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8 Insightful XR Travel Case Studies to Read in 2022

Exciting stories of extended reality in travel

XR has the power to transform travel experiences like never before. In the last couple of years, we’ve begun to see some examples of what the right technology can do from leading hotel, transportation, and tourism companies. From virtual travel experiences intended for those who can’t leave their home, to unique customer service experiences, the options are endless.

XR solutions can allow customers to explore a destination or see a hotel before they ever visit the space in-person. The same offerings can make the actual travel experience more engaging, by immersing customers in a unique experience while they’re sitting in their seat.

Today, we’re going to be looking at just some of the most amazing XR travel case studies from the last few years, to give you an insight into what travel brands can accomplish.

Varjo and Arksen

Emerging British marine adventure company, Arksen, worked with the leaders in the XR landscape, Varjo, on the creation of an immersive new experience for their travel brand. The solution involved creating a 3D, configurable version of the incredible Arksen 85 yacht, powered by Unity.

The new virtual reality experience makes it easier to market the adventure experience to potential consumers, by giving them an insight into what it’s going to be like onboard. With the Varjo Aero headset, people can explore the yacht in high fidelity, and interact with a range of unique features.

The solution provides consumers with a more in-depth insight into the overall travel experience, to help them make more intelligent decisions about where they want to spend their money and time on their next travel adventure.

Visualise and Lumo

Committed to creating the next generation of immersive content experiences for brands, Visualise is helping countless companies to bring unique interactions to users. The Lumo company, a new train service running on the East Coast of the UK, took advantage of Lumo’s technology to grab the attention of their target audience.

The train company wanted to add something different to their launch experience, so they worked alongside Visualise to build a 360-degreer immersive film, intended to give people a full view of what it feels like to be on one of these trains.

Footage for the marketing experience was shot using Meta 360 video camera systems, and is designed to make users feel as though they’re sitting in one of the seats inside the train.

Microsoft and Leipziger Verkehrsbetriebe

Leipzig currently stands as one of Germany’s fastest-growing cities. The developing landscape has had a significant impact on the city’s transportation infrastructure, leading public transport, and travel teams to reconsider how they can deliver the best possible experience to end users.

The Leipziger Verkehrsbetriebe company decided to work with Microsoft to build an engaging way for travellers to plan their transportation experience. Using a combination of Microsoft Azure and Microsoft HoloLens, the company built an application which allows users to plan out the ideal route from getting to wherever they need to go.

The solution doesn’t just support end-users; it’s also a powerful tool for the transportation teams who need to become more efficient in taking people around the city.

Meta and Hilton

Hilton is one of the world’s largest travel and hospitality companies, boasting more than 6,000 properties located across 117 countries and territories. Hilton relies heavily on forward-thinking technology to maintain its position as a market leader. The company has embraced all kinds of XR technology in the past, to help give users an insight into what it’s like to stay in one of their hotels.

Working with Meta and the SweetRush development company, Hilton recently created VR scenarios for Hilton to help with a range of use cases. The tools included VR apps built for Oculus headsets which help to train team members to deal with complex guest situations.

According to Hilton, providing experiences which helped to develop empathy in their team members meant the staff could be better equipped to manage guest expectations.

World XR Forum and Crans-Montana

Designed to respond to the rising demand for immersive travel experiences during the pandemic, the Crans-Montana virtual travel lounge was built by SOMNIACS and the World XR Forum during 2020. Through a fully immersive simulator (Birdly), the companies were able to bridge the gap between unreachable places and would-be travellers.

The virtual travel lounge was placed in the middle of a modern gallery in the Crans-Montana business distract. Guests were invited to take part in fifteen minutes of virtual travel which they could book in advance, complete with a location and soundtrack of their choice.

The experience provided a unique way for people to travel without having to actually leave their homes during a difficult period for worldwide transportation.

Qualcomm, Skylights and Alaska Airlines

Leading technology company, Qualcomm, is working alongside XR inflight specialists Skylights to deliver an immersive content viewing experience for in-flight entertainment. The solution delivers superior value to passengers, by allowing them to enjoy a more immersive in-flight experience.

Premium cabin passengers are equipped with Allosky XR headsets powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 Mobile platform. This platform is engineered to deliver the power and performance required for in-flight entertainment, with enhanced security.

