Description
Abstract
In historical terms, the metaverse is a recent conceptual innovation, only having been invented as a concept in Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel Snow Crash (Abbate et al., 2022). The concept involves the immersion of a person into a virtual and interactive environment that has a great deal of potential for all sorts of endeavors, including various business applications (see, for example, Kim, 2021; Kraus et al., 2022; Mancuso, Petruzzelli, & Panniello, 2023) and, more specifically, businesses involved in tourism/hospitality/leisure activities (e.g., Buhalis, Lin, & Leung, 2022; Buhalis, Leung, & Lin, 2023; Go & Kang, 2023; Gursoy, Malodia, & Dhir, 2022), as well as other applications, such as education (Lee, & Jo, 2023). Scholarship on the topic, while still relatively nascent, has already inspired reviews of the literature on the subject (Abbate et al., 2022; Narin, 2021). However, while the concept of the metaverse is historically new, the technologies currently being developed suggest that the metaverse will rapidly develop into a reality in which many humans will be working and playing in the not-so-distant future (Lee et al., 2021).
While the concept of the metaverse may be more than two decades old and the metaverse idiom has yet reached a fully perfected state that can be used by consumers and seamlessly integrate various technologies to make it realistic and workable, little consideration has been given to the economic fundamentals of the idiom. Here, we develop an economic framework to explain the basic economic fundamentals of integrating metaverse environments into the travel, tourism, and hospitality industries. We will illustrate the major economic considerations for the incorporation of metaverse technologies into the currently existing travel, tourism, and hospitality ecosystem, explaining the drivers and hurdles from the perspective of the customer and the service providers. The framework will demonstrate the very real economic concerns that incorporating the metaverse environment will have upon practical service providers and service recipients. In addition, this investigation will discuss the externalities of integrating metaverse environments into the travel, tourism, and hospitality industries, showing how consumers, regulators, and service providers will have to maneuver to avoid the negative externalities and use the positive externalities to further their businesses. Finally, there will be a discussion of the resulting political economy of the new reality with the incorporation of a metaverse environment, creating some difficulties with regard to regulation and opportunities for various actors.
In conclusion, this investigation intends to add to the literature, building upon the theoretical understanding of the economics of the new construct of the metaverse. The theoretical framework should also illustrate the practical implications that the metaverse will have in TTH businesses, including regulatory and legal concerns. Finally, this investigation will work in ways to develop a research agenda for the political economy of the metaverse in TTH, showing which critical issues researchers should investigate in order to harvest an understanding of the metaverse, its economics, and political economy in TTH worldwide.
