We cannot expect all 7 billion people on earth to be able to visit Uluru, Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat or Easter Island. However, are there technologies, economic models or social imperatives that would encourage those who manage such sites to open them up for rich online visits? This is not a matter of an improved website but instead requires new forms of presence to realize a rich and improved remote ​user experience based on novel interfaces and a deeper understanding of the expectations remote digital visitors have when visiting sites they will never see in person.

—Benyon et al., "Presence and digital tourism"

Existential tourism, like the search for the absolute, is a modern myth, a Utopia whose principal purpose—as in the case of pilgrimages—​is to give man an additional hope, additional material with which he could build round himself a pink cloud of illusion and self-deception making life easier than when the only thing one has is the inexorable scientific truth offering no hope or comfort. However, travelling is not only a form of self-deception or comfort creating the illusion about the existence of an absolute or purpose; it is also a form of search for the truth , a form of realisation and disillusionment.

—Dorde K. Comic, "Tourism as a subject of philosophical reflection"

If it’s your first time taking a cruise vacation, you may be a little anxious about what to expect on embarkation day. I’m here to tell you that you should replace anxiousness with overwhelming excitement! The first things you will see while getting to the pier are the cruise ships in the distant port. The closer you get, the bigger the ships appear. You just can’t imagine how enormous the cruise ships are before seeing them in person for the first time. Imagine a floating resort with rooms, restaurants, pools, a spa, fitness center, and so much more, and how big a cruise ship must be to accommodate all of that! You will feel the anticipation of adventure at first sight.

​​—Norwegian Cruise Line, "Cruise Tips: What to Expect on Embarkation Day"

if the beckoning screen pulls us into the infinite scroll 

what's the equivalent for immersive virtual and extended realities?

​... tourism imaginaries do not float around spontaneously and independently; rather, they ‘‘travel’’ in space and time through well-established conduits, leaving certain elements behind and picking up new ones along the way, and continuously returning to their points of origin. Such circulation always ‘‘takes time—historical time—and is not instantaneously achieved’’ (Urban, 2001, p. 105). Images, discourses, and ideas have certain points of origin—in tourism many of them are marked by distinctly Western genealogies—but are now incessantly moving in global ‘‘rounds’’, not strictly circular, reaching new horizons and periodically feeding back to their places of departure.

​—Noel B. Salazar, "Tourism Imaginaries: A Conceptual Approach"