In the travel industry, one of the sectors most heavily influenced by the challenges of the pandemic, XR could be essential to reviving the landscape.
Over the last couple of years, the travel industry has suffered significantly due to closed borders and restrictions. Now the pandemic is beginning to subside, travel companies need to work harder than ever to convince their customers to be adventurous.
XR provides a unique opportunity for businesses to help their consumers make more educated decisions about where to visit. It can also be a valuable tool for improving the overall travel experience. Let’s take a look at some of the major use cases for XR in travel.
1. Better Booking Experiences
First and foremost, XR has a fantastic ability to improve the purchasing experience for consumers in the travel landscape. With low budgets and limited confidence in travel brands, customers are becoming more discerning about where they travel and who they choose to travel with.
Fortunately, XR can assist travel companies in guiding their customers through more engaging purchasing experiences. Before committing to a trip, a travel company can give their customers a taste of what a location is like, by providing them with a VR headset. They can use these headsets to give users an insight into what they might see and hear in different locations around the world. Around 50% of customers today already say they would be happy to use VR when choosing a destination.
The same technology can be used to offer tours of hotels, and must-see attractions in different destinations. Customers are up to 130% more likely to book a hotel room after they’ve been given a virtual tour of the space. With the right XR tools and content, businesses can give users the confidence they need to make intelligent purchasing choices.
2. More Convenient Excursions
XR solutions can also make a huge difference to the experience users have when they actually visit a destination. AR applications can be a valuable way to help users get a more engaging self-guided tour of a destination, complete with guidance on how to find certain locations, and translations of text delivered straight to a smartphone or headset.
Mobile apps like City Guide Tour use object recognition to provide instant on-screen entertainment about places of interest, landmarks, and locations a person might want to see. While Street Life gives users access to guided tours, they can use to navigate their real-life adventures. With 5G connected apps, users will be able to navigate environments more conveniently, with directions sent to their phone and infused with the content from their camera.
Beacon technology located in a tourist destination can also provide instant access to useful information about a location, such as what it does, or what it has to offer, in the customer’s native language. In the future, when AR glasses are more common, these experiences will be particularly compelling.
3. Improved Customer Experiences
In virtually all industries, many companies are experimenting with new technologies like XR to unlock better experiences for their audience. Today’s travel companies are under immense pressure to earn the trust of their customers back after a problematic couple of years. XR solutions could be an excellent way to do this, by making the travel experience easier.
Companies are already getting involved with simple but effective apps to enhance the travel experience. For instance, KLM has an AR app which can allow customers to check their luggage will fit the hand baggage dimensions in a plane before they visit the airport.
XR also provides an opportunity to bring new levels of entertainment to the travel environment. Rather than just asking people to watch a movie on a long-haul flight, you could allow them access to a VR or AR adventure. Eurostar produced an underwater adventure for travellers, to keep them immersed and entertained in their seats.
Beacon technology and QR codes could allow users to scan something on their smartphone, and get instant access to a virtual assistant that they can see standing in front of them, to help them with making changes to their room in a hotel, or finding something to do.
4. Virtual Travel Experiences
Virtual travel experiences saw a significant amount of attention during the pandemic. Google searches for this phrase spiked by around 286% during 2020 alone. When travel wasn’t an option due to restrictions and lockdowns, virtual travel gave people an opportunity to leave their homes without actually stepping away from the sofa.
In the future, these virtual travel experiences could continue to offer a new avenue for travel companies, particularly as concerns about “overtourism” continue to grow. Environmentally conscious people might choose to do more of their travelling from home, so they can reduce their carbon footprint. While people with illnesses and issues which prevent them from travelling can access XR to cross locations off their bucket list.
Though visiting a must-see destination in XR might not replace actually travelling there in person, it could offer an excellent option for people who just want a quick and simple experience. This could open new doors for travel companies who need to find ways of serving a wider audience.
5. Creating Hybrid Experiences
XR can also make traditional travelling experiences feel more immersive and memorable, by giving people a chance to do unique things, without breaking their budget. For instance, you could allow people to get a taste of an excursion before they book, so they know whether something is worth adding to their itinerary. This strategy increased Thomas Cook’s helicopter tour bookings by 190%.
Hotels can add unique experiences to rooms to make a stay feel more impressive. For instance, they could allow people to explore new destinations when sitting in their hotel room using a VR headset. Tourist attractions and tour operators can also use QR codes and beacons to create gamified hybrid experiences for users.
For instance, the Cedar Point part created an AR experience within its app in 2016, which allowed people to scan ride signs and game symbols, to unlock new entertainment options within the park. This way, fewer people ended up bored when waiting in line for a ride.
