Digital-induced nostalgia: Homeland tourists’ nostalgic experiences in traditional-village digital museums

Abstract

This study explored how homeland tourists (those who visit their origin home/homeland for vacations) construct nostalgic experiences in virtual tourism spaces. Based on traditional-village digital museum (TVDM) tourism, we adopted a phenomenological approach to investigate the ways homeland tourists evoke and experience nostalgia in digital environments. The results indicated that the digital-induced nostalgic experiencescape of TVDM strengthened tourists' sense of nostalgia through embodied interaction with virtual reality. This experience, moreover, caused tourists to perceive unique benefits, and it stimulated their ritualized nostalgic behavior. This study's findings improve our understanding of nostalgia-based virtual spaces and stimulate innovation of digital-induced nostalgia businesses.