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BlogDecember 12, 2019

Hotel Virtual Tour Increases Hotel Booking Sales, Experts Reveal

For the past few years, most hospitality businesses have tried and experimented with hotel virtual tour technology. Some hotels produced virtual tours on their websites and social media channels. The 360 virtual tour technology enables potential guests and customers to look, reserve, and book for rooms.

Oftentimes, the hotel virtual tour is shot using a 360-degree camera (panoramic view) to film all angles and directions at once. Let us uncover the evolution of hotel virtual tour; as well as the hotels that incorporate this technology to boost their bookings and sales.

How Hotel Virtual Tour Helps Increase Room Reservations and Bookings

The Pioneering Hotels

Some of the leading hotels that incorporate hotel virtual tour in their business are IHG, Kimpton, and Marriott. They recently launched a 360-3d virtual reality tour that showcases their luxury rooms and suites.

It enables their guests to explore the company’s features, amenities, and facilities without leaving their respective rooms. The hotel virtual tour also lets the customers reserve and make direct bookings at a distance. Meanwhile, Graduate Hotel’s Director of Sales and Revenue, Larkin MacDonald says their sales and marketing campaigns become easier as they consolidate it in one platform.

The Study

Visiting Media reveals most hotel brands need to recreate an experience closest to the feeling of visiting the property physically. It also establishes emotional connections to the customers while providing a one of a kind experience to them. The study also shows they can synchronize all their sales assets easily; thanks to a single centralized platform where they can plan appointment schedules and group sales.

European Hotels

Meanwhile, the Accor hotels in Europe like Fairmont Le Montreux Palace, Raffles Europejski Warsaw, Sofitel Munich Bayerpost, etc, also deployed the said solution to cater to their customer’s desires to experience their hotels virtually.

Their virtual tours incorporate immersive visuals like 3d photos, 360-degree images, and selling tools to let the customers book hotel rooms and event space. These top European hotels also claim an increase in their revenue after using virtual tours. The hotels are also working with professionals to sync all virtual tours and 3d images to connect them in a worldwide marketplace.

On Search Engines

According to Michal Hubschmann, hotel virtual tour increases not only hotel bookings and sales, but also in search engine rankings and marketing plans. As more and more customers spend more time and engagements in your virtual tours, it also reportedly increase exposure and rankings in Google’s search engine. The technology also generates reports to search engines compared to easier and faster compared to waiting to index a listing.

Hubschmann further reveals most hotels enjoy an astounding 50% increase in views than using regular, static images. Hotel virtual tour also helps upsell most hotel's deluxe rooms and suites. They create virtual tours to showcase the difference between standard and deluxe rooms after booking. It results in most customers making another booking for their top luxurious rooms to enjoy the experience.

The WOW Effect

Meanwhile, GCH's digital marketing consultant, Daniel Wishnia, says hotel virtual tour's success lies in giving the WOW effect to customers. It offers huge incentives to hospitality businesses as guests get to book directly to their rooms compared to collaborating with Online Travel Agency (OTA).

This is important since most hotels have to pay up to 30% to OTA as their booking agent for tour packages. Not only the hotel virtual tour helps in boosting their sales, but it also helps curb their expenses too. They can now spend this money in other crucial areas in the hospitality business. So if you haven’t already, start incorporating your business with hotel virtual tour now and boost your booking sales in no time!

Lifestyle, virtual realityOctober 14, 2019

Your Next Vacation Won’t be as Dull as Before Because of Virtual Tour Technology: Learn Why!

Through technology, travel destinations reach travelers faster and closer and it helps them experience the place before they even book. The virtual tour replicates not only the sights but also the smells and sounds in the area.

Your mobile phone can offer you possible destinations based on your most recent searches, preferences, and travels. You can come up with a shortlist and search engines will prompt you to go on a virtual tour using a quick response code to be scanned in any virtual reality destination. Here you can conference with a friend and tour a scenic destination. You will be able to choose flights, hotel rooms, and packages using the virtual tour. All you have to do is link your biometric systems for you to use it for customs, airline check-in, and hotel check-in. You can also pay through your crypto account using coins, cash, and points.

Generations Y and Z are more tech-savvy and 60 percent of them are more likely to choose a travel destination using social media instead of paid ads. The sharing economy also came into the picture and that’s why companies like Airbnb and BlaBlaCar have become game-changers.

