Bridging Culture and Innovation: Profiling Motivations for Virtual Reality Adoption in Cultural Tourism

This research examines the possible motivations underlying the use of virtual reality (VR) in cultural tourism experiences using a mixed-method approach. In the first stage, 10 in-depth interviews led to the identification of nine core motivational factors, which were subsequently operationalized into multi-item scales for a survey administered to 351 participants. Through a two-step cluster analysis, four distinct tourist segments were identified: Immersive Innovators, Informed Explorers, Tech-Oriented Samplers, and Digital Skeptics. These clusters differed significantly in their motivational profiles. Keywords: virtual reality, tourism, cultural tourism, motivation, tourist segmentation