Customers want to have the perfect vacation and know everything about their trip before arriving at the destination. Virtual reality allows them to experience everything about your hotel like they were there.
Virtual reality, as we generally know, is a technology that is using videos and images really close to their physical versions. It creates a realistic experience that is enriched by 360-degree shootings, sounds, sometimes tastes, and feelings.
With more people involved in VR, the market size of VR has been growing. While the expected market size is 6.71 billion$ in 2022, it is expected to be 12.19 billion$ in 2024.
As a significant study shows, virtual reality arouses positive feelings for a travel destination, and another research reveals VR has a solid capacity to gain customers' trust.
Therefore, hotels must take part in VR. With VR videos, your customers will be familiar with your rooms, your booking process, your facilities, transportation options, and places to visit near your property before they commit to a booking.
So, VR in hotel marketing enables beforehand experiences for customers, contributes to your interactive content, and helps you draw new potential customers. But how does this process work?
You may also like this: Digital Transformation in Hotel Industry
In this article, you will get the answers to the following questions:
- How can you use virtual reality effectively in hotel marketing?
- What are the benefits of using virtual reality for your hotel?
Then, get ready, and let's start.
How to Use Virtual Reality for Hotels?
Virtual Reality Hotel Tour
Realistic and high-quality photos can give a general idea about your hotel, but they are not enough to express the uniqueness of your hotel. The most effective way to present your specialties is virtual hotel tours.
360-degree videos are the essentials of VR hotel tours. Add these tours to your website. Thereby, your guests and potential guests can experience what they will come up with when they book in your hotel.
Your videos may contain a walkthrough of each room type and a representation of room facilities and options. Moving within the rooms and taking the control into their hands give the customers the feeling that they lead their experience.
Not only your rooms but all the parts of your hotel can be a destination in this tour. You can introduce all the facilities, such as your meeting rooms, restaurant, entrance hall, fitness center, pool, garden, etc.
This way, the customers will have a complete experience of your hotel from end to end. They will discover every single corner of the hotel before they arrive.
Your videos also must have a story. You can turn the USP of your hotel into words that will be heard in your virtual videos. The vibrant images strengthen the effect of your words.
Stories attract people. Find stories to make them feel that they are involved in the story of your hotel.
As a notice: Don’t neglect to share your videos via various social media platforms.
Virtual Amenities Tours
While exposing all hotel facilities, you can make it more alive for the guests in your virtual amenities tours.
For instance, in a 360-degree tour of your fitness center, you can collaborate with your fitness trainer to tour the center representing the fitness implements and how they work.
You can apply this to your restaurant also. Meeting your chef who prepares meals for them and visiting the kitchen with the chef can be a great experience for your guests.
That is more intimate than just seeing images of your facilities. In addition, you can create visual amenities content for any part of your hotel like the lobby, pool, room services, and so on.
This is more catchy for your guests because it is relatable. They can imagine themselves in that place if they meet and interact with real people who are employed in your hotel.
All these elements create a strong and entertaining experience that will pull customers to your hotel.
Interactive Components
VR tour has a powerful feature: It gives the control to whom experiences it. Adding interactive components to your video can make it even more intense.
Every customer has special and unique needs and expectations from your hotel. Interaction is the key for them to control the media you show them.
For example, in your VR videos, they should be able to zoom in and out, turning their views from left to right, up and down. They like to have the freedom to choose where to move and what they see.
Further, you can have particular “how-to videos” to give the information your customers need, to answer every kind of question in their minds. These videos can vary regarding the unique needs of your customers and the potential customers you are willing to reach.
Suppose you have a wide range of interactive virtual reality videos that visualize the opportunities for booking and facilities and the intricate parts of your hotel. In that case, customers can choose to view what they are interested in.
Give them a chance to experience what they most need or wonder about. So you will allow them to interact with your hotel even if they are not physically present there.
