Digital destination storytelling: Narrative persuasion effects induced by story satisfaction in a VR context

With the advancement of digital technology, digital storytelling is becoming more and more widely used. However, academics have not delved deeply enough into digital storytelling in the realm of VR tourist study. The objective of this study is to investigate the narrative persuasion process of technology-provided presence and story satisfaction in the context of digital destination storytelling. Combining the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) model, the study aims to examine the influence of these two variables on flow experience, emotional healing, restorative experience, and behavioral intention during the viewing of stories. By exploring these relationships, the research seeks to enhance our understanding of how technology and storytelling satisfaction contribute to the overall narrative persuasive effect. A comparative experimental data from 193 people proved that using VR to view destination story can significantly affect viewers' behavioral intentions and better help viewers build emotional distress problems compared to traditional viewing mode. In addition, viewers' flow state, emotional healing, restorative experience, and behavioral intention are all significantly impacted by how satisfied they are with a digital story, and flow state plays an important mediating role. The results of this study offer new perspectives on VR tourism and creative methods of marketing for the tourism industry.