Virtual museums are increasingly adopted to sustain public engagement with cultural heritage, yet the mechanisms through which virtual exhibition experiences motivate on-site visitation remain underexplored. Drawing on the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) framework and extending the Information Systems Success Model (IS Success Model), this study proposes and tests a psychological pathway linking virtual museum experience quality to offline visiting intention. Using the official website of the Sanxingdui Museum as the empirical context, we surveyed 467 users in China who explored the virtual exhibition but had never visited the museum in person. Virtual exhibition experience quality was operationalised through five dimensions: information quality, system quality, perceived interactivity, perceived authenticity and perceived enjoyment. Perceived cultural value and cultural identity were specified as mediators. Structural equation modelling revealed that higher levels of virtual exhibition experience quality significantly enhanced perceived cultural value and cultural identity. Perceived cultural value, in turn, positively predicted cultural identity, and both constructs were positively associated with intention to visit the physical museum, with a significant sequential mediation from experience quality to offline visiting intention via perceived cultural value and cultural identity. These findings clarify how virtual heritage platforms can foster cognitive appreciation and emotional identification that translate into real-world visitation, offering guidance for designing sustainable digital pathways to long-term engagement with cultural institutions.
Meng et al. (2025) studied this question.