How to use virtual reality in tourism industry
2017-02-14 23:39:00
When it comes to VR, most of us still think about gaming or video, but there is a very true statistic that we cannot ignore it: 74% of VR consumers are interested in use of travelling and adventuring. This is huge, and much more than even gaming (61%), or movies/videos (67%). So why don’t we use VR for our tourism marketing?
Many people think that VR will be the future, and as we can see now, many tech giants are still investing more into this technology, and so is Focalmax. Because we believe that VR can change our life! Then, using VR for our tourism Marketing is not just for one or several campaigns, but for a long term!
First,let’s talk about the development of VR, then we can see the potential of this technology with tourism industry.
VR/AR is considered as “The Fourth Way” in tech, but many people are still in doubt about it. Sure, because VR is still new for most of us. Even though it is not a new technology – the first VR movie viewer (Sensorama) is patented in 1962 for Morton Heilig, but it was not popular to us until Facebook had invested into Oculus in 2014 and many medias talked about it, and then we knew the term “VR” (and then AR, MR).
Just almost 3 years, but now, VR is so popular to many people over the world, and now it is evolved in many industries: Military, Education, Marketing, Medical, Healthcare, Tourism and so so. The development of VR is now very clear, and according to a report by Digi-Capital, VR/AR/MR industry in 2020 will have a very great record!
At the moment, VR is still not really great, but It is just at the dawn of its lifetime! There are still certain issues that prevent the development of this technology, such as content, hardware limit, high price. But when we have a look at the history of smartphone, we will find that it is very normal! We will be able to solve these problems as we did with smartphone.
Now let’s get back to our story, VR for tourism industry!
People said that VR will take about 5 to 10 years to get its golden age. However, at the moment many companies started using VR for their business. Then tourism industry should not be exceptional here, especially almost of consumers are interested in virtual tourism. Go ahead or get left behind? So, what we can do with VR for tourism?
360-degree and VR videos for Marketing
Let’s talk about Marketing for this industry with VR first.There are lots of things to talk here, since Marketing is crucial for any industry, and now there are not just few companies using VR for their Marketing campaigns.
We are using social media for our marketing? Then we know that Facebook, Youtube already have 360-degree video functions, and Twitter also introduced 360-degree video live streaming, even WordPress now also supports this video format. You have 360-degree videos yet?
If we are owning an App for our marketing strategy, we also can upload our VR video here, then people can experience our great content right on our app for smartphone. Smartphone-based VR is still very affordable for everyone, and this is an easy way for us to bring our paradises to our targeted audiences. But don’t forget to upload to our corporate website or somewhere also. Since there are still many customers using VR on PC now. We also should start thinking about make our own app become a VR app. Or you might think about Google Street View, but it is different, then the effectiveness is also far different!
“VR is a platform for dynamic and highly engaging storytelling, so there’s a whole new class of interactions in the experience design process that are far more powerful than any videos you can create,… When you put the headset on, there’s a dramatic increase in the level of empathy and connection because you feel like you’re actually in that space.” said Wilson Tang, VP, digital experience for Freeman.
“VR plays an important role in the decision-making process. That means that before purchasing a product the viewer is using VR to evaluate a certain destination. Therefore, the desire of going to the viewed place is higher after watching a 360º video. This is due to the simple fact that VR allows the viewer to have more realistic expectations of the destination. In addition, viewers can explore and experience the atmosphere, weather, destination’s facilities and much more. The potential tourists are able to get a clearer and more real perception of the place.” – According to Virtual Reality In Tourism.
So why don’t we use VR for our marketing campaign? It is still to soon? Absolutely no! If we just wait until there are a lots of companies use this tech for marketing, then there will be less opportunities for us to approach our promising customers. And people always want to travel a lot, and they also are very interested in virtual tourism, then we cannot miss the chance to show them our wonderful paradises with VR.
Make our paradise virtual
Have you ever thought about making your paradise virtual? It is not just some VR or 360-degree videos, but I mean we can make your places 3D and 360 degrees that we can use for VR. We no need to make all parts of our places virtual, but select some outstanding parts, such as some gaming places or obviously beautiful views to create simple VR games (such as roller coaster) or VR videos. Then we also can upload to our own app, website or anywhere possible.
We can let people to discover our wonderful world before they come to us. We all know that people always want to experience before they make a purchase. Then we can show all of our great things to them, that is the greatest way to persuade them.
Bring different experiment
VR is just for our marketing? It is not really like that, since we still can use VR right at our places that allows our customers to have different experiment. So how?
A very simple example with roll coaster: People now sit on the roll coaster and see the real world and feel exciting, but now we let them weare a VR headset and see another world – virtual world with lots of interesting things while they still can feel exciting from the real feeling of sitting on roll coaster.
Or we can think about to put some VR headsets in the hotel rooms to let the clients to experience their next destination or just to introduce the things around the hotels, the activities and so on. How about setting up a VR cinema with real feeling right at our places? 3D or even 5D cinema is not new, now we can use VR cinema or experience center to bring different experiment for people. Just a little different also can bring big revenue.
Besides, if we can combine with AR here to bring very deep experiment, that will be much better. People wear AR glasses and then go to explore our cities (or just a zoo) and then find lots of useful or interesting information. Or people wear AR glasses and then they can see how a city of 1000 years ago looks like. Just have a small imagine: we are right at the Colosseum in Rome with AR glasses, and when we wear the glasses on, we can see the Colosseum of thousands years ago with lots of audiences and warriors fighting. It will be a great feeling?
There are still other uses of VR in tourism industry, and we all find that VR is very great for this. And right now, we – Focalmax – also process some VR projects for tourism, then if you want to get an advanced program for your own paradise, don’t hesitate to contact us. We are now experienced for this!
Contact us today: info@focalmax.net or call us at: 86（0755）86535858.
from Focalmax – Focal View, Max World http://ift.tt/2lkLLZu
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