Blockchain and the metaverse are believed to be the most disruptive technologies that would transform the current tourism and hospitality landscape. Although publications on the metaverse and blockchain have emerged in recent years, most are conceptual and speculative, with little discussion on how a destination adopts such innovative technologies and develops blockchain-empowered metaverse tourism. This study adopts a sociological lens to explore what and how various institutional forces affect stakeholders’ technology adoption on blockchain and the metaverse and the impact of such behaviors on a destination’s blockchain-empowered metaverse tourism development by drawing upon the institutional theory. In the case of Macau, this study found that multiple stakeholders’ perceptions and adoption of blockchain and the metaverse are increasingly homogeneous under similar coercive, mimetic, and normative forces in the destination, leading to institutional isomorphism and stakeholder collaboration. These results promote mutual understanding, information exchange, and technology acceptance in the destination, thereby contributing to the destination’s blockchain-empowered metaverse tourism development. The main contribution of this study lies in its novel attempt to reveal how blockchain-empowered metaverse tourism germinates in a tourism destination with empirical evidence. The findings of this study provide practical references for tourism stakeholders who hope to embrace the imperative digital trend and harness the power of state-of-the-art technologies to remain competitive and raise the awareness of academia on the new paradigm of tourism destination development.

区块链和虚拟宇宙被认为是最具颠覆性的技术，将改变当前的旅游业和酒店业格局。尽管近年来有关元宇宙和区块链的出版物不断涌现，但大多数都是概念性和推测性的，很少讨论目的地如何采用此类创新技术并发展区块链赋能的元宇宙旅游。本研究采用社会学视角，利用制度理论探讨各种制度力量如何影响利益相关者对区块链和元宇宙的技术采用，以及这些行为对目的地区块链赋能的元宇宙旅游发展的影响。以澳门为例，这项研究发现，在目的地类似的强制、模仿和规范力量下，多个利益相关者对区块链和虚拟世界的看法和采用越来越同质，导致制度同构和利益相关者协作。这些成果促进了目的地的相互了解、信息交流和技术接受，从而为目的地区块链赋能的元宇宙旅游发展做出了贡献。这项研究的主要贡献在于其新颖的尝试，以实证证据揭示区块链赋能的元宇宙旅游如何在旅游目的地萌芽。