Virtual tourism uses videos, images and effects like sound, music, narration and text.
In virtual tourism the destinations are real places and only what you need is your phone.
If you feel like travelling all over the world but you don´t want to leave your home and you don´t have money for that you can use virtual tourism.
Now available technologies
Travel agency Thomas Cook made their first virtual tourism trip and used 360 glasses. The headset translates head movements to the virtual world.
Google earth is geobrowser that accesses satellite images and other data over the internet. With Google earth you can zoom satellite photos to find restaurants or do serious research. You can download it free from the internet.
Advantages and disadvantages of virtual tourism
Advantages
- you can travel all over the world without leaving your home
- VR almost feels like you’re in the destination
- virtual reality might actually help boost up tourism
- can give a preview of what they would experience if they physically visited the destination
- can positively influence real trips
- helps people plan how they’re going to spend their time in the location
- allows you to experience things quickly rather than spending weeks to research a place
- gives visitors better knowledge of what can experience in the area rather than going through heaps of different websites
Disadvantages
- people might use virtual tourism instead of actually making a real life trip
Will virtual tourism replace travelling to real destinations?
In our opinion virtual tourism will not replace physical travelling but rather encourages people to travel more in real life. We do not believe that anyone in the tourism industry would go as far as to draw people away from real travel but instead the industry wants people to investigate the destinations virtually.
Vivian Lawman & Vilma Kosola
References
http://www.metro.us/lifestyle/will-virtual-reality-replace-real-travel/zsJnlu---gXxGBIlW6noD/
