Telepresence in tourism: a systematic review of technology-specific antecedents, tourist-journey mechanisms, and behavioural outcomes

Telepresence-capable technologies, including virtual reality, augmented reality, live streaming, short-form video, metaverse environments, and smart tourism technologies, increasingly mediate tourists’ engagement with destinations across the travel journey. This systematic review synthesises 58 peer-reviewed empirical studies published between 2020 and 2025 to examine the antecedents, mechanisms, outcomes, and urban relevance of telepresence in tourism. Following PRISMA 2020 principles, studies were identified through major academic databases and citation tracking, then analysed through thematic, methodological, and theory-informed synthesis. The evidence indicates that immersion, interactivity, authenticity cues, media richness, system quality, technological familiarity, and prior destination knowledge shape telepresence, although their effects are contingent on technology design, usability, user readiness, and context. The most consistent outcomes concern mental imagery, destination image, enjoyment, trust, satisfaction, and stated travel and revisit intentions, whereas evidence for actual visitation, place attachment, repeat behaviour, and loyalty remains limited. VR and 360-degree media mainly support spatial presence and pre-travel destination imaginability; live streaming is more closely linked to social presence, authenticity, and trust; and AR and smart tourism technologies primarily facilitate on-site interpretation, navigation, contextual support, and satisfaction, with recent evidence also indicating that AR-supported presence and authenticity can influence revisit intention. Because 41 studies were situated in urban, urban-heritage, or smart-city contexts, the review develops evidence-bounded implications for city destination marketing, heritage interpretation, smart-tourism planning, and digitally mediated visitor experience design.