Sustaining the experience: students’ perceptions of online field trips

COVID-19 caused significant disruption for all industries, including education. Many studies, including tourism, utilise field trips to support student's learning, which were moved online in response to the pandemic. Understanding students' perceptions of virtual field trips is necessary to improve their usage. A total of seven focus groups were conducted with undergraduate students in Qatar, the UAE, and the Netherlands to explore students experience with field trips. Students were split into groups based on their familiarity with i) physical; ii) virtual; or iii) physical and virtual field trips. Physical field trips were preferred because of the out-of-class learning, socialisation, and networking opportunities. Virtual field trips had some noteworthy advantages, such as improved flexibility, repeatability, and access to otherwise off-limit sites, but unless improvements could be made to the social and networking opportunities, virtual field trips may always appear inferior. Through comparing students' experiences with physical and virtual field trips, this research provided notable insights into what can be done to improve the field trip experience. This could include better planning and structuring virtual field trips to provide networking experiences, including AR or recordings of physical field trips to facilitate repeatability, and supplementing a few physical with several virtual field trips.