Virtual Tourism

-- Without ticket and suitcase, you can still travel the world.

High-quality multimedia and rich content have permeated every aspects of modern life. Tourism also benefit from the significant innovation of technology in improving the tourists’ sensory experience. Virtual tourism is one of the new form thanks to the wide use of internet and advance technology.

Virtual tourism, the activity that tourists visit one attraction without actually physically being in the scene. The form of virtual tourism changed from presenting tourists with a slideshow or video in the earlier times to photo-based revival of the scene for tourists of today.

In earlier times, virtual tourism was more frequently used by museums. Museums offered a slideshow or video, however within a limited area. The 3D graphical interface were offered by some museums which allowed one to explore the attraction using simple directional camera controls.

Today, the forms of virtual tourism are becoming not only various, but also interactive and customer initiative. At home or in many other places, one can take a virtual tour with the desktop, in a cabin space, or with equipment such as helmet. One can control his own journey. In addition, some apps are also designed for tourists to share experience with others. With the modes of video, or photos, users can share their travel journey with their own voice telling a story or describe in words.

The Advantages of Virtual tourism

•  To know the sight in advance. Virtual tourism provides visitors an idea about the destination. With the preview, visitors know what to expect about the destination or whether the place is worthwhile to pay actual visit.
•  Available to those who are inconvenient to travel. People who are disabled, limited by finance, work, or other issues, can use virtual visit to compensate for their regrets.
•  Rebuild historical landscape or the places that hard to visit. Some historical landscapes were once existing but vanished for some reasons. With advanced technology, these landscapes can be recreated in the form of picture, 3D graph, and even interactive video. It is the same with the places that hard to visit. Places like the Himalaya, South Pole, even outer space can form to virtual tourism, becoming available to the public. 

Recent news, a revival of photo-based virtual tourism raised much interest. Jointly sponsored by NASA, Carnegie Mellon University, Google and National Geographic Society, the GigaPan Project hosts extremely high resolution panoramic photos (a gigapixel-resolution) online. The high resolution offers incredibly detailed images that people are able to zoom in on and pan across at will.

With help of new technologies like Google Street View and Web 2.0, virtual tourism is gradually improved. Google Street View allows users to view the city on the web from a pedestrian standpoint. Some cities are offering videos of the city to uses as well. Being “invited” to the street, users can enjoy short videos about some special places, such as scenic spots, historical buildings, and museums. Collaborating with YouTube, Google introduced the technique of embedding video on google map service. Users can easily access to video that hosted on YouTube and embed them on google map. This attractive and interactive technique can be the trend that leads to a new breed of virtual tourism. Along this trend, virtual travelers and enthusiasts can looking forward even to more exciting travel experiences without tickets and suitcase.

Sources: 

http://www.gigapan.com/

https://www.google.com/maps/views/home

https://maps.google.com/

http://www.mysecurecyberspace.com/articles/features/virtual-tourism.html

Pictures1: http://www.virtualpano.com/com_portofolio.php

Pictures2: http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.fr/

Posted bySang ZHAOandSiqi ZHANG

Fotopedia, fingertips experience the world

Fotopedia Reporter, one of the many apps developed by the eponymous photo encyclopedia site founded by a group of former Apple employees, has just announced the release of a new app, “Fotopedia”, which upgrades to version 2.0 in 22 January 2014.

“Fotopedia”, the formerly Fotopedia Reporter, was launched in April 2013 for iPad and iPad mini only. Recently, for those running iOS 6.0 or later, the app has been made compatible with iPhone and iPod touch as well, which thanks to the updating to version 2.0. However, now, for the function of “travel story reporter”, is only exclusive to the app’s iPad edition (Fotopedia blog, 2014).

