Look before you book – how hotels are using virtual tour technology”

The world of glossy airbrushed photos of idealised hotel rooms has long gone. Today’s travellers expect transparency. They want to know exactly what to expect when they check-in. They read reviews and comments, they browse user-generated photos and Google Images. Increasingly they are expecting a virtual tour and – when hotels with this option generate 48% more bookings than those without – it pays to give it to them.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Google has changed the way its virtual tours work for hotels. Each area in the property is treated as a separate area with its own standalone tour. Lobbies, restaurants, bars, gyms, spas, bedrooms, suites and gardens can all be accessed and explored separately via a row of thumbnails at the bottom of the screen.

This means users can now jump more easily between different parts of the hotel with fewer clicks. Google has also entered the booking market, by allowing searchers to book hotel rooms right there in the search results. And virtual are tours front-and-centre in the business’s listing, ahead of images and user reviews.

That might be because fully 92% of internet users indicated that the ability to see a spherical panorama or a 360 degree photo of a viewed product is one of the most essential features when they are browsing online.

Jay Scott-Nicholls of aardvark360, who specialise in Google virtual tours says: “We’ve seen exploding industry demand for hotel virtual tours. A year ago we were doing one a month, now it’s every other day. In the last month alone we’ve worked with everyone from family-owned boutique places, to trendy newcomers like The Hoxton and established global brands like Hilton”.

Beyond specific platforms like Google, interactive content can make the difference between first and second page positioning in the competitive arena of Search Engine Optimisation where hotels are forced to take advantage of any boost in rankings. Once embedded on a website, virtual tours increase page views by 40% and keeps visitors on-site for three times longer – all of which does not go unnoticed by the search engine crawlers.

A hotel is not a single product. It’s not just about the room – it’s about the facilities, the service and the style too. Businesses with the confidence to throw open their doors to online explorers are the ones earning the trust of the internet-savvy traveller.