Users get access to a full 1080p per eye resolution to make them feel as though they’re actually standing in a different location when relaxing in their seats.

Huspi and the Chornobyl App

Huspi, working alongside Unity, Node, React, and MongoDB technologies, created a mobile augmented reality app designed to tell the true story behind the Chornobyl Catastrophe. The repercussions of this catastrophe are still felt throughout the world today, and the story has captured the attention of people across the globe.

The AR application is aimed to provide users with an opportunity to visit the area from the safety of their own home, and experience what it’s really like, using augmented reality. This offers an excellent example of how XR in travel can provide travellers with access to environments they might not be able to visit safely in the real world.

Quelle:

8 Insightful XR Travel Case Studies to Read in 2022

13. Juli 2022 0 comment

Examples

Virtual reality tourism can boost travel in a post-pandemic world

Virtual tourism has thus far been a futuristic dream, but a world shaped by Covid-19 may be ready to accept it.

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the travel and tourism industries;
Businesses in this sector must build infrastructure and practices that allow people to travel safely in a post-pandemic world and support local communities that benefit from tourism;
Augmented, virtual and mixed reality technologies can offer alternative ways to travel the world and an exciting new model for the industry.

The tourism industry has hit a nadir owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will continue to feel the effects for at least the first three quarters of 2021 – according to a recent UN report, tourist arrivals globally in January 2021 were down 87% when compared to January 2020.

Travel will prevail over post-pandemic anxiety, making it incumbent on the aviation and tourism industry to build safer infrastructure and practices that take care of travellers‘ well being.

After a year thwarted by the pandemic and with the future not looking too upbeat for the industry at this juncture, tourism business owners should look at alternative modes of interaction for holidaymakers that can also aid the people and economies who depend on tourism.

The COVID-19 pandemic has noticeably hastened the testing and rollout of forward-looking technologies. Technology has not only enabled citizens globally to interact with loved ones, but also helped industries such as healthcare, information technology, education and many more to work remotely.

Infographic showing COVID-19's impact on international tourism

Image: Statista

In the last few decades, technology has helped travel and tourism industries increase their reach through travel booking websites, videos, blogs and travel photography. Digital tools and content are a vital source of information for vacationists organizing their next holiday or creating a destination wish list. Whilst remote or virtual tourism has been a futuristic theme within industry forums for some time, the world today, shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, might now be ready to accept it.

A human-centric design that draws insights from cognitive behaviour, social psychology, neuroscience and behavioural economics applied with cutting edge technologies such as augmented, virtual or mixed reality (AR, VR, MR) could be a game-changer. AR, VR and MR can enable a seamless, uninterrupted interactive experience for viewers from their own private space. The design principles will create a frictionless digital user experience and construct a positive perception of a tourist destination.

Graph showing how the COVID-19 pandemic could set the tourism sector back by $1 trillion

Image: Statista

There have been previous attempts to achieve this feat: if you are an aqua sightseer, you might be aware of a documentary exploring the Great Barrier Reef. Through an interactive website, one can view the clear, tranquil currents of the Pacific Ocean and the biodiversity of the reef, and experience the sounds of a healthy coral reef. Another much-discussed VR experience is Mission 828 which allows you to take a virtual parachute jump from the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The Official Tourist Board of the Faroe Islands has also crafted a virtual experience to entice post-pandemic visitors from across the world.

Imagine a human-centric designed, interactive space online that makes a destination accessible and so real for a sightseer with sound captured by electro-acoustics researchers. You could view holiday sites in a video or through self-navigation using voice or joystick controls, interact with people using video-calling platforms, travel through the streets of said location, eavesdrop on local music and much more. This could be stitched together in a single platform individually or in silos on the internet and further enhanced by setting up physical experience tourism centres locally. Such a setup would allow tourist guides, artisans, craftspeople, hoteliers and transport business to create their own digital and virtual offerings and interact with possible customers.

Here’s how it might look: a vacationer starts their experience from the time their flight commences. The plane descends to the destination runway and pictures of the vicinity from the aircraft window pane are captured. The airport signage welcomes passengers and directs them to a pre-booked taxi. The vacationer gets to choose their first destination and travels through the streets in a chauffeur-driven car whose interactions en route become part of their cherished memories. On arrival, a tourist guide walks you through the destination all controlled with just a tap on your gadget. During the sightseeing, you hear random people speaking, posing for photographs and more. You take a photo to post on social media, go shopping and negotiate with a local vendor to purchase an artwork and get it delivered to your door. You learn how a local dish is prepared and get familiar with local customs.

