How Virtual Reality is Transforming the Travel Industry
VR has become a mainstream consumer product and is being driven by the gaming industry which includes the travel industry and is exploring the technology as a marketing tool. In this post, you learn how VR is transforming the travel industry.
Virtual reality technology involves the use of a VR headset, which helps to engage a user in a digital environment. In this way we can interact within a virtual world, through the use of images, sounds and other physical sensations. Although VR has a long history, it has come to the forefront of mainstream consumer technology in recent times, produced by the likes of Samsung and Sony, as well as lower-cost options from the likes of Google and the uses include gaming, watching interactive videos, viewing 360 degree images and more.
This technology is also being utilised by marketers in a number of interesting ways. For example, VR headsets can allow marketers to go beyond providing basic images, allowing users to actually ‘experience’ the product they are being sold.
Talking about this industry it has been too quick to adopt virtual reality technology and their customers are looking to purchase experiences, rather than products, that turns out to be an effective way for marketers to give them a taste of what they can expect.
Travel customers require lots of information before they book a hotel room. For instance, require them to read descriptions, view images, look at videos, read customer reviews or seek opinions on social media. Through virtual reality this process can be shortened significantly.
Most of the hotels and travel companies are now providing virtual reality elements on their websites or apps, to experience a digital version of a hotel room, or even take a look at one of the nearby attractions.
A growing number of companies are experimenting with VR headsets and finding good uses for them. Below, you find some of the main applications that have been observed within hospitality businesses to date.
1. Virtual Tours of Hotels
One of the best examples of virtual reality is the use of the technology providing virtual tours of hotels and hotel rooms. It allows potential customers to experience what the hotel looks like before they arrive.
In many cases, the virtual experience consists of a simple 360 degree image compatible with social media platforms and basic VR technology, like Google Cardboard.
2. Virtual Booking Interface
Some companies have taken the use of VR in offering an entire booking process and user interface that can be experienced through a virtual reality headset which gradually replaces the need of computer mouse, or touch screen, to make a hotel or flight booking.
With the use of it one can experience and explore the facilities provided in a hotel, compare and contrast room types, check out local sights, and seek out key information or facts at one place.
3. Virtual Travel Experiences
Finally, virtual reality is offering hotels, travel agents, and other businesses an opportunity to provide prospective customers with a virtual travel experience which means that users will be able to test some of the main attractions that draws to a location in the first place.
For example, a hotel in Paris may provide a virtual experience of what it is like at the top of the Eiffel Tower or a hotel near a theme park to provide a virtual roller-coaster experience. All these primarily used to sell rooms, flights and travel products based on the experiences they can enable.