The metaverse experience: a big data approach to virtual service consumption

Abstract

Purpose

The experience of leaving the real world and entering a virtual service environment makes many individuals happy. This study heeds the call by multiple researchers to conceptualize, interpret and illustrate the impact of the perceived service experience in the metaverse in a holistic way. In particular, this study aims to understand how the consumption of experiences is perceived in a metaversal space.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors analyze mega virtual live events with famous artists broadcast in virtual worlds. The authors take a big data approach and include two studies to gain insight into the online public audience’s perceptions and experiences in the metaverse. In the first study, the authors analyze text from YouTube with Leximancer. In the second study, the authors go one step further to refine the conceptual model from Study 1. The authors scrutinize additional Facebook comments using seeded Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA).

Findings

The findings reveal that the meta service experience (MEX) encompasses four dimensions: immersion, metascape, immediacy and hedonism.

Originality/value

This research provides important guidance not only for consumer behavior scholars but also for service marketers and event planners. The study proposes research opportunities to advance service experience research in the metaverse.

Citation

Manthiou, A., Luong, V.H., Ayadi, K. and Klaus, P. (2024), "The metaverse experience: a big data approach to virtual service consumption", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-08-2023-1305