Exploring the Impact of Multisensory VR on Travel Recommendation: A Presence Perspective Jasmin Hopf*, Melina Scholl*, Barbara Neuhofer and Roman Egger University of Applied Sciences Salzburg, Austria mscholl.imte-m2017@fh-salzburg.ac.at Abstract. The rapid development of Virtual Reality (VR) technology offers new opportunities for the promotion of tourism products and experiences. VR pro- vides potential tourists with a compelling imagery and a chance to get a first im- pression of what it feels like to be at a destination. Previous studies have mostly focused on visual and auditory VR experiences and have rather neglected the possibility of adding additional sensory stimuli, i.e. haptic and olfactory feed- back, to a VR experience. This study is novel in that it takes a multisensory ap- proach to VR and examines its impact on the intention to recommend a destina- tion through the lens of presence. A multi-stage laboratory experiment with 64 participants was conducted. The analysis reveals that the stimulation of additional senses does not lead to a significant enhancement of the user’s sense of presence. However, a significant increase in the user’s intention to recommend a destina- tion can be observed. For destination marketers, this study proposes multisensory VR as a novel and effective tool to positively influence travel recommendations. Keywords: Virtual Reality; Presence; Travel Recommendation. 1 Introduction Virtual Reality as a novel and innovative tool to attract visitors to destinations has gained significant interest from researchers and tourism businesses over the last years [1, 2]. According to Guttentag [3], VR is defined as “the use of a computer-generated 3D environment – called a ‘virtual environment’ (VE) – that one can navigate and pos- sibly interact with, resulting in real-time simulation of one or more of the user’s five senses” (p. 638). In this regard, VR technology enables viewers to virtually experience and explore destinations by immersing them into an VE and triggering a feeling of ‘being present’. From a marketing perspective, VR is expected to revolutionize tourism experiences as well as the promotion and selling of tourism products. Tourism products are intangible by nature. The reason VR has major potential lies in its ability to provide extensive sensory information and by doing so, allowing potential visitors to assess experiences before the physical visit [3, 4]. In fact, existing research discovered that image representations through VR enhance tourists’ desire to experience sites since it offers more compelling imagery of a tourism destination and gives the tourists a sense of what it is like to be there [5].