In virtual circuit switching the packets follow a dedicated path and it is connection oriented, whereas in case of packet switching they may take different paths and it is connection less.
If in virtual circuit switching packets follow a dedicated path and all the resources along the path are reserved until the tear down, what necessarily distinguishes it from circuit switching?
You first need to understand difference between connection oriented path and dedicated oriented path.
Connection oriented path: where the source to destination route preplanned but not necessarily reservation of resources, resources can be shared by any other source and destination pairs.
Dedicated oriented path: Connection oriented path and resources reservation and resources are allocated for one and only dedicated sender and receiver.
Virtual circuit switching uses both features of circuit switching and datagram switching. So virtual circuit switching doesn't necessarily have a dedicated path(i.e. have Connection oriented path) and resources may or may not be allocated in advance. But definitely it is connection oriented which is one of the feature of circuit switching.