Technology Adoption: Trends and Future Directions within Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Framework in Tourism and Hospitality

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KATIRCIOĞLU E.

Journal of Tourism and Gastronomy Studies, cilt.14, sa.1, ss.828-849, 2026 (TRDizin)

Özet

The purpose of this study is to provide a view of the current state of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology adoption/acceptance studies in tourism and hospitality research using bibliometric & thematic mapping analysis. 232 studies were collected from Web of Science. According to the findings, AR/VR adoption studies began in 2012 and peaked in 2025. Keywords such as metaverse, metaverse tourism, virtual tourism, behavioural intention, and presence were mostly used keywords in recent studies. The co-citation analysis results revealed that Hair, Kim, Venkatesh, Davis, and Huang were the top co-cited authors. According to thematic mapping analysis results, technology acceptance and adoption stand out as the core theme. AR-based cultural heritage value, with its low link strength and frequency of occurrence, had a potential to create a niche topic. The intensity of acceptance-centered theories remained consistently high after 2020, showing that literature became more focused on understanding user acceptance, adoption intention, and use behavior. Experience-centered theories played a supporting role with a limited but consistent presence. This study provides an overview of the literature and was conducted to identify potential gaps and emerging trends. In this regard, it can serve as a guide for future research.