Virtual Tour of The Destination
Travel videos are magnetic for travelers. They want to discover the region of the hotel before they book. Therefore, having a virtual tour of your hotel’s location and the significant places you recommend your guests to visit gives you a high advantage in your marketing.
A virtual city tour with informative videos about the historical, cultural, and entertainment places around your hotel like museums, art galleries, business centers, restaurants, beaches, or natural beauties gives your customers a sense of integrity about your location.
Moreover, you can promote the nearby activities they can join when they accommodate in your hotel by making them the subject of the experience in your virtual tours.
It is more intimate and relatable for your customers if your virtual destination tours have an organic way of narration. For this, you can cooperate with local guides or local people in your virtual reality videos.
Virtual Booking
The virtual tours give your hotel to carry out a virtual booking process. You can apply this in two ways:
- The links you place in your virtual reality tours lead people to your direct booking page. In your VR hotel tour or city tour, you arouse your customers’ attention to your hotel. While they experience your 360-degree virtual videos and explore the amazing places around your hotel and city, adding “book now” links is a good idea to engage your guests.
- The videos that visualize a booking process that gives information like the room options, prices, discounts, transportation alternatives, and so on enable your customers to forecast the process of their accommodation and make the booking process easier for them.
Discover more brilliant ideas about your hotel marketing.
Benefits of Using Virtual Reality in Hotel Marketing
More Virtuality, More Bookings
Audiences are more willing to be sure about their travel. Virtual tours prepare your customers for what they will experience. Experiencing your virtual tours and getting direct information about your hotel encourages them to book.
Besides, these virtual videos will eliminate any kind of disappointment, and in fact, it builds trust between your hotel brand and your customers. Trust means intimacy, and when the customers trust you, they recommend you to other future customers.
Also, adding a direct booking link to your VR video lets you have faster and increased bookings through your page.
Making an Imperishable Impression
Audiences listen to their feelings. When the decision time comes, they will follow their hearts. So, you need to make a great impression on them about your hotel.
Virtuality is essential in this way. You can reach people's emotions and attention by using virtual reality tours with catchy images, sounds, and features. An entertaining, relatable, and interactive tour ensures you more connection with your potential customers.
Reaching Potential Customers
VR reality videos improve your SEO by raising clicks and viewers on your website.
People are eager to experience their travel and accommodations beforehand, so they will be interested in your VR hotel tours. Optimization of your website with these videos will keep people on your page for longer times. Therefore, it serves to enhance your SEO and visibility on the internet.
Upgrading the Expectations
Virtual reality helps you to promote your facilities or products.
For example, when the audience joins your virtual reality tour and views your rooms with different facilities, like a room with a spectacular city view or a balcony, it will make a difference for them. Your facilities will be more impressive when they experience it through virtual reality. And your videos will encourage them to upgrade their choices.
It’s because they may not know what they want until they encounter the best.
Advantages in the Competition
Using VR videos can put you forward in competitive hotel marketing. VR videos will gloss you among the hotels that do not practice this marketing strategy.
Virtual reality differentiates your hotel from the competing hotels which are in the same area, or city or have similar facilities to your hotel. They will give your customers a chance to experience why they should pick your hotel and will increase your booking rates.
Also check this: Is Metaverse Something To Invest For Hotels
Final Key Points
Virtual reality is a keystone for hotel marketing. There are various ways for your hotel to use virtual reality in your marketing strategy. You can create VR videos of your hotel, amenities, and destination richened with interactive components and a virtual booking process.
As an expected consequence, virtual reality in your hotel marketing has multifold benefits for your hotel. VR videos
- bring you more bookings
- leave a powerful impression on the customers
- enable you to reach a wide range of potential customers
- increase direct bookings via your page
- help customers to upgrade their expectations
- give advantages to you in the marketing competition
We are a digital agency specializing in the hospitality industry. To discover what we can do together, contact us.
As a hotel advertising agency, we guarantee that you will increase your bookings and we offer our service with care.