Main Reasons Why Hotel Managers Must Create Hotel Virtual Tours

Main Reasons Why Hotel Managers Must Create Hotel Virtual Tours

If you are a hotel manager, you might think twice about creating your own virtual tour to promote the hotel. But there are many reasons for you to include a virtual tour on the hotel’s site. According to studies, sites that have virtual tours are viewed ten times longer than those that don’t. Revenues of these sites also increase by 135 percent. The sales of these sites also increase by 46 percent. A hotel virtual tour allows a customer to walk through the hotel and see the rooms and its amenities without having to visit the actual location. This helps them to book the right accommodation.

What Makes Virtual Tours Effective?

Most travelers look for virtual tours on the sites of hotels before they decide to book. Users can avoid wasting their time viewing the site or the actual hotel. About 92 percent of online users said that it is essential for their viewing to find a virtual on the hotel site.

The best advantage of having a virtual tour on the site is the control that it lends to the customer who visits the site. They can view the hotel on any angle they prefer. It enables them to see the real value for their money. They know what they are paying for. Through a virtual tour, the hotel’s site can end up on top of the search engine results. A virtual tour may also allow the customer to see the immediate surroundings of the hotel and even the landmarks of the site where it is located.

Virtual Tours and Their Impact on Direct Bookings

It is easier for travelers to decide to book in your hotel when they see not only its façade but also its exterior and all its amenities. A virtual tour increases traffic to the hotel site and it also entices users to visit the hotel site. It also encourages the old ones to return and book again. It’s better to come up with a user-friendly booking system on your site to go with the virtual tour. This will make it easy for visitors to book directly on the site.

How to Create a Virtual Tour

1. If you are working on a tight budget, you can come up with a quick video tour using your mobile phone. For larger hotel chains, it would be better to come up with a more refined video. This entails the use of an ultra-wide-angle lens. If you own a small hotel and yet you like to have a professional-looking virtual tour, you can buy a fisheye lens camera and add $20 more for the tripod.

2. Next step is to get a high-quality software dedicated for creating free virtual tour such as Virtual Tour Easy. You can make your virtual tour in just five minutes. All you need is 360-degree photos that you can take on your smartphone.

When creating a virtual tour, there are several factors to consider. You have to choose the specific locations for you to include in your virtual tour. You can select a particular corner with the right light and ambiance. You also have to choose the right time of the day to shoot. This will have a significant impact on the quality of lighting.

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Top 5 Reasons Why Hotels Needs Its Own Hotel Virtual Tour Using Virtual Tour Easy

Top 5 Reasons Why Hotels Needs Its Own Hotel Virtual Tour Using Virtual Tour Easy

A virtual tour is an ideal tool for businesses since it highly welcomes potential customers into their private space. This is particularly true in the accommodation and travel industry. If you are one of the entrepreneurs who have businesses in these industries, it’s high time for you to check the following benefits of using a hotel virtual tour:

  1. Having a virtual tour sets you off from your competitors right away

It will be displayed on Google’s organic search results using the name of your Virtual Tour. Having a virtual tour makes any hotel business more interactive and immersive, stimulating, and of course colorful and interesting. It can help in gaining more attention for your business, giving you an edge over your competitors.

2. It can give your customers a lasting first impression

Imagine yourself as a customer, if you are planning to book a hotel, it is likely that you will stay in a hotel that has a virtual tour which enables you to see every room’s exact size and décor. Since it offers a highly immersive tool for business, customers are likely to decide to visit the place personally. A hotel virtual tour enables the entrepreneurs to highlight the competitive features of the hotel. It is possible for the entrepreneurs to lead the potential guests to the foyer, rooms, the gym, restaurant, and other amenities of the hotel.

3. They can encourage hotel customers to provide positive reviews online

The most sensitive to reviews are small to medium-sized businesses since these reviews can have a huge impact on them. It used to be that travelers book their accommodation without really seeing the place in person. A virtual tour can help to manage the expectations of the customers by allowing them to see and immerse in the actual room size, with all its decors, and amenities. Once the expectations of the customer are met satisfactorily or even beyond, it is easy to receive an online review from them.

