Excerpt from PhocusWire
In the last year, “metaverse” has become one of the buzziest words – driven in large part by Facebook’s rebranding its parent company with the name Meta in October 2021.
But Facebook is just one of the many major companies keenly interested in the metaverse. McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Gucci are some of the other mainstream brands working to stake a claim in this three-dimensional, virtual space.
And metaverse and Web3 consultant Steve Bambury says now is the time for travel brands to make moves toward creating a presence in the metaverse – or risk getting left behind.
“This is not a bubble – this is the evolution of computing. Our real world is 3D so it makes sense to engage with stuff in 3D,” Bambury says in a presentation during Travelport’s “Future of Retail” customer event in Dubai.
Speaking to the audience of travel suppliers, resellers and technology providers, Bambury describes the metaverse as the convergence of virtual reality (VR), extended reality (XR), spatial computing and immersive technology with blockchain, NFTs and Web3.
“All of this is converging, and the metaverse if the nebulous term that sums all of this up,” he says.
Beyond just looking like a futuristic, uber-cool way to interact, Bambury says consumers are more focused on content inside VR than they are when content is presented through traditional channels.
“There is no medium that has come before that has the emotive power of VR,” he says. And that is good news for companies in travel, where inspiration can create desire and, ultimately, a booking.
Bambury outlines three ways the travel and tourism industry can use virtual reality and the metaverse.
The easiest application – one that has existed for several years – is using VR to showcase a destination or travel experience. Bambury cites apps such as Wander, Brink Traveler, National Geographic Explore, Sygic Travel and Travel World VR as examples of how virtual reality can help travelers virtually “see” a place, which can “create the emotive drive to see it for real.”
More complex applications go beyond VR and into a more interactive engagement with consumers in the metaverse.
“Everyone is eventually going to have land and shops and a place to reach customers in the metaverse,” Bambury says.
For a travel supplier, this may take the form of a virtual store in the metaverse where consumers can have virtual “face-to-face” conversations with travel sellers. Using the capabilities of the technology, for example, a visitor could ask about a specific destination and the virtual walls of the shop could disappear to place them in that location as they hear about a specific hotel or tour.
And while the storefront is virtual, Bambury says the need for brand to stake a claim to a specific location in the metaverse is very real.
“Location, location, location,” he says.
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