Immersive Virtual Reality in Preserving Historical Tourism

Abstract

The tourism industry in cultural heritage has been adversely affected by the spread of the virus, Covid-19. This study focuses on preserving the cultural heritage of artifacts and sustaining tourism activities for the history of Hang Tuah Village in Melaka, Malaysia, through immersive virtual reality technology. Tourists can interact within the surrounding village, interact with the artefacts, and experienced more enjoyable learning history using the immersive virtual reality. There is no traveling required, and the exploration at its places is safer due to no Covid-19 exposition and no disturbance to the heritage place. We evaluate the usefulness of immersive virtual using the User Experience Questionnaire that originally has 16 dimensions. Five dimensions are applied: attractiveness, perspicuity, reliability, utility, and novelty. A total number of 17 questionnaires were involved and tested on 35 respondents. As a result, the acceptability reaches ‘high’ with an average mean score of 4.01 or 81.2% from the overall score. With the high acceptance response, we conclude that immersive virtual reality can assist in sustaining the tourism industry to preserve the heritage of Hang Tuah Village.