanks to laws and regulations. But people hate coercitive measures: they resist and don’t change, or develop a negative attitude towards measures as they make them guilty, even if those measures are justified to “save the planet”. So, even incitative measures can have limited effects to change habits and preferences. So why people won’t stop flying for the planet sake?
People are concerned, but people are not ready to behaviour change
Actually, many research (my own thesis also) revealed that people are concerned by the environment but this concern has no significant effect on their behaviour change and intentions to change. They declare their environmental concern in surveys because it’s socially desirable (people who say they don’t care of the environment are rare, arent’ they?).
In the case of avoiding or reducing car use, relevant alternatives exist for some specific trips, depending the situation (with a baby, with luggages, etc.) and people capabilities (able to ride a bike, to pass a driving license, etc.). But for air travel, relevant alternatives are not always available. If you live in London and want to go on holidays in the U.S., good luck to travel without an aircraft! And people are more averse to lose time, than to lose money.
What a human desires
Ok, so environmental argument is not working. But, do people really need to go on holidays somewhere they need air travel? Questions on what people really need is always discussed in marketing classes. In philosophy, with Spinoza, the difference between what we need and what we desire as a human being is pointed out. To desire is a way to empower ourselves. Some students refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but the distinction with desire seems more accurate to understand why people need a safer place to live, but have conflicting desires.
“Green gap” between people attitude toward the environment and their actions
As people experienced a “green gap” between their attitude and their actions, for some of them they can feel a psychological discomfort also known as cognitive dissonance. They don’t act as they think. So, in theory, some people would make effort adopting environmental offset practices (zero waste, reduce energy consumption, etc.) in their everyday life, would find support with peers who behave the same to justify their own behavior, or would change their attitude (don’t care about the environment), or change their behavior and stop flying. But it’s in theory !
So, what could be the use cases for the metaverse in travel?
Of course we won’t replace trips with metaverse, but this digital experience can be useful to “carry” people in cultural and historical places. Art students from everywhere could visit the Louvre in Paris. Professors would be able to use new interactive content to their lectures.
However, metaverse seems interesting for… space travel. According to Zaman et al. (2022), early adopters of metaverse space travel, would be tech savvy and have a fear of missing “on possibilities to socialize, explore, and relax in leisure” (i.e. travel FOMO). Desire to explore space… 🚀
