Exploring the impact of location-based augmented reality on tourists' spatial behavior, experience, and intention through a field experiment

Location-based augmented reality (LBAR), co-constructed with real scenery, has formed a new hybrid experience space for tourists. While existing studies have explored tourists' recall or imagined perceptions of AR, this study investigated how LBAR affects tourists' spatial behaviors, experiences, and intentions in three stages (before, during, and after the tour) through a field experiment that provides a way to synthesize tourists' objective behavior and real-time perceptions. In the pre-travel phase, a questionnaire survey (N = 347) found that LBAR promotional videos improved potential tourists' willingness to travel. During travel, a field experiment (N LBAR = 20; N non-LBAR = 32) revealed that LBAR enhanced tourists' novel visual perception but constrained spatial exploration behavior. At the post-travel stage, the results showed that using LBAR did not significantly improve the tourists' revisit intention. The findings complement theories related to tourist experience in hybrid space and provide an empirical reference for applying advanced visual technology in different travel stages.