A virtual platform could even provide an opportunity for people to explore areas that are affected by or fighting terrorism. For example, imagine seeing the diverse wildlife and snow leopard of the Gurez Valley, in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It doesn’t stop there: if thought through, one could experience travelling to the South Pole, space and beyond. It could also serve as a learning portal for students to understand geographies, culture, art and history.

With technology improving lives globally, virtual tourism could reignite the tourism industry and its people and help build a more sustainable economic model. As a human-centric platform, it can establish local tourist guides, artisans and others as global citizens in the tourism industry.

Reprinted with permission of the World Economic Forum. Read the original article.

Study by “Compare The Market” Finds Surging Interest in “Virtual Travel”

Are people turning to “virtual travel” as an escape from COVID restrictions?

The global COVID-19 pandemic has meant a lot less travel – particularly leisure travel. A recent study sheds light on one way that some people might be trying to adapt: virtual travel.

About the Study

Australian financial service provider and consumer protection group Compare The Market used Google Trends and SEMRush to look at how internet users are searching terms like “virtual travel”, “virtual tourism”, “VR travel”, “virtual reality tours”, and “virtual reality travel.” The popularity of some of these terms are as much as four times higher in some geographical areas than they were this time last year.

“It’s not altogether surprising what searches jumped in March 2020. That month saw many countries implement stay-at-home advice and restrictions and by the end of March most of the world was under some form of stay-at-home order,” Eliza Buglar wrote in her article on the study.

Also on the rise are searches like “virtual reality tours.” And not just in the US. The study and Buglar’s article specifically mention a number of countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

Global Interest in Virtual Reality Travel Search Terms — *Source: Compare The Market*

“By the end of April 2020 (the month during which SPM for ‘virtual travel’ reached their highest), many countries around the world required their people to stay at home except for essential purposes and several more had enacted total border closures,” wrote Buglar.

Further Findings

Doing their due-diligence, Compare The Market also explored whether searches for VR headsets were increasing. The thinking was that if searches for virtual travel were increasing but searches for headsets weren’t it could mean that people were curious but not necessarily interested.

Hardware searches were also up – though not up as drastically from where they were last year. Further, spikes in searches for VR headsets were not as pronounced or as closely tied to world events as were other search terms.

Of course, the argument isn’t that everyone who searched for VR headsets was interested in virtual travel – or vice versa. 2020 was a big year for VR headsets regardless, and the study admits this.

However, higher-than-average search volumes for both terms, including coinciding increases in each does suggest that there was some overlap.

Other Factors

But that doesn’t explain it all. Why all of the interest in VR hardware and virtual travel?

Global Interest in Virtual Reality Headset Search Terms

As we’ve seen time and again, most of the “trends that are emerging” in 2020 are really trends that were already there. The explosive growth that Compare The Market found in their study doesn’t mean that no one would be interested in VR if it wasn’t for the virus – and they’re not saying that it does.

If anything, the growing momentum in VR before the pandemic was necessary for the space to continue to grow when the pandemic arrived. VR companies that have seen growth during the pandemic often attribute that growth to the firm footing that they already had in the market.

Virtual travel, in particular, is a different story, though it is one that those with an ear to the ground might have expected. At this year’s VR/AR Global Summit one of the recurring themes was that virtual experiences are becoming more cherished. As people live more of their lives through simulated immersive experiences, the experiences become more real.

Are You Exploring Virtual Travel?

“Virtual travel” is one particular search term. But a life’s worth of work could be spent comparing VR search terms in 2020. What about “immersive theater”? Or “remote assistance”? “Remote presence”? If anything, this report only scratches the surface.

Quelle:

Study by “Compare The Market” Finds Surging Interest in “Virtual Travel”

4. Januar 2021 0 comment

Examples

VirtualDIVER Takes You Underwater In VR In Santorini

VirtualDIVER for Santorini is the first real-life integrated and interactive virtual experience platform in the world, that takes tourists on a tour in Santorini, both above and below the sea.

