Comparing Tablet and Virtual Reality Glasses for Watching Nature Tourism Videos

360-degree videos offer great tourism marketing opportunities. Compared to traditional videos, 360-degree videos offer more compelling imagery of potential travel destinations, a “try before you buy” experience. These 360-degree videos can be viewed with various devices, including tablet and VR (Virtual Reality) goggles. The study, conducted at Helsinki-Vantaa airport, comprised 221 international tourists given VR glasses or iPads to watch a 360-degree video and answer a survey. The results reveal that the VR glasses and the iPad tablet had similar effects on travel intentions and behaviours. However, the viewing experience differs depending on the device. These findings suggest that some 360-videos will actually perform better on a tablet than with VR glasses. Tourism businesses and destinations should develop different content and situations for different devices. This study contributes to media richness theory and helps us to understand VR content as a type of rich media.