The Metaverse and Agritourism Marketing in Africa: Benefits, Challenges, and the Future

Edward Mudzimba () and Kudakwashe Peter Mashero ()
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Edward Mudzimba: Midlands State University
Kudakwashe Peter Mashero: Midlands State University

Chapter Chapter 2 in Agritourism Marketing in Africa, 2025, pp 53-77 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter explored the metaverse platform in the context of agritourism in Africa. The chapter was inspired by the growing interest among business practitioners and scholars in the potential of this platform to transform business and social life. Using an extensive literature search, we aimed to assess the metaverse platform’s implications for agritourism marketing in Africa. Furthermore, the chapter sought to identify the possible advantages and drawbacks that can be experienced when engaging in agritourism marketing on the metaverse platform. The study relied on data generated through an extensive literature exploration of the metaverse concept, especially the relevance of this platform in marketing tourism services. The study relied on three electronic databases namely Science Direct, Emerald Insights, and Google Scholar, and the articles were extracted using combinations of keywords such as ‘metaverse and marketing’; metaverse and agritourism; ‘metaverse and tourism’, and a total of 65 articles were utilised. The study established that the concept of the metaverse which emerged from a fiction novel by Neil Stephenson has been found to significantly contribute to marketing in various industries such as gaming, health, real estate, transport, and education. The chapter also found out that, although the metaverse is still conceptual save for the entertainment industry where there is widespread adoption, this platform has great potential to transform agritourism marketing in Africa. The metaverse elements in particular, interoperability, creatability, and economic flow, sets this platform apart from the rest in offering unique opportunities to agritourism destination marketers in Africa with far-reaching implications across the whole breadth of the marketing mix. The chapter urges marketers in the agritourism industry not to dismiss this concept as an elusive idea but to prepare themselves and align their approaches to the new normal.

Keywords: Metaverse; Interoperability; Virtual world; Virtualisation; Immersive experience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-78682-2_2

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-78682-2_2

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