4. A virtual tour can give your customers an unsurpassed level of detail

A hotel virtual tour has many facets to offer not only the text and still photographs. Through a virtual tour, it becomes easier to legitimize the business. Any business may be able to have a well-designed site, some clever angles for them to create photos which can hide or accentuate certain parts of the hotel room. Through a virtual tour, customers will be able to see if the room matches the description given as text on the hotel website.

5. A virtual tour has high entertainment value

It is through a virtual tour that a hotel can give its customers visuals of their destination instead of merely using a map. It makes the whole thing of finding the right accommodation so much fun. It is possible to show the immediate environment and the important landmarks of the hotel by giving a virtual tour of both the external and internal environment. It will allow customers to explore the property and its immediate surroundings conveniently.

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6 Noteworthy Reasons Why Restaurants Need a Virtual Tour to Increase Sales

6 Noteworthy Reasons Why Restaurants Need a Virtual Tour to Increase Sales

It’s given that the ambiance of the restaurant we’re dining in affects our food choices and our opinion of the place. It’s more useful for entrepreneurs to focus more on the ambiance of the restaurant instead of focusing solely on the food choices offered. There are 6 noteworthy benefits of using virtual tour restaurant for promoting your business and improve the gap between the campaign and actual experience of diners.

  1. It is easy to create a buzz on social media when you use a virtual tour.

The social media is always the go-to avenue when it comes to marketing. Whether you have a new deco and design for your restaurant or some new menu, these will be promoted better using social media. This creates a buzz among people who like to dine out. Previous diners can relive the dining experience while new ones may look forward to experiencing it.

2. There are many ways to use the virtual tour for promoting one’s restaurant.

The virtual tour and the 360-degree photos are useful in many ways. It can be easily integrated into the restaurant website and other restaurant marketing campaigns. It is also possible to divide them into separate media to be used for advertising imagery. It may also be used in storytelling where the history and the evolution of the restaurant’s brand will be shared to customers.

3. It can also improve your Google Search Results.

You may consider the virtual tour as similar to video and mobile marketing. Consumers will want more of it. Hence the restaurants that focus on the market using these strategies excel in the search engine results pages. The same thing goes for virtual tours. When a customer searches online and your restaurant’s site and virtual tour show up on the search results page, it can maximize the traffic towards your restaurant website.

4. It can help to increase your customer base.

There are picky diners who prefer to check on the menu and the ratings of previous customers. With a virtual tour, it is possible for them to check on the restaurant and the menu without relying on the menu and the reviews. Once they have a good experience when they go through your virtual tour, they will flock toward the restaurant, increasing its customer base.

5. It can also enhance the likeability of your restaurant by 100 percent.

It is important for your restaurant to be a cut above the rest. Through the use of the virtual tour restaurant, it is easy to improve its likeability. When you say likeable in today’s social media language it means shareable to the social media channels. For forward-thinking branding, using the virtual tour in your marketing may translate to your revolutionizing.

6. It is not that expensive.

One more thing that is beneficial in using a virtual tour for restaurant marketing is that it comes with a hefty price. You can create a virtual tour on your own or hire a professional with an impressive portfolio. With a tool like Virtual Tour Easy, you can produce your own virtual in just five minutes. It is absolutely free.

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Do These 6 Easy Steps to Level UpYour Real Estate Virtual Tours

Do These 6 Easy Steps to Level UpYour Real Estate Virtual Tours

There may be property buyers who are residing away from your location. If you are in the UAE and your buyer is in Hawaii, it’s convenient for you to use the virtual reality medium. The real estate industry has started to get into the tech-savvy market of today’s generation. Real estate agents are now into virtual tours and live-streaming. This enables prospective buyers to check the properties without traveling to the location. The virtual reality technology has become so popular that most buyers prefer to deal with a real estate agent who has a virtual tour on his site. The thing about virtual tours is that you may commit some errors in producing and using it that may cause problems in the whole property selling process. This is why it is necessary to follow certain rules of thumb and some tips to make sure that the virtual tours will be able to serve their purpose.