Virtual Tours Bring Seamless Experiences

The journey of a traveler who uses virtual tours has been changed mainly due to his or her desire to have seamless experiences, personalization, reliance on peer-based feedback, and instant gratification. Such travelers are growing. According to statistics from The World Tourism Organization by 2030, there will be 1.8 billion international trips.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is currently used for language simply by pointing smart phone cameras at words, routing, and navigation. This is the basis for the interactive New York Subway map.

Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet has an impact on the discovery and booking processes through the voice-enabled Alexa search, Kayak, and Booking.com. Guests can also have keyless digital entry to hotel rooms, baggage tracking and notification, seamless integration of your own gadgets and interconnected hotel room devices.

Artificial Intelligence

AI-driven engines are more inclined to learn consumer behavior. The more information AI gets from you, the better the recommendations it can provide with more economic and emotional benefits to the providers. Mobility app, Mobacar, makes use of machine learning for predicting the mode of transport and the type of vehicle a traveler may prefer and pushes only the relevant offers.

Metalhead — Photographer: Franck V. | Source: Unsplash

Biometrics

Biometrics can help in the identification documents such as passports through the use of fingerprints, facial, or iris recognition used in customs, hotels, and airlines.

Blockchain

The entire travel chain has been changed by Blockchain as it increases disintermediation and democratization. It can remove the intermediaries and balance the bargaining power in online travel agencies and inventory owners. Travala is one example of this. It is a travel booking marketplace that ledgerizes and decentralizes the hospitality industry which enables users to add rooms as supported by smart contracts.

Robotics

This technology is used for automating tasks that are monotonous. You can have consumer service robots and digital concierge and social robots. These can answer queries on predeparture gates, directing passengers to restaurants they prefer, or to help them access the Wi-Fi.

The New Age Customer

The customer is evolving today and he or she has been pampered by the services offered by travel intermediaries and the rise of other inventory providers such as digital tours and tour guides, online travel aggregators, and metasearch agencies. Hotels and inventory owners no longer have much bargaining powers due to the huge online travel agencies. Airline loyalty programs don’t have that much influence on travelers anymore. A good deal on a particular platform can help shift loyalties.

The landscape of hospitality and travel industries will offer an opportunity for alliances which allow for a new and sustainable ecosystem to be set up. Boundaries are being blurred and partnerships have emerged. Travelers are expected to gain more value for their travel money, and they will be pampered with multiple options due to innovations.

If you want to learn more about the value and uses of a virtual tour, you can contact us. You can also create your own virtual tour for free. Sign up today!

virtual realityAugust 23, 2019

Tokyo Hotel Now Offers “Superior Cockpit Room” with Full Sized Flight Simulator

The Haneda Excel Hotel has installed a full-sized flight simulator inside one of the hotel rooms. Hotel guests will be able to book for a 90-minute simulator experience for $277, complete with a flight instructor. An additional amount of $234 must be paid to book the entire cockpit room. This development is inspired by its location which is near Haneda’s Airport Terminal 2. The Superior Cockpit Room will be launched on July 28.

Guests can book the room for the night for $234 a night for the twin room, but guests are not allowed to lay their hands on the simulator or the instruments. Those who book for the flight will be able to experience operating a Boeing 737-800 aircraft and flying from Haneda to Itami Airport in Osaka.

This is not the first time when a brand used flight simulation as a selling point. The First Airlines restaurant opened in Tokyo and offered in-flight hotel virtual tour dining experience. It allowed guests to have a tour of the cities of New York, Paris, Rome, and Hawaii.

Diners checked in to the flight, sat in a comfortable first-rate seat, and were treated to a pre-flight safety demonstration before they dined on dishes that are similar to ones served during the flight.

Guests were treated to a four-course meal based on the cuisine of the flight destination. For New York, the meal included chopped salad, balsamic truffle sauce and cheesecake, Manhattan clam chowder, and Angus beef steak with bacon. Those who traveled to Italy enjoyed meals such as tiramisu and salmon carpaccio.

If you want to have your hotel virtual tour, all you need is the right tool. It’s not as complicated as you think. Sign up on Virtual Tour Easy today for free!

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Hotel Virtual Tour Increases Hotel Booking Sales, Experts Reveal