The metaverse and sustainable tourism

Opportunities, challenges and future trends

Bibliographic Data

ID6455748
AuthorsMaryam Ahmadi Zahrani, Mehran Ziaeian, Seyed Mojtaba Hosseini Bamakan (0000-0001-5862-2222)
Year2025
Volume10
Pages101006-101006
Publication date2025-07-15
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSustainable Futures (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2666-1888
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.sftr.2025.101006
OpenAlexW4412437706
LanguageEN
References cited133

This paper investigates the transformative potential of metaverse technology in bolstering sustainable tourism practices. The research commenced with a systematic literature review, employing targeted keyword searches across the Scopus and Web of Science databases to retrieve relevant articles. Subsequently, the abstracts of these articles were imported into RapidMiner software as an Excel file, facilitating the identification of sustainable tourism dimensions through a topic modeling approach. The initial results identified seven core dimensions of sustainable tourism: Virtual Accessibility and Inclusivity, Virtual Events, Virtual Job Opportunities, Virtual Marketplaces, Resource Management, Emission of Greenhouse Gases, and Reconstruction of Historical Sources. Complementing this, a comprehensive review of the full texts of the retrieved articles led to the inclusion of three additional dimensions: Virtual Investment and Funding, Gender Discrimination and Racism Issues, and Virtual Mental Health and Well-being. Following the establishment of these dimensions, the applications of metaverse technology and the challenges inherent in its implementation within sustainable tourism were thoroughly examined. Findings from this section reveal that the metaverse, by leveraging immersive virtual environments, presents promising avenues for enhancing accessibility, facilitating event engagement, curbing emissions, conserving cultural heritage, and accelerating investment in sustainable endeavors. This approach offers a compelling vision for harnessing technology to drive positive change in the tourism sector, while simultaneously navigating barriers such as discrimination, environmental degradation, and resource scarcity. Finally, a SWOT analysis, grounded in the identified applications and challenges of metaverse technology in sustainable tourism, further clarifies the landscape, pinpointing strengths like inclusivity alongside weaknesses such as privacy concerns

Geography · Human–computer interaction · Metaverse · Sustainable tourism · Tourism · AI in Service Interactions · Computer Science · Digital Marketing and Social Media · Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access