  Tour guidance in virtual museums encourages multi-modal interactions to boost
user experiences, concerning engagement, immersion, and spatial awareness.
Nevertheless, achieving the goal is challenging due to the complexity of
comprehending diverse user needs and accommodating personalized user
preferences. Informed by a formative study that characterizes guidance-seeking
contexts, we establish a multi-modal interaction design framework for virtual
tour guidance. We then design VirtuWander, a two-stage innovative system using
domain-oriented large language models to transform user inquiries into diverse
guidance-seeking contexts and facilitate multi-modal interactions. The
feasibility and versatility of VirtuWander are demonstrated with virtual
guiding examples that encompass various touring scenarios and cater to
personalized preferences. We further evaluate VirtuWander through a user study
within an immersive simulated museum. The results suggest that our system
enhances engaging virtual tour experiences through personalized communication
and knowledgeable assistance, indicating its potential for expanding into
real-world scenarios.
