iPIX 360º Virtual Tours Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What Is 360º Virtual Tour Technology?
Why Use 360º Virtual Tours Over Similar Technologies?
Why Should Our Hotel/Resort Website Provide An 360º Virtual Tour?
Do 360º Virtual Tours Increase Online Revenue?
Why Use 360º Virtual Tours For Real Estate?
Why Use 360º Virtual Tours For Education & Training?
What Is 360º Virtual Tour Technology?
Our Virtual Tours are a form of specialized digital photography
which produces stunning 360º immersive and fully interactive
virtual tours. Using special digital camera equipment; trained
professional photographers take pairs of digital photographs
which are "stitched" together using special software
to produce a 360º "bubble" view of a particular
location. These Virtual Tours can be viewed on a website, sent
through e-mail and even included on promotional CD-ROMs.
Why
Use 360º Virtual Tours over similar technologies?
- Completely immersive floor-to-ceiling 360ª images. Other technologies (such as Quicktime VR) only provide a rather limited panoramic view with distorted flattened images; viewers cannot move the image up or down to view the floor or ceilings, only left or right.
- Our photographers can provide proofs for client preview and approval on the spot
- Fast download (10 seconds on broadband, 30 seconds on 56k)
- A choice of display styles:
- High or low resolution images for dial-up or broadband access
- No plug-in needed (java-based images with navigation toolbar) - Special compression allows small file size with high resolution
- E-mailable images
Why should our Hotel/Resort website provide an 360º Virtual Tour?
Through full 360º immersive digital photography, prospective guests, conference organizers, and wedding planners will be able to fully appreciate the amenities, facilities and ambience of your unique hotel, resort or convention center. You can include such locations as your lobby, guest suites, pool, exercise room, conference rooms, ballroom, public areas and more, to give a fully interactive virtual tour and boost your web visitor retention and online booking ratio.
- Provides detailed visual information to your prospective
client beyond merely text and one or two still photos. (A photograph
is worth 1,000 words, a virtual tour is worth 1,000 photographs.)
- Opens the hotel doors to the online public in a detailed
and fast-loading virtual reality environment, allowing you to
showcase key features of the hotel and local destinations.
- People enjoy taking virtual tours; it gives them the confidence
to make a booking either online or by telephone.
- Virtual Tours can be persuasive in getting customers to upgrade
rooms if they can see how much more they get for their money.
- Virtual Tours are interactive; viewers can select which images
they would like to view and navigate as they choose. Meeting
planners may view just the meeting rooms, conference facilities
and guest rooms, wedding planners may view just the Ballroom
and public areas.
- Increases web visitor retention or "stickiness":
detailed visual information helps viewers to finalise their decision
to make a reservation (20+ minutes average visit vs. 2-3 minutes
without a tour)
- Increase bookings (Carlson's 135 Virtual Tours record
an average increase in online bookings of more than 136% after
adding an online tour) Source: Carlson.com
- CD-ROM sales tool for your Sales & Marketing departments:
provide to major clients, sales staff for laptop and digital
projection presentations
- Keep up with the competition (soon every hotel group &
management company will offer virtual tours)
Do 360º Virtual Tours Increase Online Revenue?
- Hotels with a virtual tour achieved 135% increase in online revenue amounting to over $10,500 CDN per hotel per month over those without a virtual tour (Source: Radisson.com)
- Return on investment (per hotel) = less than 4 weeks (Source: Radisson.com)
- 4% Conversion Rate = Bookings made through the virtual tour
page only (does not account for viewers who go to reservations
page online or pick up telephone to make a voice booking after
viewing the virtual tour) (Source: Radisson.com)
Why
use 360º Virtual Tours for Real Estate?
Virtual Tours for real estate have a proven track record as invaluable tools for increasing exposure and sales for realtors and brokers. Using our immersive imaging technology, you can quickly and easily advertise your client's property 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Our 360º-by-360º images give viewers comprehensive tours of entire properties without the time-consuming logistics of establishing meeting times and making travel arrangements. Prospective buyers can see from floor to ceiling and all around, transporting themselves from room to room and to the exterior with ease.
Why use 360º Virtual Tours for Education & Training?
Prospective students can tour multiple colleges and universities online with Virtual Tours, while the universities themselves, as well as the military and other businesses, can deploy technology to disseminate information to their students and employees in efficient, productive, and interesting ways. OneVirtual Tour image enhanced with popup text, links, and audio can deliver as much information as an entire pamphlet.