As one of the leading media consumption apps of tourism, Fotopedia, which focusing on photos and creating a photo-based online photo "encyclopedia", aiming at “ Travel the globe and discover the world best experiences”, are free available worldwide in nine languages(Fotopedia, 2014). Since April 2011, after the launch of the first application Fotopedia Paris, Fotopedia launched fifteen applications, for example Fotopedia Heritage, Fotopedia Japan, Fotopedia China, Fotopedia Wild Friends, Fotopedia Women of the World, Fotopedia North Korea, Fotopedia Dreams of Burma, Fotopedia Italy, Fotopedia National Parks, etc (Fotopedia blog, 2014). Rely on the exquisite pictures, the good travel interaction effect and tourism experience share, the attractive interface design, Fotopedia quickly captured a large number of fans, especially among tourism enthusiasts, photographers and educators. Just Fotopedia Reporter, has already racked up 300,000 downloads until June 2013, of which 60% came from iPad users (Fotopedia, 2014). 

The photos provide by Fotopedia are mainly from the photographs based on the Flickr CC protocol authorization. Opening the apps and moving the fingers, the user could experience a "virtual tour". In networking status, the user could view HD quality travel stories, and mark the interesting stories, edit, or collect them to the self-album, so that to re-look next time (TechCrunch, 2013). They can also now sign up or log in to Fotopedia using Facebook or Twitter, and link the travel experiences for easy sharing. Using GPS positioning, smart labels, search tools and interactive maps to provide a full range of navigation services, so that the users can clearly look through what and where the “travel stories” around them, picking a place or calling up their current location on Fotopedia geo-localized maps, geting the best local content and the hottest tips from residents and the previous tourists, even being a "Travel Creator", personalizing the travel all by their design and plan (Fotopedia, 2014). It is also a good media for the "travel stories reporters" to recall and share the "memorable" travel experience to the users and potential tourists. The feature of Open Graph Integrated with the Facebook could allows the travel reporters easily sharing their interesting travel findings. Using the photos taken by themselves and the actual personal feelings to share an memorable experience, even to make a "Must-see list" for the own repeat visit or provide the advices to other tourists. This kind of "visual virtual tour" and online interaction could directly and effectively motivate users to imagine the virtual travel, even promote the action to travel.

For instance, Fotopedia Paris could provide a visual feast of "virtual tour" for you. More than 4000 photos, allowing you to enjoy the beauty of Paris, while the depth feeling of Paris culture. Art, architecture, cafes, castles, fashion, history, shopping, street life,etc. 

Fingertips tapping, you are just under the Eiffel Tower, one second later you has been in Montmartre comic world, or the way to the Louvre. Traveling Freely in the city, you could not only enjoy the famous attractions, but also the unexpected landscape and monuments, which are hard to find in most travel guides.

In 2012, the company formally established a partnership to the world's largest online travel company Expedia (TechCrunch, 2012). When a Fotopedia user see the attractive pictures and want to travel to the destination, just clicking on the "Expedia" button next to the picture so that to enter Expedia applications to book the Hotel room. It is the most sensible choice to Fotopedia that has the cooperation to a travel company. Currently, the Expedia button just appear on the application of Fotopedia Paris and Japan, in the future the company will add the button in the previous applications and the some application of upcoming release. 

When the tourism experience economy gradually becomes the mainstream thinking and development trend of the tourism market economy, when the rapid development of IT industry and its sustained impacts on the development of the tourism, Fotopedia could have a place in numerous tourism applications? Let us wait and see.

Written by Pinyi LU & Yi ZHAO

Sources:

Fotopedia official website (2014): http://zh.fotopedia.com/products/fotopedia

Fotopedia official blog (2014): http://blog.fotopedia.com/

TechCrunch (2013): http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/10/fotopedias-reporter-app-focuses-on-creation-as-much-as-consumption-crosses-300k-downloads/

TechCrunch (2012): 

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/11/fotopedia-partners-with-expedia-introduces-in-app-hotel-reservations/

Tablette-Tactile (2014): 

http://www.tablette-tactile.net/application/ipad-application/fotopedia-decouvrez-partagez-le-monde-en-images-sur-votre-ipad-ou-votre-iphone-150324/

Images sources:

Image 1: http://blog.fotopedia.com/

Image 2: http://blog.fotopedia.com/

Image 3: http://zh.fotopedia.com/products/fotopedia

Image 4: http://zh.fotopedia.com/products/fotopedia

Image 5: http://iphone.tgbus.com/ruanjianheji/201211/20121106160150_5.shtml