Hotels were one of the first industries to realise the potential of virtual tours when the technology became commonplace a few years ago. However, there are still hotels either not using tours or not implementing them effectively.

Based on our experience working with some of the top hotel brands across the world, here are 5 ways to boost your hotel’s digital marketing with virtual tours:

1. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

It seems obvious, but there’s no point having wonderful virtual tours of your rooms if you then make them hard for your visitors to find. 

The most visited tours are those that are where you’d expect them to be – on the page dedicated to that room! Here are some examples of best practice:

Titanic Hotel, Liverpool, link their tours from their general rooms page.

Carden Park, Cheshire, embed the tours directly into each room page.

2. THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAIL

Virtual tours allow a much greater depth of exploration of your spaces than photography or video. You cannot hide things, so ensure you prepare spaces as if you were expecting to be inspected – present the rooms well, organise cleaning of floors, tables, windows, bathrooms, mirrors etc.., have lights and lamps on, check paintwork, etc. If you get it right from the start, it is a lot less time-consuming and expensive than having to re-do a space.

COMO Metropolitan Residence Penthouse: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=GxVo4qjQcU6

3. MULTIPLE LAYOUTS

For event spaces, you may want to think about having virtual tours created of them in different setups. Empty, dining setup, conference setup – the more setups you can make available, the easier potential hirers of your spaces will find it to visualise their event being hosted with you.

A good example of this are the tours we did for the Corinthia Hotel, London of their amazing ballroom. We captured both a dining room set up and an event set up to help customers visualise the space:

Dining Setup: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=kMXBxTZhXFH

Event Setup: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=KjUyzHGpwEa

4. DON’T FORGET DINING AND LEISURE FACILITIES

The lobby, rooms and event spaces are obvious choices for virtual tours, but visitors like to see where they will be eating, exercising or booking a spa treatment. Set your dining areas up rather than leaving them empty, and have leisure facilities presented as if ready to be used. Create an atmosphere and generate excitement ahead of a visit:

Yorebridge Tasting Room: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=oWv65BYaknf

Cugo Gran Macina Grand Harbour – Rooftop Pool: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=hXsPXYv8JdV

5. NOT ALL TOURS ARE EQUAL!

There are a lot of different styles of virtual tours and some work better than others for certain types of space (we create almost every style of tour, so we should know!)

Simple 360 degree tours and Google street view style tours can be quick to create and therefore more budget-friendly, but do they give your online visitors the best impression of your space? If you are confident in your quality, allow users to fully explore by using 3D walkthrough tours.

Finally, choose a reputable tour provider with lots of examples of their work from other hotels and some well-known, high quality brands – if big name brands trust your chosen provider, you can be confident that you’re in safe hands.

Summary

To sum up, hotels now have to meet the increasing demand for a more creative digital strategy to enhance their customer engagement. Virtual tours create a strong guest experience and can help strengthen brand loyalty, which in turn will lead to repeat bookings. Tours also provide your hotel with a 24/7 window to your customer, so make sure you use this window of opportunity wisely!

 Do you want to create a virtual tour to increase your guest engagement?

Contact our team to learn more about our services and prices.