How does the metaverse tourism experience form tourists’ happiness: A mixed- methods study

Based on embodied cognition theory, this study employs a mixed-method approach of grounded theory and fsQCA and analyzes the influencing factors and configurational paths for tourists’ happiness in metaverse tourism. The results indicate that in metaverse tourism, tourists’ happiness is influenced by the three dimensions of body, perception and context. The body dimension includes factors such as body fatigue, the perception dimension includes factors like immersion and the context dimension includes factors such as gamification. No single factor alone can generate happiness for metaverse tourists; it is the result of a combination of various factors. A cross-national comparison reveals 20 sufficient configurational paths explaining the formation of happiness for Chinese and American tourists, with differences in paths attributed to social and cultural variances. The research findings not only broaden the perspective of metaverse tourism studies but also provide practical references for companies in constructing metaverse tourism spaces.