Museums and Virtual Reality: A New Era for Culture?

Propelled by COVID-19 to overcome the impossibility of visiting venues, virtual reality has now carved out a prime position in museums and promises to enhance their appeal in a lasting way. How has this innovative technology taken hold, and what are its advantages and limitations?

By: Laurence Dessart, HEC Liège; Alena Kostyk, EDHEC Business School; Kirsten Cowan, University of Edinburgh, and Michaël Schyns, HEC Liège

Virtual reality is a technology that transports users into an artificial environment where they navigate and interact. More and more museums are using it to attract visitors or enhance the on-site experience. The global virtual tourism market took off during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was valued at nearly USD 8 billion in 2023. By 2032, this revenue is expected to increase elevenfold.

Today, cultural institutions' interest in immersive technology is higher than ever. This trend can be explained by several factors, notably the desire to make visit experiences more memorable, and also the goal of democratizing access to heritage. Why has the museum sector been a pioneer in using this technology? What are the benefits for users? What challenges and future prospects lie ahead? Let’s examine the place of virtual reality in museums.

Let’s start by defining this technology. Strictly speaking, virtual reality is only accessible through specialized equipment, such as a headset or a CAVE (a space where the walls, floor, and ceiling act as giant projection surfaces to create a highly immersive virtual environment). Museums often equip themselves with headsets, as the Musée d'Orsay did with A Night with the Impressionists at the Musée d'Orsay, but these headsets are also sold to the general public for private use. Furthermore, 360-degree (or panoramic) videos, accessible on a simple computer or smartphone screen, can also be considered immersive virtual environments. This approach is more democratic, as it doesn’t require specialized equipment, which is still often quite expensive.

Initially, museums used virtual reality to maintain access to art during the pandemic. The Louvre Museum was one of the forerunners of this movement, launching in 2020 In the Presence of the Mona Lisa, a virtual experience allowing viewers to examine Leonardo da Vinci’s work in detail, directly on their smartphone during lockdown, and later via a VR headset at the museum.

Virtual reality thus made it possible to maintain access to sites but also to view this emblematic artwork under good conditions, rather than in the middle of a crowd. This is especially true for world-renowned heritage sites, such as the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Museums.

Memorable visit experiences

One of virtual reality’s greatest strengths is that it allows users to interact with the environment in real-time, regardless of their profile: VR is highly customizable based on age, education level, or motor skills. A relatively passive visit thus becomes an active experience, stimulating engagement and curiosity, and helping to memorize information more dynamically.

In a recent study conducted with a natural science museum in Belgium, the strong potential of VR to generate lasting memories was demonstrated. The installation immersed the visitor in interactions with marine creatures, telling their stories while allowing interaction (e.g., catching crabs on the beach, feeding porpoises at sea). This project showed that virtual reality tourism experiences form strong memories, whether episodic (linked to autobiographical events, personal experience, and its sequence) or semantic (linked to the informational content presented).

A visit incorporating a VR experience also creates more accurate memories than a standard visit. As time goes by (the researchers waited four weeks), visitors who experienced VR also reported greater confidence in their episodic memories. This study highlights the value of virtual reality during the visit itself, but also beyond, through the creation of lasting memories.

Preservation of heritage and public access

Virtual reality also makes it possible to create digital archives that will be accessible to future generations and preserve cultural heritage. By digitizing spaces at risk of deterioration or disappearance, hard-to-move objects, or recreating ancient sites from bygone eras, virtual reality offers access to a little-known world in a more immersive, personal, and emotional way.

For example, following the 2019 fire that ravaged Notre-Dame de Paris, the Eternal Notre-Dame experience was created, allowing visitors to explore Notre-Dame from both a historical perspective—immersing the user in the past—and a modern one. Eternal Notre-Dame made this iconic site of French heritage "accessible" during reconstruction work.

Furthermore, virtual reality reaches audiences who might not be able to visit in person, whether due to mobility, health issues, or travel constraints. For this reason, Eternal Notre-Dame can be experienced either on the square in front of the cathedral in a dedicated VR area, or at home using a personal headset.

Another example is the Smithsonian American Art Museum in the United States, which created a virtual tour of the Burning Man festival. Visitors can discover Burning Man, this popular American contemporary art festival, and immerse themselves in its world.

Limitations of virtual reality

While virtual reality offers many benefits to the cultural sector, it also has some limitations. First, VR is more immersive with a specialized headset (such as Meta Quest or Apple Vision Pro). However, both museums and individuals cannot easily equip themselves with such devices due to their still-high cost.

VR may also seem complex to use for beginners. Headsets are not always intuitive to operate or set up and often require the help of another person for the first use.

In some cases, virtual tours can be experienced without complex equipment, on a computer or smartphone. These forms of virtual reality are particularly suitable for small non-profit organizations, such as the virtual tour of the Lead Mining Museum in Wanlockhead, Scotland. This is also what Google Museum Views offers. These 360-degree virtual tours, though less immersive and interactive, still allow visitors to imagine a real visit.

A promising horizon of innovations

While virtual reality has already allowed many museums to position themselves as forward-thinking and accessible in a rapidly changing digital world, its opportunities remain vast.

Museums can leverage these experiences to better understand consumer behavior, collect data, and tailor their exhibitions to user preferences. Exchanges of immersive environments could take place between museums worldwide. Finally, museums can also collaborate with schools and universities to offer these environments to students in their art, history, or innovation courses—as is already happening in some institutions. Virtual reality’s potential remains rich and promising for the cultural and tourism sectors.

Translated from the original French version published in The Conversation.