What are hotel virtual tours? 
A virtual tour is an exciting form of marketing that restaurants, hotels, retail shops, and other businesses use to simulate and facilitate an on-property visit remotely. A popular tool for resorts, vacation homes, branded properties, and other overnight accommodations, hotel virtual tours allow travelers, travel agents, event planners, engaged couples, and so many other customers to visit the property from afar and take a look around. 

Through virtual site tours, potential customers can “test out” your property by immersing themselves in a virtual simulation of the hotel. Virtual guests can teleport from one hotel location to another, or from one position in the room to another, simulating the experience of physically moving through the hotel. Remote visitors and potential customers can explore the hotel as a guest and experience everything it has to offer, including:

• Hotel amenities
• Key features
• Check-in 
• Lobby spaces 
• Restaurant and dining areas
• Fitness facilities 
• Hotel pool, spa, or similar services 
• Meeting and event space 
• Exterior spaces 

Through hotel virtual tours, potential guests can “try before they buy.” They can view the property features they care about most, explore the hotel, and decide whether or not to book without being bogged down by wordy descriptions or information they don’t need.

How are hotel virtual tours created?
Most virtual tours that are created from a first-person perspective and provide a 360-degree view, allowing guests to explore the hotel from all angles. When a guest enters the virtual tour, they feel as if they are actually at the hotel.

The immersive eye-level perspective allows them to visualize exactly what a visit to your hotel would be like as they move around the property, exploring the lobby and various room types.

How can hotels benefit from virtual tours?
Hoteliers, general managers, sales directors, and revenue managers can all benefit from using hotel virtual tours. Here are a few examples.  

1. Improve marketing
ive guests and planners the opportunity to visualize what a stay or an event at your hotel would actually look like. Hotel virtual tours drive high-value leads with engaging, interactive content, allowing both travelers and travel planners to experience your venue like never before.

Show that your property is a step ahead of the competition and outclass the comp set by taking your hotel site visits virtual. Hotels that offer an experience instead of just a sales pitch are more likely to stand out. An extensive Omni Hotel study concluded that online visitors who had access to 3D hotel virtual tours were 67% more likely to book a hotel room online.

2. Boost sales
Sales and marketing teams use hotel virtual tours to maintain and grow market share, as well as target individual market segments. Hotel virtual tours are an excellent marketing tool for reaching millennials and Gen Z travelers. Reimagine Main Street, an online advertising and digital marketing management agency, found that customers aged 18-34 are 130% more likely to make a booking at a property offering a virtual tour.

3. Execute better events
Executing meetings and events successfully can help sales and revenue directors reach revenue targets. Hotels are also able to build trust and loyalty with travel agents and planners by meeting the expectations set by the hotel’s virtual tour. The hotel features, amenities, and services represented in the virtual experience are present on-site, and the event’s execution is exactly as the planner pictured it.

Hotels can attract guests, travel planners, and other clients to their property through well-executed and immersive virtual tours. Once on-property, hotels have the opportunity to lock in guest loyalty by exceeding the lofty expectations set in the virtual simulation.