Tourism and Hospitality

The study examines the relationship between virtual reality (VR)-facilitated mental imagery and travellers’ intention to visit a destination. A serial mediation process through travel inspiration (inspired-by and inspired-to) is proposed as a psychological mechanism able to explain the positive relationship of elaboration and quality of mental imagery with visit intentions. VR users were recruited through Prolific Academic. The findings demonstrate that VR-facilitated elaboration of mental imagery increases travel inspiration and consequently visit intention. However, the importance of mental imagery quality is much lower. The paper contributes to the literature of pre-travel VR experience by exploring the role of travel inspiration.