History of VR/AR in Hospitality, Why VR?, Best Western initiative
By summer, all 2,200 Best Western-branded hotels in North America will have a “Best Western Virtual Reality Experience” whereby travelers can see each property’s rooms, lobbies, and amenities virtually online before they even arrive at the hotel.
Phoenix-based Best Western has been working with Google Street View to develop this product for the past three years, gathering some 1.7 million photos of its North American properties.
A History of Hospitality in VR and Augmented Reality
Here’s a quick rundown of some of the notable VR and 360-degree video plays that other hospitality companies have made in recent years:
May 2015: Starwood was already testing out whether or not guests would respond to VR in its concept lab.
September 2015: Marriott piloted a program, called VRoom Service, at two of its locations in New York and London, where by guests could “travel” the world via VR by borrowing a Samsung Gear VR headset for 24 hours.
October 2015: Shangri-La Hotels announced it will be the first international hospitality brand to debut Samsung Gear VR headsets for its 17 global sales offices and 94 individual hotel sales teams. Whereas Best Western is using VR to sell its hotels direct to consumers, Shangri-La is using VR to sell its hotels to wholesalers, travel agents, meeting planners, and other customers.
April 2016: Similar to Shangri-La’s strategy, Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group debuted BluPrint, a VR-enhanced app that helps investors and developers have a better understanding of the design process involved in the group’s Radisson Blu hotel brand.
April 2016: Hilton launches a new 360-degree video ad to push more direct bookings.
April 2016: For its Sonoma Select pilot program, Airbnb partnered with Matterport to produce enhanced 360-degree video listings for hosts participating in the pilot program. With this program, guests can experience more of a hotel-like package when they stay with highly rated, selected hosts in Sonoma, California.
May 2016: Holiday Inn Express released a comedic VR video starring actor Rob Riggle, the brand’s creative director, to promote the hotel company’s “power shower” experience.
May 2016: Vacation rental management company Vacasa also partnered with Matterport to have unique 360-degree, interactive video experiences on all of its vacation rental listings.
Why Are So Many Hotels Turning to VR?
To inform and sell: This is the strategy being adopted by brands like Best Western, Shangri-La, Carlson Rezidor, and Vacasa. For these brands, VR and/or 360-degree videos are being used as tools to inform their customers about their products.
To entertain and market: Brands like Marriott, Starwood, and Holiday Inn Express have taken a different route, seeing how VR can be used to entertain guests, and transport them, virtually, to another space all together.