Mindful travel in the digital age: How immersive technology transforms value-driven well-being into brand evangelism

This study investigates the adoption of immersive technologies (ITs), including virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, in the hospitality and tourism sector. While traditional technology adoption models emphasize IT's relational factors, this research integrates experiential drivers, such as perceived immersion, enjoyment, and ease of interaction, and provides a comprehensive explanation of their motivational, psychological, experiential, and behavioral implications. A deductive, quantitative three-wave longitudinal survey design was employed. Data were collected from tourists visiting hotels, museums, heritage sites, and major tourist destinations at three-time intervals, enabling temporal separation of predictors, mediators, and outcomes. Findings reveal that immersive technology adoption significantly enhances perceived values (utilitarian, hedonic, and eudaimonic), which, in turn, foster subjective well-being (SWB) and brand evangelism (BE). Additionally, promotion-focused consumers exhibited stronger tendencies toward evangelism. This study contributes to the literature by, advancing technology adoption research through a theoretically integrated framework grounded in Service-Dominant Logic, Uses and Gratifications Theory, and Regulatory Focus Theory, tested using a longitudinal design in an emerging tourism context. Practically, it underscores the need for tourism marketers to create emotionally engaging experiences that not only enhance consumers' SWB but also cultivate long-term brand loyalty and turn them into evangelists.