[Conference presentation] CAUTHE 2026

At the 36th Annual Conference of the Council for Australasian Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE 2026), held in Adelaide, Australia, from February 9 to 12, 2026, a research presentation by CTR Researcher, Professor Kaede Sano (Faculty of Tourism) and Dr. Fang Zhou Li (Kansai University) was honored with the Best Poster Award.

＜Award-Winning Title＞

• Exploring the Visual and Olfactory Effects on Responsible Tourism: A Cutting-Edge Study (Fangzhou Li & Kaede Sano)

This study empirically investigated how the combination of visual and olfactory cues within an immersive metaverse experience influences tourist consciousness and intentions toward “Responsible Tourism”.

While previous metaverse research has been dominated by visual and auditory stimuli, this study focused on the “missing link” of olfaction (smell), which is deeply intertwined with emotion and memory. The researchers conducted an experiment comparing two groups: one exposed only to visual stimuli (an image of a polluted sea) and another exposed to both visual and olfactory stimuli (the image plus the odor of oil).

Analysis using eye-tracking technology revealed that the presence of the odor significantly increased the Total Fixation Duration (TFD) on polluted areas. This indicates that participants spent more cognitive effort processing the environmental damage when olfactory cues were present. The results suggest that olfactory stimuli can transform passive viewing into active exploration, effectively increasing engagement with environmental issues that are often overlooked. These findings expand the potential of the metaverse as a proactive educational tool in the pre-travel stage.

◆The Council for Australasian Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE) Official Website　https://cauthe.org/