  1. You need to Prep all the Equipment and Props

Before you take the first shoot, make sure that the equipment is ready. Check the batteries of the camera as well as the SD card. Make sure that the settings are well adjusted and that all the props are set. You have to do a test shot first.

2. Choose the Right Time to Shoot

The element to consider when choosing the time to shoot is the lighting. You need to shoot with sufficient natural light which rules out night time. It is not good to shoot during lunch time too. In the morning and during noontime, the white light can be harsh that the images may appear blown out. The perfect time to shoot is sunrise or sundown.

3. Lighting is Key

It is important for lighting to be uniform all throughout the shoot. It has to be consistent in every room of the property. When the light is inconsistent it may affect the viewer’s immersion into it. You may turn on the lights and lamps but be mindful of their type of lighting too.

4. Shoot from the Outside Towards the Inside of the House

Always include the facade of the property in the virtual tour. This will give the buyers the feeling of getting into the property and seeing it from afar. You may also show the neighborhood and even the significant features and landmarks of the town. When the property has a beautiful garden at the back it’s good to include it in the virtual tour.

5. You have to Stage the Property

You can start it by doing a thorough cleanup of the property. You may hire professional cleaners to do the job. You need to keep all the knick-knacks and exposed cables to keep the place tidy. You can then start to stage each room by placing furniture and objects that can give life to the room but don’t overdo it. Overdecorating can shift the focus of the buyers from the house to the objects inside it. If you want some more tips on how to do an effective home-staging, read this article: 6 Effective Ways to Do Home Staging.

6. You Have to Make Sure the Virtual tour is Optimized for the Mobile Devices

It is crucial for virtual tours to be easily optimized for different electronic gadgets. It needs to have a fast loading time when the video is watched on any gadget. You must not compromise the resolution as well. It is recommended that you talk to the web hosting service to make sure that potential buyers will have a smooth VR experience.

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5 Reasons Why 360 Virtual Tours are Great Opportunity for Photographers [You Should Try it Too!]

5 Reasons Why 360 Virtual Tours are Great Opportunity for Photographers [You Should Try it Too!]

360 virtual tours present multiple opportunities for photographers whether freelance or not. There are many reasons for this. On the business side, companies are starting to invest in virtual reality and 360° virtual tours for their promotion and marketing. According to statistics, 360° virtual tours can help double the number of people interested in the business listings. This helps to market the business to more people and it can help to create a buzz in the social media sites.

The following are more valid reasons for photographers to invest in skills and equipment for them to come up with amazing virtual tours:

1. High Potential for Business

360° virtual tours are just in its beginning years; it has a long way to go in terms of use, functionality, and features. It offers the greatest advantage and convenience of being able to visualize any physical space straight from your own desktop or mobile phone. It enables you to be immersed in that actual space virtually.

2. High Number of Potential Clients

360° virtual tours can be used all throughout various industries and different professionals for as long as they have space to occupy. Some of these industries are the following: property developers, real estate brokers, interior designers, restaurateurs, homeowners, and those from the hospitality industry.

3. Allows You to Upsell and Come Up with a Different Service

You can add 360° photos to your current suite of photography services. This enables you to upsell your services to your current customers since 360° photos will allow your customers to have a more interactive and immersive experience with the properties they intend to purchase. It can also set you off from your competitors.

4. Easy to Start 360° Virtual Tour

It’s easy to start the 360° virtual tour service by signing up for a 360° virtual tour creator. All you have to do is buy a 360° camera with only a minimal expense. It’s not difficult to learn using the camera as well. It does not entail a learning curve on your end as the photographer.

5. Provides Powerful Solutions

The use of 360° virtual tours come encumbered with a lot of powerful solutions. Google Street View offers the potential for photographers to produce public tours. The VirtualTourEasy.com allows you to create a virtual tour in just five minutes which can be customized and shared on social media to reach potential clients. It also offers a high level of flexibility compared to other existing solutions. You are also guaranteed of excellent results all the time.

