How does virtual tourism involvement impact the social education effect of cultural heritage?

Cultural heritage has benefited from virtual tourism in the post-epidemic era, but more research is needed to understand how virtual tourism can contribute to cultural heritage's social education effect. Based on the theory of involvement, this study takes the Forbidden City as a case to examine the social education mechanism of tourists involved in virtual cultural heritage tourism. The results show that virtual tourism involvement has a significant positive effect on tourists' place imagination, experience memory and affective attachment; tourists' place imagination has a significant positive effect on experience memory and affective attachment; tourists' experience memory has a significant positive effect on affective attachment; tourists' affective attachment has a significant positive effect on social education effect. Furthermore, tourists' place imagination mediates the relationship between virtual tourism involvement and experience memory; tourists' place imagination has a partial mediating effect between virtual tourism involvement and affective attachment; tourists' experience memory mediates the relationship between virtual tourism involvement and affective attachment; tourists' experience memory has a partial mediating effect between place imagination and affective attachment. Tourists' past experience moderates the relationship between virtual tourism involvement and place imagination, experience memory, affective attachment. This study confirms virtual cultural heritage tourism has a similar social education effect as realistic cultural heritage tourism and extends involvement theory in the virtual context, promoting the practice of virtual cultural heritage tourism.