IMAGINING TOMORROW: BUSINESS FUTURES | 55 OCTOBER 1, 2023 Manami and Kotone are enjoying a private extended reality tour of Machu Picchu. They have the place to themselves, apart from a virtual guide who can be summoned when they have questions. In physical reality, Manami and Kotone are in a Tokyo branch of VirTur, the company that was among the pioneers of XR tourism and is rapidly becoming a giant of the burgeoning XR economy, which ranges from augmenting the current physical world (AR) to creating new virtual, computer-simulated worlds (VR). They are in a climate-controlled room, where the air is cooled, thinned and scented like an Andean forest. “There will always be some people who shun XR tourism, saying it is a pale imitation of physical travel,” admits Yori Koizumi, CEO of VirTur. But, as he is quick to point out, XR tours are available at a fraction of the price: “Value has always been related to scarcity—only so many people can visit Machu Picchu at once. In XR, that’s no longer true.” Indeed, Koizumi argues that the XR experience is actually better in some ways: No endless plane journeys. No mobs of tourists. No environmental damage. THE WORLD OF REDESIGNING THTHEE I IMAMAGIGINANATIONTION THE AGE OF “TECHNO-POLITICS” LIFE E ECONOMYCONOMY (IN)SECURITY