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How Does a 360° Virtual Tour Allow You to Improve Your Sales?

How Does a 360° Virtual Tour Allow You to Improve Your Sales?

The 360 Virtual Tour is a way to show 360 panoramas of a group of varying small spaces. For example, you are going to take pictures of the different rooms of the hotel and you have to present them as a subject which is in 360 degrees. The way to combine all the 360 panoramas together and make the viewers feel like being there in person. That is through what is called the 360 virtual tour.

Virtual tours are used across varying industries as a promotional tool. It is known to be quite an effective one. It is also a valuable tool for increasing sales for several reasons. Here are the best reasons why virtual tours are considered as an excellent tool for increasing sales.

It is an effective marketing tool.

The virtual tour gives you a more realistic preview of the real estate property. The virtual tour is also more immersive and interactive. It almost means being in the real space itself. It is through the 360° virtual tour that you can have a virtual visit to the property you like. Through this type of tour, you can have a better understanding of all the layouts. This makes it a powerful means to promote real estate and increase sales.

It gives you the competitive advantage over your business rivals.

The 360° virtual tour gives you an edge when negotiating with potential clients. This will give you exclusivity when your competitors have not thought of using the 360° tour as a tool for promotion. It is also a cool and more modern way of promoting the real estate property. Even the young professionals who like to have their initial investments will be able to appreciate the 360° virtual tour.

It is time-saving.

Through 360° virtual tours, you can allow your clients to visit the real estate through virtual means. This means no unnecessary visits to the site which adds more to the cost. It also means you have more time to use in doing the more significant aspects of business.

It is not difficult to use, and it doesn’t have a high learning curve.

Producing a 360° virtual tour does not entail enrolling in a crash course or a learning curve that can last for weeks or months. All you have to do is to have a 360° camera, a tripod, and choose to have a virtual tour solution. You can simply follow some guides that can be easy to follow and try to shoot real estate properties using the 360° camera. There are techniques and tricks that you can learn in s short time. You along with your partners or collaborators can become expert in the creation of such material in just a short time.

It is budget-friendly.

It doesn’t require to hire a production team to come up with a 360° virtual tour. You can have one for only USD $100 while the more popular ones may cost from USD$400 to $600. A tripod can only cost around USD$20. You can also have a year’s subscription of a pro plan for a service like the VirtualTourEasy.com for only USD$400.

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6 Effective Ways to Do Home Staging

6 Effective Ways to Do Home Staging

Home staging is done when the homeowner decides to make some changes to the exterior and interior of his house for the purpose of reselling. The purpose of which is to entice as many potential buyers as possible, to position the home for it to be sold fast, and also to gain the highest possible price for the property.

Home staging is considered a strategy. There are times when homeowners are hesitant to change their homes due to emotional attachment. That’s why it is important to know the significance and value of home staging as a strategy for selling. It is essential to showing the best features of any home. This will enable the buyer to imagine himself living in the property.

The following are the 6 effective ways to stage your very own home:

1. Geography and pricing matter a lot when it comes to home staging

Is your home a starter home in the urban area or is it an expensive home in the countryside for an eloquent buyer? For the urban dweller, it’s better to highlight functionality and comfort and coming up with efficient storage methods. If it is a large country home of a prominent buyer, lifestyle is always at the forefront. It may also be necessary to include amenities for relaxation and entertainment. The staging here does not only involve the home itself but even the outdoor areas.

2. You also have to enhance the curb appeal of your home

It’s because this is the first thing that a potential buyer can see when he visits the property. This involves fixing the cracked sidewalk, take away the dead flowers, mow the lawn, update the house number, change the door, and look at the other elements such as neatness and landscaping. You have to store all the toys, yard equipment, and tools.

3. Repair the areas that are problematic

No buyer would like to buy a property that has problems. That’s why it’s wise if you walk through and around the property and look at the things that are not fixed. You have to check the lightbulbs too and replace those that don’t work anymore. If you think that you have become blind to your home’s repair areas, you can ask a friend or a relative to help you out.

