Shangri-La gets virtual about its hotel experiences

Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts is creating its own virtual realm with the integration of virtual reality (VR) experiences into worldwide hotel sales efforts.

The company has rolled out Samsung Gear VR headsets across 17 global sales offices and produced immersive 360-degree videos for over a quarter of its 94 hotels and resorts. Online, viewers can watch the videos via YouTube or download Oculus-compatible files. 

The effort is intended to enable travel advisors, meeting planners and potential corporate clients to virtually experience Shangri-La hotels and destinations around the world.

It will also be used as promotional and educational tools at tradeshows, industry events and sales meetings, instantly “transporting” advisors to places such as the rooftop of Jokhang Temple in Lhasa or the Grand Ballroom in Kowloon Shangri-La, Hong Kong.

The hotel brand started developing virtual-reality videos in May with Brand Karma and previewed ones of its hotels and excursions in Ulaanbaatar, Lhasa and Shangri-La City at ILTM in Shanghai in June.

Ad Nut loves any adoption of cool new tech in marketing, and is sure the novelty would certainly draw in the target audience of event and travel planners at trade events.

But the videos seem a bit lacking, at least in the YouTube versions (to be fair Ad Nut hasn’t got a shiny VR headset on hand to test out the full immersive experience).

Ad Nut also wonders if viewers will get dizzy.