Through VirtualDIVER, users who own 3D special glasses or other devices with virtual reality or augmented reality capabilities, will have the opportunity to “travel” in the terrestrial and underwater environment of the island of Santorini, from the comfort of their home.

The virtual trip starts from the central square of Fira, the capital of Santorini, where users are able to stroll around the island and interact with the platform by doing various activities.

Then, they can descend from the mountains of Santorini by using the island’s cable cars – just like they would do in real life – and prepare for an unprecedented diving experience.

With the ability to choose from a number of diving locations, such as Caldera and Nea Kameni, virtual divers will be able to explore the real-life treasures that are hidden below Santorini’s waters, such as craters, shipwrecks, volcanos and colourful marine life.

Additionally, the platform includes numerous touristic points within its virtual map, where users can pause their tour, click on various objects, buildings and locations and find out more information about the history of the island.

Even though in 2020, numerous online platforms for virtual reality tours emerged, VirtualDIVER is a project that has already been under development for the past two years.

The 15-member team of creators of VirtualDIVER includes scientists, geologists, geographers, computer engineers and programmers from the Department of Geology and Geo-environment of the University of Athens, the National Technical University of Athens (Remote Sensing Laboratory), as well as the companies TETRAGON (from Thessaloniki), STEFICON and up2metric (from Athens).

The idea of creating this digital platform was firstly conceived by Evi Nomikos, a Santorini geologist and associate professor of Physical Geography and Oceanography at the University of Athens, who saw a huge opportunity in creating a virtual underwater tour, in an open-world realistic environment, where users could be the deciders of their own personal diving journey.

The virtual map on the platform, both on the island and below the sea, is an exact adaption of reality, with even the smallest details being loyal to the island’s architecture and scenery.

Ms. Nomikos brought the University of Athens in contact with the three Greek companies, that specialize in computer programming, engineering and design, and sent them an open invitation to create the platform, as part of the university’s Research and Innovate Program.

“I was born and raised in Thira, Santorini, and so I thought that the island would be the best choice, as a VR object, for the development of an integrated interactive platform, with terrestrial and underwater experiences for tourist and cultural institutions,” Ms. Nomikos explained.

“Hardly any other place in the world can offer you the charm of standing 350 meters above the water, at the edge of a volcano, and knowing that at another 350 meters below the water is the miracle creation of that volcano that erupted thousands of years ago. Santorini is not only of geological interest, but it is also full of magical places, both on land and at sea, that make digital travel fascinating,” she added.

At the conference of the International Geosciences Association (EGU) in Vienna, Austria, which was held in April 2019, Ms. Nomikos and her team, presented for the first time the idea and first blueprints of VirtualDIVER to a large audience. The state-of-art technology of the project, which largely gathered the admiration and interest of fellow geologists and international investors, received overwhelming response and feedback.

“Our goal was to develop a comprehensive interactive platform, in order to enrich the travel experience for those who are unable to visit the island, and promote special forms of tourism for our country,” Ms. Nomikos described.

“VirtualDIVER allows the user to move in a physical environment, with augmented and virtual reality techniques, and walk around areas of tourist and environmental interest.

“The platform moreover includes everything you would normally see in Santorini, such points with unique geomorphological structures, shipwrecks, sunken ports, water parks and NATURA areas.”

“The detailed mapping of the marine and terrestrial relief in high resolution was carried out with multi-link mapping systems, underwater vehicles and drones, in order to create a single topographic relief and to analyse all its special morphological and ecological structures, as well as its human structures and creations,” the VirtualDIVER team noted.

Besides the entertainment factor of the VR experience, the platform includes numerous interactive videos, where users can see digital representations of events that occurred in the island many centuries ago, such as the terrible eruption of the volcano, which changed the shape of the entire island and created a large tsunami that even reached the island of Crete.

The research project of VirtualDIVER was funded with 730,000€ by EPANEK – ESPA (Operational Program of Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation of Greece) and it is projected to be ready in October 2021.