4. You need to empty the room and organize the clutter

It is not helpful for home staging to congest the space with personal belongings and large-scale decorations. The trick is to include only what is essential. This will signify to the potential buyer how the entire space can be used efficiently.

5. It is important to clean your home thoroughly

This can be done by the homeowner, but some recommend the use of professional home staging services. The floor has to be shined, and the carpets shampooed, curtains cleaned, kitchen stop scrubbed, and that the bathroom is sparkly clean.

6. Make sure that you do changes to your home based on your budget

Small changes you can do in your home can make a major difference to making the home feel more comfortable and current.

Now that you're done staging your house, considering that you followed the steps I mentioned above, it's the time to market your property! Don't forget to set up a Virtual Tour for your property! Visit Virtual Tour Easy for more info.

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Top Benefits of 360° Virtual Tours on Your Business

Top Benefits of 360° Virtual Tours on Your Business

360̊ virtual tours do have a prime spot in any company’s marketing initiative. Why? Communication is key to every business regardless of the industry. This is especially true for 21st century companies. It’s beneficial for a company to have different methods of communication to potential customers. The presence of the Internet is something that makes things easier, but it also makes the competition much tighter.

For industries that require site visits for the customer to see first hand what they are buying, it is even more time-consuming and physically exhausting for the staff or personnel involved.

360° Virtual Tours, Virtual Tours

Who Benefits from 360° Virtual Tours?

One industry that can benefit a lot from virtual tours is real estate. The real estate agent or broker may now let the client visit the site of the property and get a feel of it without going there physically. All they have to do is wear a virtual reality mask and the client will exactly feel what it is like to be in the physical home.

For interior designers, a portfolio is so outdated and ineffective. Possible clients will become more interested when they can show their designs through a virtual tour. The potential client may also see the colors and patterns and feel the texture of the objects and items used in the design.

The same principle applies to the hotel industry. Through virtual tours, potential guests can see the exterior and interior designs of the hotel. They will be able to view every room and find out about the amenities provided by the hotel. This is helpful for constant travelers and for those who book for corporate events.

For physical shops, it’s easy for potential customers to view the products or services that are made available in those shops through 360° virtual tours. It is also possible to add a link to a video of a product or service demo on the virtual tour on the hotspot feature. You may also add a link to your site or add more information about your business.

State of the art 360° virtual tours can help different industries in increasing their number of customers. This is primarily because the tool can increase business interaction with potential customers. Of course, it is not like chat bots that personalize the interaction. Virtual tours on the other hand allow the potential client to do what they want to do with the property. They have the option to view more those areas of the property that they are more interested.

Other Implications in the Use of 360° Virtual Tours

Google conducted a survey on 147 restaurants and discovered that 50 percent of online visitors who were presented a virtual tour made a reservation. It is also easy to promote your virtual tour through various social media sites. Potential clients don’t have to go to Google View to look at your shop or property. Facebook for instance now accepts 360̊ photos. That’s not all there is to it. There’s a software that you can use to produce excellent 360° virtual tour you will need for your business. This is the Virtual Tour Easy. You can check it out through this link, you can create tour for free, you just need to upload your 360° pictures and hotspots. Have a look at https://virtualtoureasy.com.

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Why Should You Invest in a 360° Camera for Business

Why Should You Invest in a 360° Camera for Business

A 360° camera is an investment for any business and even for personal use. Its uses have gone beyond simply capturing emotions and moments. It has become a valuable tool for business promotion as well.

The new 360° camera is a small and portable type of camera but it can help you capture moments in time in a more immersive and interactive manner. Through this camera, people will experience how it is to fly a jet or dive underwater.

You can be as creative as possible with this type of camera.

It’s one great advantage that any photo from the 360° camera is easy to share to all your social media sites. You have several options Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and even your very own site. A great example of this is the Giroptic 360° camera which comes with a lightbulb adapter. This makes it extra useful as a security camera outdoors. You can buy one for only $79. All you have to do is to fit it into any light fixture. You can monitor the house even while you are on vacation or in an out of town trip.

