Shangri-La vice-president, sales Greg Ward revealed to Hotelier Middle East that the company is invested in using virtual reality for product training and education.
Ward said: “Virtual reality is an amazing tool. Hotels spend a lot of money and time educating travellers, bookers and influencers on various destinations and sometimes it’s extremely difficult to get them all out on an aeroplane and fly them out to various locations to provide that product knowledge.
“With Oculus Rift and virtual reality, it allows us to take the product to the travel agent or the booker, to give them a sense of place, understanding, and experience in relation to what the property represents.”
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Shangri-La already has 14 global hotels on Oculus Rift. The regional sales and marketing officers have the Oculus Rift headgear, which they use in product training and education.
He continued: “We spend so much time and energy presenting hotels, it’s just looking at how we can have a different approach to positioning hotels to those who are responsible for booking business.”
The technology will be rolled out across all hotels, Ward revealed. “At the moment we are having video content made of every single hotel and within the next six months, all properties will be on Oculus Rift.”
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