Cultural heritage has benefited from virtual tourism in the post-epidemic era, but more research is needed to understand how virtual tourism can contribute to cultural heritage's social education effect. Based on the theory of involvement, this study takes the Forbidden City as a case to examine the social education mechanism of tourists involved in virtual cultural heritage tourism. The results show that virtual tourism involvement has a significant positive effect on tourists' place imagination, experience memory and affective attachment; tourists' place imagination has a significant positive effect on experience memory and affective attachment; tourists' experience memory has a significant positive effect on affective attachment; tourists' affective attachment has a significant positive effect on social education effect. Furthermore, tourists' place imagination mediates the relationship between virtual tourism involvement and experience memory; tourists' place imagination has a partial mediating effect between virtual tourism involvement and affective attachment; tourists' experience memory mediates the relationship between virtual tourism involvement and affective attachment; tourists' experience memory has a partial mediating effect between place imagination and affective attachment. Tourists' past experience moderates the relationship between virtual tourism involvement and place imagination, experience memory, affective attachment. This study confirms virtual cultural heritage tourism has a similar social education effect as realistic cultural heritage tourism and extends involvement theory in the virtual context, promoting the practice of virtual cultural heritage tourism.

文化遗产在后疫情时代受益于虚拟旅游，但需要更多的研究来了解虚拟旅游如何促进文化遗产的社会教育效果。本研究基于涉入理论，以故宫为例，考察游客参与虚拟文化遗产旅游的社会教育机制。结果表明，虚拟旅游卷入对游客的场所想象、体验记忆和情感依恋具有显着的正向影响；旅游者的场所想象对体验记忆和情感依恋有显着的正向影响；游客体验记忆对情感依恋有显着正向影响；游客情感依恋对社会教育效果具有显着的正向影响。此外，旅游者的地方想象在虚拟旅游卷入与体验记忆之间起中介作用；旅游者的地方想象在虚拟旅游卷入和情感依恋之间起部分中介作用；游客体验记忆在虚拟旅游卷入与情感依恋之间起中介作用；旅游者的体验记忆在地方想象和情感依恋之间起部分中介作用。游客过往经历调节虚拟旅游卷入与场所想象、体验记忆、情感依恋之间的关系。本研究证实了虚拟文化遗产旅游与现实文化遗产旅游具有相似的社会教育效果，并将参与理论扩展到虚拟环境中，