Imagine yourself surrounded by all kinds of wild animals in Kruger Park, South Africa. In a few hours, you will be skiing in Kurodake, Hokkaido, Japan. To conclude your day, you plan on enjoying the sunset at Stonehenge, England. Is this possible? No, not yet, but it might me with the help of virtual reality.
As of right now, virtual reality is used as a marketing tool at different travel related companies. A few years ago, Hotel giant Marriott made a 4D Teleporter station with the use of the Oculus Rift, where guests can experience heat, sea breezes and ocean mists (Shu, 2014). See how the teleporter works for yourself here. Travel agency Thomas Cook has been helping customers to experience their potential destinations with the Samsung Gear VR headsets for quite some time now (Robles, 2015). You can imagine that this type of advertisement works better than some torn poster at the bus stop around the corner, this is advertisement on steroids (Parker, 2015).
But is virtual reality merely a marketing tool in the travel industry? 81% of adults say virtual reality cannot be a replacement for travelling and 92% say that travelling to a destination in virtual reality is not the same as visiting that same location physically (Martin, 2017). This is due to virtual reality lacking some important advantages of travelling, like eating local food and meeting new people. So for now, the answer is yes. Then again, public opinion is susceptible to change.
There is already one big advantage of this recent trend. It enables people who are physically or mentally limited to travel to certain destinations, to experience those destinations anyway. But will it stop there? Oculus CEO Brandon Iribe says that they are already able to give people the feeling of actually being at a destination and this technology will only advance more in the future (Parker, 2017).
I agree with public opinion that travelling in virtual reality is not the same as travelling in real life, but I do expect the virtual travel market to grow. There have already been some signs that might indicate this growth, like Facebook acquiring Oculus for two billion US dollars in 2014 (Constine, 2014).
To conclude, I do not think that virtual reality will disrupt the travel industry in the near future. However, I expect the virtual travel market to emerge in the coming years and offer a cheap and easy alternative to physical travelling, accessible for everybody with an internet connection. Maybe, when technology advances, the travel market will actually be disrupted by virtual reality. What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
Rik Helsloot
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Sources:
Constine, J. (2014, July 21). Facebook’s $2 Billion Acquisition Of Oculus Closes, Now Official. Retrieved October 08, 2017, from https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/21/facebooks-acquisition-of-oculus-closes-now-official/
Martin, C. (2017, June 16). Virtual Reality Not Seen As Substitute For Travel. Retrieved October 08, 2017, from https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/302947/virtual-reality-not-seen-as-substitute-for-travel.html
Parker, J. (2015, June 19). How Oculus and Cardboard Are Going to Rock the Travel Industry. Retrieved October 08, 2017, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-19/how-oculus-and-cardboard-are-going-to-rock-the-travel-industry
Robles, P. (2015, June 24). Will virtual reality revolutionise the travel industry? Retrieved October 08, 2017, from https://econsultancy.com/blog/66614-will-virtual-reality-revolutionise-the-travel-industry
Shu, L. (2014, September 28). For Marriott, the future of travel is a virtual-reality teleporter phone booth. Retrieved October 08, 2017, from https://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/marriott-oculus-rift-virtual-real-world-application/
Hi Rik, I think that travel organizations should invest in making travelling accessible to everyone for example making certain accomodations accessible for disabled people. I think that they aren’t getting the point or how we say it in Dutch: “De plank mis slaan.” They think that VR can replace actual travelling, but at the end of the day you are not in Spain but in your living room….. For marketing purposes I would say yes, so you get an impression how for example a hotel looks like before you make a reservation. But this is certainly something to think about! Overall great article!!
Kind regards,
Stephanie
Hi Rick, good read! I totally agree with you on that VR will not disrupt the travel industry in the near future. Traveling is about the whole experience, which can impossibly being captured in VR. I think the VR experience could be great for up to half an hour, but not much longer than that. However, this makes VR very suitable as marketing tool for physical travel agencies as you see in the link of the video of Marriott’s 4D Teleporter station, which you added. A lot of travel agencies have already disappeared from our shopping streets. Along with the growth of all kinds of internet businesses, online booking platforms have been increasing in popularity and travel retail locations became redundant for a lot of people. I personally think virtual reality can play a major role for physical travel agencies to differentiate from online booking platforms, in order to prevent they will totaly dissapear. Especially for the higher segment, the more expensive trips. By enabling consumers to experience their potential destinations in VR, together with feelings like heat, sea breezes and ocean mists, they will be more inclined to go to a physical travel agency. This can help consumers in making a good decision in where they wanna go for their trip. Altogether, I don’t believe VR will disrupt the travel industry, but I truly believe it can play a major role in helping physical travel agencies to compete against the online booking platforms.
Great article Rik! I completely agree with you and the public opinion; virtual reality ‘traveling’ will probably not replace real traveling. We go abroad for the climate, culture, food and people. Only ‘seeing’ what there is to see will not substitute ‘experiencing’ the destination.
However, even though you mention that 81% of adults say virtual reality cannot be a replacement for traveling, virtual reality ‘travelling’ could also be used for other purposes than recreational travelling. It can be a great addition to education for example, since it helps children to better understand and visualize the theory they are being educated. How much more interesting will a history class be if children are enabled to ‘visit’ the Old Egypt and see how pyramids were being built at first sight? Or when they can ‘visit’ the Andes during geography class and see how the layers of the earth are layed out (Pijpers, R. 2016)?
Besides a great addition to education, it can also save cost in education. Think of, for example, the expensive practicum classes when studying Medicine. Currently, these practicums are being executed on real organs and/or people, however due to virtual reality they can be pre practiced with the consequence that students need less practicum classes to become familiar with these operations (Jacobs, F. 2016).
I completely agree with you that virtual reality used for advertisement in the travel industry is the way to go. Even with high-resolution television you are still just watching, but with virtual reality you are really there. In the case of selling travel tours this offers amazing opportunities.
References:
Gaukema, L. (2017). Is het tijd voor Virtual Reality in de schoolbanken?. [online] NPO Radio 1. Available at: https://www.nporadio1.nl/achtergrond/onderwijs/5657-is-het-tijd-voor-virtual-reality-op-de-schoolbanken [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017].
Pijpers, R. (2016). Brochure Virtual Reality in het Onderwijs. [online] Kennisnet. Available at: https://www.kennisnet.nl/fileadmin/kennisnet/publicatie/Virtual_reality_in_het_onderwijs.pdf [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017].