Travel & Hospitality Awards | Travel Innovation, Design & Technology 2020 | www.thawards.com

The industry often refers to the
functions known as the ‘3 Es’:
Enabling, Escaping and Enriching. At its
current state of developing, Enabling
is by far the most obvious function
of VR and it usually applies to the
very early stages of the customer’s
journey. Travellers spend a lot of time
researching, googling images and
videos of particular places but VR does
away with that. Planning ahead using
VR might help reduce disappointment.
Many companies already offer AR
versions of their products, be them
hotel rooms or travel experiences,
that can simply be accessed by the
customer’s smartphone. Escaping
can help customers literally escape
from mundane long journeys and
unpleasant experiences by immersing
themselves in whatever VR has to offer.
And Enriching refers to enhancing the
traveller’s experience once they are
already at their destination.
One of the most exciting possible uses for VR is
to cater for those who are unable to travel. Some
companies are currently experimenting with
attending to the sense of wanderlust of those
who cannot visit destinations far away maybe
due to health or mobility reasons. From a more
ethical perspective, it can even help with overtourism
as customers can visit places without
actually being physically there.
But there are potential downsides as well. VR programs and platforms
can be very costly to develop and implementation and investment
can be a considerable risk given that there is no real hard data about
their overall usefulness or customer popularity yet. And there may a
paradoxical side effect too: if virtual reality can someday provide an
inimitable travel experience without the need to actually travel, how
much of a threat is this to the travel industry? Might it stop customers
from spending thousands of dollars on booking planes, hotels and
experiences?
It’s early days yet for VR in the travel industry but it’s certainly a trend
to keep an eye on.
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