Will Virtual Reality Offer Future Tourism Marketing Potential?

25th February 2015

What do you think of when you hear the words virtual reality (VR)? As for me (do not laugh too muchJ), before reading this article it was some kind of a clunky helmet attached to a computer with a thick cable. Moreover I did imagine Neo and Morpheus traipsing about the Matrix!)) Yes, yes, a bit silly, but fortunately I have found out that it is a simulated, three-dimensional world which we can manipulate and explore using computer technology while feeling as if he were in that world. Surprisingly but it was first demonstrated in a practical sense in the 1960s. And since that time it has been predicted that we would experience VR operating in everyday life on a regular basis. Let’s have look at nowadays reality.

Today Facebook, Sony, Microsoft are conducting billion dollars acquisition of virtual reality projects and we are expected to see the fruits of these efforts sometime in the next year or so.

There are some already successfully launched technologies of “another world”. For instance, the Google Street View software - travel application with additional reality technology Google Glass which can be used in order to showcase travel-related destinations such as hotels.

Another example of virtual reality has recently presented by the DMO of British Columbia in order to promote the destination through a campaign called “The Wild within”. At the time being, the system Oculus Rift (an upcoming virtual reality head-mounted display) is only accessible and used by trade professionals and travel Media. Yet, one can imagine that it will be available for travellers.

To benefit from an incredible 360-degree experience, British Columbia proposes to users to wear the Oculus Rift with headphones. The “Wild within experience” offers two virtual realities:

-                                  = A boat ride

-                                  =  A mountain hike.

Microsoft would also like to launch VR project during 2015. We don’t know yet if the device will be available publicly or just used as a prototype.

HoloLens device developed by Microsoft would allow traveller to visit place they’ve never been before and enjoy popular tourists’ attractions at home.

Australia’s Qantas, an Australian airline, in cooperation with Samsung, will propose a virtual reality technology in Sydney and Melbourne lounges as well as inflight for its first class passengers. Customers will have access to a 3D and 360 degree viewing experience.

Image source: http://skift.com/2015/01/30/qantas-just-made-virtual-reality-in-flight-entertainment-a-reality/#1

These travel related companies shows that VR can be largely used to promote and market a destination.  

However, today there is no guarantee that it will reach public in the foreseeable future. Even famous Google Glass has completely failed to reach a mainstream audience at this point in time. Let’s wait and see if virtual reality devices will integrate in our daily life and change our world. In any case it remains a niche which is able to deliver absorbing content through simulated, three-dimensional world.

More information you can find here http://thinkdigital.travel/opinion/virtual-reality-offers-future-tourism-marketing-potential

And of course you can always contact us: 

Fanny fanny.picarle@skema.edu &

Anastassiya anastassiya.shikhovtseva@skema.edu

And remember: 

"Don’t be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality.

If you can drem it, you can make it". 

Ralph Waldo Emerson