With the explosion of digital technology, travel enthusiasts can now escape from their daily routines while still ensuring safety during the pandemic. By using virtual reality glasses, we can travel everywhere right in our own homes.
Virtual reality technology allows users to enter a new space. Through pre-programmed images, sounds and artificial tactile systems, users can walk, visit, and even interact with elements in the virtual space.
Born with the expectation of enhancing the experience of video games, virtual reality technology shows its potential not only limited to the entertainment industry but also welcomed in other fields, notably media and marketing.
Travel companies around the world use virtual reality technology as an effective marketing method, allowing customers to experience the services provided instead of static images and simple videos. During the outbreak, these companies take advantage of virtual reality technology to launch new products, temporarily replacing real tours.
By using special cameras that can record 360-degree images, travel companies record panoramic views of tourist destinations and then provide them to customers.
The supplier uses special cameras to capture panoramic views of tourist attractions.
Accommodation companies also quickly realized the potential of this technology and quickly "joined in". They provide customers with the service of observing and experiencing the space of the hotel/resort, allowing customers to choose the desired room type at a much cheaper price. This is both a new type of business and an effective marketing method to prepare for reopening when the epidemic shows signs of slowing down.
The advantages of virtual reality tourism include: Allowing users to visualize themselves at the tourist destination; providing a panoramic view of the destination with high-resolution images; allowing users to explore at their own discretion; providing a memorable experience for users; limiting the impact of tourists on sensitive, fragile, and damaged locations; allowing tourists to explore rugged terrain while still ensuring safety,...
Although it does not provide the full experience of real travel, this form of tourism reaches more customers, those who have difficulty traveling long distances such as the elderly, the disabled, the sick, etc.
With the above benefits, virtual reality tourism has developed strongly in the past 2 years. According to statistics from the websiteCompare the Market, the number of searches for virtual reality glasses on Google has skyrocketed since February 2020, peaking in May 2020 with 580,000 searches. This number has remained until now.
PageStatistaA survey conducted in Germany found that about 50% of survey participants wanted to use virtual reality technology to choose destinations for future trips, of which 13% were willing to pay to use more advanced virtual reality services.
Site statisticsTourism Australiashows that 20% of VR headset owners have used travel services to choose their next destination. 25% said they would use this technology in the future.
In the future, when this technology is invested in and developed, users can experience more than just hearing and seeing, and can even touch objects and smell the typical scents of the places they are exploring. However, actual surveys still show that this technology is difficult to replace real travel. However, this is still a temporary solution for travel enthusiasts at the present time when the epidemic situation is still having many dangerous changes.