For more info visit: VirtualDiver

All photos from: www.virtualdiver.gr/media

Quelle:

https://www.vrroom.buzz/vr-news/documentary/virtualdiver-takes-you-underwater-vr-santorini

24. Dezember 2020 0 comment

Examples

A Google Search Expert’s Tips For Better Virtual Vacations

Foto: Senior Research Scientist for Search Quality at Google Daniel M. Russell poses with a virtual reality headset for a portrait in his backyard on July 20, 2020, in Palo Alto, Calif. He knows exactly how to use the search engine to take your virtual vacation to the next level. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)

Virtual museums and glitchy webcams got you down? There is only so much you can do online to make you feel like you’re in that glorious place you were supposed to be visiting IRL.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, we would have hardly considered cobbling together a virtual trip to Hawaii, let alone nearby Monterey; but here we are, madly clicking on seal cams and mixing our fifth mai tai.

What if there was a way to up your game, to feel like you’re there, walking through the Gaudis in Barcelona or snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef?

To find out, we called Palo Alto’s Daniel M. Russell, a senior research scientist for search quality at Google — and a travel buff. Russell is widely considered one of the world’s foremost search experts, and he taught us a few key ways to use technologies within Google Earth and Google Maps to take our shelter-in-place vacays to the next level.

There are even travel tidbits in his new book, “The Joy of Search: A Google Insider’s Guide to Going Beyond the Basics,” (MIT Press; $30). The book was born out of his SearchReSearch blog and free online Power Searching course, which has been completed by more than four million people. The volume reveals how to become a great online researcher using advanced techniques — putting search terms in double quotes, using the operator (*) — to answer all kinds of questions, like “Why are the coasts so different?” and “What was the original design for Mount Rushmore?”

But Russell devotes a chapter of his book to things you notice while traveling. Here’s one: When you’re driving a rental car, how can you tell — without getting out of the car — which side the gas cap is on? Russell typed in [car dashboard fuel side] and found the answer: On your dashboard, there’s a triangle on the left or right side of the gas pump icon that indicates which the cap is on.

It’s fun fodder for when we get back into those rental cars. For now, though, we’ll be doing our traveling online.

“From a virtual travel point of view, you can visit a whole bunch of the world for free — and it’s very easy,” Russell says. “It can be really useful for family trip planning, too.”

Plan away! Here are four ways to take your virtual vacations to another level, courtesy of Russell:

Walk inside the White House: Sure, you can use Google Maps to check your neighbor’s lawn or traipse down the Champs-Élysées. But you can also use it to walk inside buildings. From Google Maps, type in the White House, D.C. Now, zoom in, so the White House gets big enough that you can see the lawn and other details. Click on the yellow Pegman in the bottom right corner and you’ll get a bunch of blue lines. Drag and drop him onto any of those lines. Boom! You’re in.

You can use Google Maps to walk inside buildings, including The White House. (GoogleMaps)

Hang out atop Half Dome: Despite its name, Google Street View, the technology in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides interactive panoramas from positions along streets, features a lot of non-street imagery, Russell says. Think trails, waterfalls, mountains. Always wanted to see the top of Half Dome? Type it into Google Maps. Now, zoom in. Click on Pegman. Drag him onto any of those lines. Voila. We like the winter shot with the snowy rocks and pink and purple sky.

Do Burning Man, without the heat: When you clicked on the Half Dome line, you likely also saw blue dots. Those are Photo Spheres, or interactive, scrollable, 360-degree images taken with a special camera or app. While Street View is one continuous path, Photo Squares are images that have been stitched together — and they can be in the middle of nowhere, Russell says. Type in Black Rock City, NV. Zoom in on the half circle until you see details. Click on Pegman. Pick a blue dot. Check out the art and sweaty people. Also try it with Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia. There are fewer blue dots, but we found fish and coral — no scuba tank required.

There’s more to Google Maps’ Street View than pavement. You can summit mountains, go inside buildings or dive deep at the Great Barrier Reef. (GoogleMaps)

And finally, take a better virtual museum tour — anywhere: You just need Cardboard. Google’s inexpensive virtual reality headset ($9 and up) enhances 360-degree virtual tours, including the one of Mexico City’s Castillo de Chapultepec, which houses the Museo Nacional de Historia. Load the YouVisit app on your smartphone, stick it inside the box, then look through the box’s lenses and suddenly you’re on the castle grounds, exploring crystal clear exhibit halls without a glitch.

Quelle:

https://www.vrroom.buzz/vr-news/travel/google-search-experts-tips-better-virtual-vacations

4. August 2020 0 comment