Immersion in cheers: Experiencescape, customer inspiration, and drink statues in craft beer tourism using PLS-SEM, IPMA, and ANN

The rise of craft beer tourism (CBT) has become evident, but it has received less attention from the perspective of immersive experience. This study investigates the formation of immersive experiences in CBT by integrating the experiencescape and customer inspiration theory. This research first qualitatively identifies four core dimensions of immersion (environmental, sensory, interactive, and narrative–cognitive) and proposes emotional immersion as the outcome of inspired-to phase. Then, it quantitatively examines how two types of experiencescape (physical and interpersonal), as the antecedents of inspired-by phase, affect four immersive dimensions, which enhance emotional immersion and repurchase as the results of inspired-to phase. Further, importance-performance map analysis (IPMA) and artificial neural network analysis (ANN) are applied to emphasize importance of different dimensions of immersion. Besides, drinking status shows that tipsy status consistently outperforms drunken status in facilitating immersion. This study advances the understanding of immersion and highlights stimuli–immersion–consequence framework in immersive tourism.