The COVID-19 pandemic limited travelers like us to our homes and resulted in major losses for the tourism and hospitality industries. However, like they say, it’s always darkest before dawn. Due to the pandemic, tech innovations in travel exploration created a new way to cater to your wanderlust: virtual travel guides.
Virtual travel guides combine virtual reality and augmented reality to deliver immersive and hyper-realistic 3D tours for travelers, making it possible for us to explore the world right from the comfort of our homes or gain valuable information before making a trip.
From museums, theme parks, and natural attractions, the world has numerous wonders to offer, and learning about these attractions before physically visiting them only adds to the joyful experience.
Luckily, this breakthrough in virtual tourism technology makes it possible for you to explore and learn about your favorite destinations and their surroundings from the comfort of your home. Just find a reliable internet near you and take off wherever you want!
With multiple tourism boards, hotels, real estate, and travel companies now offering virtual tour guides, this form of travel has taken the world by storm and is projected to grow by $2.3 Trillion by 2026.
This article will cover all you should know about virtual travel guides, exploring the aspects below:
Contents
What Are Virtual Travel Guides? Exploring Destinations with Virtual Reality. 1
How Do Virtual Travel Guides Work?. 2
Technologies Embedded in Virtual Travel Guides. 2
Virtual Travel Guides Vs. Traditional Travel Guides. 3
Virtual Travel Guides – Pros. 3
Virtual Travel Guides – Cons. 4
Traditional Travel Guides – Pros. 4
Traditional Travel Guides – Cons. 4
3 Prime Examples of Virtual Travel Guides in Action. 5
Tourism – Dubai 360. 5
Art – Google Arts and Culture. 5
Extreme Sports – The North Face. 5
Virtual Travel Guides – Revolutionizing Tourism and More. 5
What Are Virtual Travel Guides? Exploring Destinations with Virtual Reality
Virtual travel guides are interactive and immersive experiences allowing travelers to walk around and explore their favorite destinations without leaving their homes. This form of travel is made using different multimedia formats such as still images, video, audio, and virtual reality.
As this form of virtual tourism technology progressed, virtual travel guides now include more aspects to make 3D tours for travelers as realistic, interactive, and immersive as possible, such as:
- Music
- Realistic Sound Effects
- Narration
- Text
How Do Virtual Travel Guides Work?
Virtual travel guides combine hardware and software technologies to create a realistic, immersive, and interactive environment based on a certain destination.
Users can then access these virtual environments using devices such as their virtual reality headsets, mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops to explore objects in the environment or interact with elements such as quizzes, puzzles, or guided tours.
There are multiple technologies leveraged to create virtual travel guides and they’ll be explored next.
Technologies Embedded in Virtual Travel Guides
Virtual travel guides combine multiple technologies to enhance the travel experience for e-tourists. Notably, these include:
1. Virtual Reality Travel Experiences
Virtual reality helps create realistic 360-degree simulations of popular tourist destinations. Using a virtual reality headset, users can enjoy an immersive and realistic experience of a tourist destination.
2. Augmented Reality for Travel Planning
Augmented reality complements virtual reality by providing historical context to landmarks, displaying translations of foreign text, and showcasing dynamic animations to enact real-life historical events. These factors also help you greatly if you’re planning a physical trip to a certain destination.
3. 3D Mapping
3D mapping is the process of creating a three-dimensional detailed and accurate virtual representation of any real-life object, surface, space, or landscape. It can be easily integrated with virtual reality applications, making the virtual travel guide experience more immersive.
4. Artificial Intelligence
This is the secret to adding personalization. Artificial intelligence can provide recommendations for nearby attractions, restaurants, and more based on user preferences.
Now that you know what a virtual travel guide is and how it works, let’s explore what makes it different from a traditional travel guide.
Virtual Travel Guides Vs. Traditional Travel Guides
Virtual travel guides, as the name suggests, use technologies such as the ones discussed previously to provide an interactive, and immersive digital tour of a location.
On the other hand, a traditional travel guide, is a physical book or even a person, offering detailed information about a destination, including sights, restaurants, and transportation, typically available while physically traveling to a location.
Let’s explore the pros and cons of both options.
Virtual Travel Guides – Pros
- Pre-planning Trips: in case you plan to make a physical trip to a certain location, it’s best to learn as much as you can about it. Virtual travel guides help greatly with that, equipping you with detailed information to make sure your journey is convenient.
