Transforming the tourism experience: Virtual Reality for customer loyalty in the tourism industry

1) The current research article's rationale for developing the new software tool is unclear.
While the paper proposes virtual reality (VR) as a pivotal strategy for advertising and fostering brand loyalty in tourism companies, the title fails to emphasize the impact of VR on advertising and brand loyalty. Furthermore, the research outlines a three-phase software development process critical for understanding how the VR application was conceptualized and refined. However, the title does not reflect this methodological depth, essential for distinguishing this software tool research from other papers.
The abstract provided is generally aligned with the keywords for the article journal, which include "virtual reality," "brand loyalty," "immersion," "tourism," and "customers." However, consider incorporating another keyword more explicitly into the overall research content to enhance alignment and improve clarity, such as “VR advertising” and “VR promotion.”
The absence of comparative research on the same topic is notable. It is crucial to draw comparisons, identify research gaps, and address potential limitations in existing literature. Presenting counterarguments or challenges to implementing VR technology in the tourism sector would enrich the discussion and prevent the article from appearing one-sided.
Moreover, the introduction heavily relies on cited sources to support its points rather than providing original insights or analyses. This approach may lead to a lack of depth or critical thinking when discussing the topic. To improve, the article could delve deeper into the current state of advertising and brand loyalty within the tourism sector, highlight existing challenges tourism companies face, and underscore the necessity for innovative solutions such as VR advertising technology.
Clarifying key performance indicators such as brand loyalty, customer retention, and customer satisfaction and elucidating their interrelationship with customer experience and loyalty would ensure readers thoroughly grasp the concepts under discussion and their significance in VR technology's context in tourism advertising.
Additionally, there is a lack of connection between the discussion and the need for VR advertising applications developed in the current research. Identifying existing gaps or limitations in current VR advertising applications and specifying how these new tools can address the identified challenges and enhance advertising effectiveness and brand loyalty in the tourism industry would strengthen the argument.

2) The description of the software tool lacks essential technical details, such as features, storytelling, scenarios, prototypes, or the appearance of the VR advertising application developed by the researchers. The researchers only display the results of exposure to VR advertising on brand loyalty, customer retention, and satisfaction of tourism companies that utilize VR advertising.
Including a detailed description of the software tool's features is crucial, as it gives readers insights into how the application functions and what sets it apart from other solutions. Features like interactive elements, user interfaces, navigation options, and virtual environments contribute to the VR advertising application's overall user experience and effectiveness.
Storytelling and scenarios are essential to VR advertising applications, as they shape users' narrative and engagement levels. By presenting specific scenarios or use cases, researchers can demonstrate how the application immerses users in virtual environments and conveys brand messages effectively.
Prototypes or visual representations of the application's appearance offer readers a tangible understanding of its design and aesthetics. Clear documentation of features and design elements enhances transparency and facilitates reproducibility, allowing other researchers or developers to replicate or build upon the software tool in their own projects.
The introduction highlights the importance of VR advertising for sustainability and industrial infrastructure efficiency. Still, it has not been explained how the VR advertising researchers have developed can be a sustainable solution. The information would strengthen the methodology section by showcasing a more comprehensive approach to VR advertising application sustainability.

3) There is an insufficient comprehensive methodological approach taken in the research and a lack of systematic development, testing, and deployment of VR for advertising and branding. Here are several key points that need to enhance the methodological research part:
The research lacks thorough explanation and detail regarding several key aspects, including research type and research approach, which are not clearly outlined, leaving ambiguity about the methodology employed. There is a lack of description regarding research and experimental design, including pre-test and post-test measures to evaluate the impact of the intervention. The study population, data collection methods, types of data gathered, and survey or internet observation techniques are not sufficiently explained, leading to uncertainty about the research's validity and generalizability.
Furthermore, the adaptation of the software for tourism agencies is mentioned but lacks detail on how the specific needs of these agencies were identified and addressed. It would enhance the methodology's credibility by providing insights into the research or analysis conducted to understand these requirements and how they were incorporated into the software design. The methodology does not mention specific testing methodologies or quality assurance practices implemented during development. Including information on testing strategies, such as unit testing, integration testing, and user acceptance testing, would demonstrate how the software's reliability and functionality were ensured. While the methodology mentions close collaboration with stakeholders, it does not elaborate on the extent or methods of stakeholder involvement. Including details on stakeholder engagement strategies, such as regular meetings, feedback sessions, or user testing, would provide a clearer picture of how stakeholder input influenced the development process.
Additionally, research settings in tourism companies in the Lunahuaná, Cañete, Peru district, and firms in the Lima Sur region of Peru are not mentioned in the methodology. It is critical to understand the context and generalizability of the study findings. It provides insight into the specific population under study and helps determine the relevance and applicability of the research to similar settings or regions. Data analysis and analytical tools lack explanation. The absence of an explanation of data analysis and analytical tools used in the study hinders transparency and reproducibility. Understanding the methods and tools employed for data analysis is essential for evaluating the rigor and validity of the study's findings. It enables researchers to assess the appropriateness of the analytical approach and the results' reliability.
Moreover, the research used an agile development framework. The development was divided into three phases: planning, implementation, and operation, but each step was not described in detail. For a research journal, providing more insight into the agile methodologies employed, such as Scrum or Kanban, and how they were tailored to suit the project's needs would enhance the depth of the methodology section. The planning phase includes functional requirements, non-functional requirements, technologies used, and hardware specifications. Implementation phases include prototype development, project repository, frontend, and backend development. Finally, two iterations were carried out in the operation phase but lacked descriptions. Another insight for readers needs to explain, such as A/B testing or other methods, compares two product versions, and gathers user feedback for optimization. User feedback is incorporated to improve the system. Hosting, security, feature and measurement, and detailed documentation and flowcharts are not provided to illustrate the system development process. While the methodology mentions two iterations during the operation phase, it does not delve into how user feedback was collected or incorporated into the development process. Including information on how user feedback influenced feature enhancements and iterative improvements would add depth to the methodology section.

4) The information provided does not adequately enable the interpretation of the expected output datasets and any results generated using the tool.
In the discussion section, the position of the results of this study compared to previous research has not been explained. By discussing how the current study's findings align with or diverge from previous research, researchers provide context for interpreting their results. This contextualization helps readers understand the broader landscape of research in the field and how the current study contributes to it. Additionally, the methodology of this study lacked an explanation of the characteristics of respondents or users involved, leading to a deficiency in exploring the study results in the discussion section, particularly in relation to the characteristics of respondents at the Lima Peru tourism company. Describing the demographics, backgrounds, and characteristics of respondents offers insights into the representativeness of the study sample. Knowledge of respondent characteristics aids in interpreting study results within the specific context of the target population. Moreover, the discussions of this study do not yet provide theoretical and practical implications. By discussing theoretical implications, researchers demonstrate how their findings contribute to advancing theoretical frameworks in the field. Practical implications elucidate how the study findings can be applied in real-world settings. Based on the study results, this may include recommendations for practitioners, policymakers, or other stakeholders. Practical implications provide actionable insights that inform decision-making, strategy development, and intervention design in relevant domains.

5) The conclusions about the tool and its performance are not adequately supported by the findings presented in the article.
The abstract, introduction, and results highlight the importance of VR advertising for sustainability and industrial infrastructure efficiency. However, the discussion and conclusion of this research fail to align with it. The provided conclusion primarily focuses on the effectiveness of VR in enhancing customer engagement, which was never mentioned before. Eventually, it does not address the research's contribution to inclusive and sustainable industrialization, infrastructure improvement, or industry resource efficiency.