The 360° camera can produce 360° photos that can be turned into a virtual tour of any of your properties (interior and exterior). This can be done with the use of a user-friendly online software which you can have for free: the Virtual Tool Easy. All you need to do is sign up, upload your 360° photos, and do some tweaks on the audio and text and voila you now have an interactive and highly immersive virtual tour of your property.

Owning a 360° camera can help you save costs.

This small camera can cover a large area. This means that there are less installations required for the camera to cover a wide area. It can easily cover rugged areas like garages, museums, street intersections which can help in making you aware of your surroundings. In businesses, apart from using these cameras for their security, they are also used to monitor the flow of customer traffic, supervise and manage the staff and their placement in the physical store, and to avert any attempt at theft, burglary, and any fraudulent act. If you are aware of the situation in your business such as the amount of people coming in and actually buying, you can increase or decrease your staff or products to improve the company sales.

They are user-friendly and not overwhelming like the DSLR.

It can be a headache to operate a DSLR camera and even a phone camera when you are not familiar with the apps and features. Majority of the 360° cameras are easy to set up and use. They don’t need you to read manuals or ask friends to operate it. Some of them only have one or two buttons to capture a wide area of coverage.

There is a great potential to using 360° cameras for business.

Facebook integrates already the 360° pictures, and numerous of solutions are created to enhance the potential of the 360° cameras. Among this solution, google street view now supports 360° pictures, and VirtualTourEasy.com aims to democratize the creation of 360° virtual tours for businesses with an easy to use virtual tour builder and easy integrations.

It without no doudt that the 360° cameras will continue to be more and more popular, and you what do you think?

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Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality: Clearing the Blurry Lines

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality: Clearing the Blurry Lines

When it comes to advanced technology, there are two types that have been vying for popularity: virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). This competition has caused confusion among its users.

Virtual Reality

It’s a recreation or a simulation of a real-life situation, condition, or environment. It’s computer-generated. It offers a great means for the user to immerse in a particular situation by going through the simulated situation firsthand. The technology does this by enhancing the user’s hearing and vision.

VR is usually done through wearing a headset which is integrated with the technology. It is prominently used in two ways. First it is used to enhance and recreate an imaginary reality for gaming, play, and entertainment purposes for instance in computer and video games or 3D movies. Virtual reality is also used to simulate a real-life environment and situation for the purposes of training such as flight simulation for pilots.

The coding language used for this technology is called VRML or virtual reality modeling language. This computer language is used primarily for creating a series of images and to specify the types of interactions that are possible using them.

Augmented Reality

On the other hand, augmented reality (AR) layers all the computer enhanced reality over a real-life situation which makes it more meaningful as the user is enabled to interact with it. This is the technology which is developed into apps and mobile devices for digital components to be integrated into real life, enhancing it and at the same time it can be set apart from it.

AR has a lot of mainstream media uses. This technology is behind the display score overlays on sports games and 3D emails that pop out. It’s also used in photos and text messages sent through mobile devices. AR is also used for holograms and motion-activated commands.

Differences between the Two

There are main differences between these two technologies apart from its uses and the manner in which each technology is used as described above. When it comes to consumer space, augmented reality has a bigger dent compared to virtual reality.

Augmented reality has several applications in video games and hardware, e.g., Google Glass. Virtual Reality is trailing behind AR in social encounters in the virtual world but it has found an edge with Oculus Rift.

Both technologies have a place in the consumer market, but AR is seen to be more commercially successful since it does not completely lift the user out of the real world. The truth about these two technologies is that they are often fused together for the user to have a higher quality of immersion into enhanced reality.

Virtual reality is defined by 6 Degrees of Freedom. This is the number of ways in which the user can move around and interact with the virtual surroundings. The 6 Degrees of Freedom can be categorized into two: rotational and translational movements. Rotational is composed of roll, yaw, and pitch while translational of left/right, upward/downward, and forward/backward.

Augmented reality is simpler. It does not remove you entirely from your reality. It enables you to look around while objects and other data are placed around you which you can interact with. This is the application used in the popular Pokemon Go and Snapchat Filters.

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