- Accessibility: with just a reliable internet connection, people with disabilities can explore locations they might not be able to in real life.
- Educational Value: you can learn about the history behind the creation of famous landmarks across the globe.
- Lower Time and Costs: virtual travel guides are more budget-friendly, allowing you to save on costs such as visas, plane tickets, or hotels.
- Safe and Convenient: you do not need to stress over being jet-lagged, standing in long baggage lines, making your way through crowds, or petty crimes during your journey.
- Eco-Friendly Travel: you can explore the world responsibly, playing a role in reducing the carbon footprint associated with transportation, and reducing the impact of tourism on natural and cultural resources.
- Enhanced Experience: virtual travel guides provide an immersive and interactive way to explore your favorite locations, with features such as clickable hotspots and multimedia content.
Virtual Travel Guides – Cons
- Lack of Sensory Experiences: certain sensory aspects involved in physically visiting a location, such as taste, touch, and smell cannot be replicated.
- Lack of Social Interaction: you learn a lot about a country’s culture through its people. However, since you cannot interact with local people in this form of travel, your learning may be limited.
- Lack of Accuracy: visual representations may fail to replicate the scope of the actual destinations, which may result in a poor experience.
- Technological Barriers: This form of travel requires an internet connection, which some areas still lack. It also requires technology such as VR headsets, which may be difficult for senior citizens or those who are not tech-savvy to use.
Traditional Travel Guides – Pros
- Organized Information: Traditional guides, such as books and pamphlets, provide a more structured way to browse information about attractions, restaurants, or transport options.
- Hidden Experiences: since they often feature the perspectives of locals and other seasoned travelers, you can find hidden locations that you may not have been able to see otherwise.
- 24/7 Accessibility: traditional guides are available anytime and anywhere, even in areas with a poor internet connection.
Traditional Travel Guides – Cons
- Risk of Outdated Information: with rapid developments, guides can quickly become outdated, and cannot be updated promptly on new openings, closures, or price changes.
- Lack of Personalization: Guidebooks often present generic information, which may or may not cater to your preferences.
- Higher Cost: printed guidebooks are an expensive alternative.
- Not Eco-Friendly: guidebooks contribute to deforestation due to paper production.
- Potential for Bias: individual opinions, preferences, and experiences can influence recommendations, potentially leading to biased information.
The choice between virtual travel guides and traditional guides eventually boils down to your preferences, budget, and convenience. Make sure to carefully weigh the pros, cons, and your needs before you make a choice.
3 Prime Examples of Virtual Travel Guides in Action
Multiple industries such as tourism, art, and even extreme sports have begun to leverage this groundbreaking technology to cater to global audiences. Let’s explore a few examples of virtual travel guides being put into play in each of these categories.
1. Tourism – Dubai 360
There was a time when taking a breathtaking aerial view of Dubai’s beautiful architecture was only limited to birds. Well, now you can do the same sitting at home, munching on milk and cookies.
Dubai 360 provides a high-resolution aerial view of major landmarks, such as theme parks hotels, restaurants, and more in Dubai, allowing you to click on touchpoints and learn more about specific locations.
2. Art – Google Arts and Culture
Partnering with over 2000 leading museums and archives, Google Arts and Culture makes viewing some of the world’s most renowned art a matter of just a few clicks. You can view famous paintings such as The Starry Night, The Kiss, and more.
3. Ocean Exploration – Virtual Reality Oceans
You might not want to swim with a shark in real life, but with virtual reality, you can! Virtual Reality Oceans is a delight for wildlife enthusiasts! With up to 40 aquatic experiences the app allows users to explore and learn about the ocean’s depths, and enjoy swimming with aquatic animals. All the thrill, none of the danger, let’s call it a win-win scenario.
Virtual Travel Guides – Revolutionizing Tourism and More
Virtual travel guides have made travel accessible to people with physical or financial limitations while simultaneously providing those who prefer physical travel an engaging way to consume information that will make their journey convenient and memorable. While this in itself is a revolutionary step, there is much more to come.
With continuing developments in technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence, you can expect the next level of virtual travel guides to be highly personalized, highly realistic, and who knows, maybe even offer a touch of local interaction.
A crossover into even more industries can also be expected. Virtual travel guides are already integrated across e-commerce, social media, and entertainment platforms. Who knows what other industries will leverage this and create even more mutually beneficial opportunities for customers and businesses?
Whatever the future holds, it’s time you dive into the world of virtual travel guides and transform the way you explore!