Experimental study on tourist satisfaction using participatory simulation in a virtual environment

Before traveling, tourists need to ensure that they will have a well-organized trip, which mainly involves a smooth flow of visits to different tourist attractions by themselves or following a pre-designed plan made by tourism service providers. The present study examined how the sequence of visiting tourist attractions influences tourist satisfaction at the expectation and experience levels. Participatory simulation with a virtual environment platform was employed in the experiments to assess their experience. The research reveals that the contrast bias has significant influence on the assessment. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-552) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.