Virtual reality technology has been deemed as a remarkable invention in many industries. The technology has been proved to alter several sectors, including gaming, education, and even medical. Yet, now the latest sector looking to adopt this experience is the travel business.
The big opportunity for VR will be helping customers in making decision about their travel destination. It can be particularly valuable for places that may not have a top-tier attraction with renown name, but have beautiful sceneries and cultural attractions. Since travelers do not have much knowledge about places as such, they hesitate to choose these destinations.
Therefore, VR plays a role in here to fill the gap. An example of this comes in the form of virtual tours, which enable travelers to experience a holiday destination before booking their trip.
Matoke Tours, a niche African travel agent, launched a virtual travel brochure: an app featuring 360degree videos of six experiences in Uganda, where users will come face-to-face with a gorilla or go up in a hot air balloon. This app conveys travelers to a virtual world whereby all the intensity and emotion users experience will be similar to the real ones. Consequently, travelers are better able to decide which excursions they want to book.
In fact, Matoke Tours are not the only one. Several apps offering this kind of experience have already existed; Ascape is a free app for iPhone providing 360degree videos and virtual tours of various locations such as San Fransisco, Berlin, and Botswana
At the same time, VR technology gives travel agents great advantage as well. For instance, in January 2015, a travel agent based in UK, Thomas Cook, collaborated with Samsung and virtual reality film producers Visualise to create a series of short movies of several destinations. Customers visiting their offices in UK, Germany, and Belgium could try these fresh experiences using the Samsung Gear VR headset. The revenue earned was astonishing. Three months after the campaign began, the UK and Germany branches succeeded to amass £12,000 ($17,500) in total and earn 40 percent return on investment.
It is worth noting that the potential benefit VR offering for travel business might subject to the readiness of the consumers to embrace VR devices. That is, depends on how quickly the technology is adopted by consumers. If the market are more inclined to try new experience, the possibilities to generate profit through VR will be bigger.
In conclusion, both travel operators and customers will gain benefits from utilizing VR. If being utilized in the right manner, VR can generate sales and bookings for business as the convenience offered through VR will allure consumers. On the other hand, consumers will feel the benefit it will give them confidence before choosing a destination.
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