Dr Brent Moyle from the Griffith Institute for Tourism in collaboration with A/Prof Haseler, A/Prof Peart and Mr Matthew Wells from the Heart Foundation Research Centre have recently completed an interdisciplinary collaboration designed to get to the heart of the visitor experience in natural and protected areas. The purpose of the research was to discern if a virtual nature based tourism experience was emotionally arousing or relaxing. Adopting an innovative mixed method design consisting of three sequential phases of research, participants were connected to an Electrocardiogram to discern changes in the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system of the heart, responsible for emotional arousal and relaxation.

Preliminary analysis revealed a dominance in the parasympathetic activity of the heart, indicating the virtual reality nature based tourism experience relaxed rather than emotionally aroused participants. Subsequently, there exists immense potential to integrate virtual nature based tourism experiences into clinical settings to assist people with recovery from heart surgery, as well as other medical conditions, to get back into nature, contributing to healthy active and vibrant communities.