Virtual reality for inaccessible cultural sites : visitors' experience and perceptions at "Eternal Notre-Dame"

Abstract

Accessibility is essential for cultural heritage sites to fulfill their mission of sharing this heritage. However, these sites can face numerous threats to their accessibility, such as natural disasters, conflicts, climate change or health crises like the recent COVID-19 pandemic, which has impacted the entire sector. In addition, certain groups of people may find these sites inaccessible: the elderly, those with reduced mobility, those without the necessary visas, or those without the financial means to travel (Guttentag, 2022). In recent years, a growing number of cultural sites have chosen or are considering the use of virtual reality (VR) to address these challenges and meet modern visitors' expectations and motivations for their cultural experience.

However, the implementation of VR experiences in cultural tourism, especially when the cultural site is inaccessible, is relatively new and deserves further investigation. Therefore, the aim of this study was to understand the impact of virtual reality on the visitor experience, especially when the cultural site is inaccessible, and to explore visitors' perceptions of the use of VR in this context. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 36 participants who took part in 'Eternal Notre-Dame', a 45-minute virtual tour in a dedicated 500m² space in Paris, which allows visitors to discover the significant stages of the cathedral's construction, currently unavailable for physical visits, through different eras.

We found that visitors' motivations for participating in a VR experience in cultural tourism are diverse and multiple. However, all participants expressed satisfaction with the tour. Indeed, Virtual reality had a significant impact on the hedonic and educational dimensions of visitors' experience, but the results were mixed regarding the emotional impact. In terms of perceptions, all visitors had a positive attitude towards the use of virtual reality in cultural tourism. Visitors shared the perceived advantages as well as the limitations of this type of visit. For a large part of the visitors, virtual visits will not replace traditional visits, but is an excellent tool to complement the physical visit. However, for a smaller proportion of visitors, the virtual visit can be accepted as a substitute for the physical visit in specific cases (crowded places, sites in ruins, expectations of degraded on-site experience,…) or due to individual motivations and constraints.