How can you better showcase your beautiful hotel online? And how can you make your hotel stand out from your competitors during a guest’s shopping journey? A picture might be worth a thousand words, but a few photos of your guestrooms or public spaces probably don’t do your property justice. To truly capture what makes your hotel special, and to give your guests a preview of what they can expect when they arrive on-site, you should consider adding a virtual tour of your property to your website. Not only can virtual tours dazzle your potential guests, they can make a real impact on your website’s traffic, conversion, and revenue metrics.
But simply uploading a virtual tour to your website doesn’t guarantee these exciting results. Like any marketing strategy, you need to put some thought into what spaces to capture, how to style the furniture or amenities, and how to organize the tour on your website. Looking for inspiration as you develop a virtual tour strategy for your hotel? In this article, we’ll share 15 great examples for virtual reality hotel tours done right.
1. Kimpton Gray Hotel, Chicago, IL
This hotel is a stellar example of how to use 3D tours to sell your property. In addition to showing 3D views of several room types, the Kimpton Gray Hotel has 3D tours of their meeting spaces in a variety of different configurations, from classroom to ceremony. These 3D tours allow potential groups or event planners to better visualize their event at the Gray, whether they’re planning a wedding or a conference.
2. The Whitney Hotel, Boston, MA
The Whitney offers 3D walk-throughs of each room type, which helps guests understand the differences between room categories to make the booking decision easier. Besides the guestrooms, potential guests can explore the hotel’s lobby, patio, and restaurant to get a feel for the design and facilities on-site.
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3. NH Collection Brussels Centre, Brussels, Belgium
Many NH hotels offer virtual tours, but the NH Collection Brussels Centre has exceptionally thorough 3D tours of all room types and public areas, including the gym and the rooftop deck. Within the 3D tour module, the menu is easy to navigate, so you can easily jump between guestrooms and public area tours. And the tour module opens in a new window to make returning to the hotel website easy.
Check out the Virtual Tour
4. Kimpton Riverplace Hotel, Portland, OR
This hotel checks all the boxes for a solid virtual tour experience, but one way the Kimpton RiverPlace goes above and beyond is by leveraging the virtual tour as a branding opportunity. Throughout the guestroom tours, potential guests will spot the hotel’s logo and branding on the TV screens and on in-unit collateral, which reinforces the hotel’s identity and builds brand awareness.
5. Hotel Monte Cristo, Paris, France
In one of the most comprehensive virtual tours we?ve seen, the Hôtel Monte Cristo allows potential guests to take a thorough peek into every guestroom and public area, including the stairwell and the subterranean swimming pool. The hotel also added some text overlays on the virtual tour which give more information about hotel amenities and history, making the tour even more informative.
6. Budapest Marriott Hotel, Budapest, Hungary
3D “images'' aren't the only format in which virtual tours can add value. The Budapest Marriott Hotel takes a different approach with a detailed YouTube video that escorts potential guests on a guided tour of the property. Although this type of tour doesn’t easily allow viewers to move at their own pace, it does deliver on personality, since viewers get to hear from hotel staff and start to build a relationship with the hotel.
7. The Old Bank Hotel, Oxford, UK
For a historic property like The Old Bank Hotel, a virtual tour can highlight all the architectural features that make the property unique, more so than photos can. The tour is detailed enough to allow guests to experience the artwork on the corridor walls and the books on the shelves in the library.
8. Palmer House, Chicago, IL
Starting with a fabulous look at the hotel’s entrance, the Palmer House’s virtual tour takes you through guestrooms and public spaces with a user-friendly menu bar. In addition to acting as the navigation bar for the tour, this interface also includes a “Book Now” button so potential guests can easily convert to confirmed bookers.
9. Aliz Hotel Times Square, New York, NY
The Aliz Hotel’s virtual tour is notable for a few reasons. In addition to tours of their standard guestrooms, potential guests can also see 3D tours of the ADA rooms. The guestrooms are also perfectly styled, with crisp corners on the beds and a nice presentation of amenities like bathrobes and toiletries.
Check out the Virtual Tour
10. Panda Pod Hotel, Vancouver, Canada
Many hotels on this list are luxury properties, but more affordable properties can benefit from virtual tours too. Panda Pod Hotel, which is a capsule hotel, leverages a virtual tour to show guests the unconventional layout of its sleeping spaces. The 3D tour sets expectations more effectively than photos do.
11. Shangri-La Paris, France
Although the hotel’s own marketing team didn’t create or upload this tour to YouTube, it’s still a fantastic example of a video walk-through. Not only did the video’s creator film every step along their hotel tour, accompanied by soothing music, they also added captions that help guests understand what to expect and the quality of the hotel’s service. Plus, the video “chapters” allow viewers to skip to specific parts.
12. Zara Cave Hotel, Cappadocia, Turkey
A hotel as unique as the Zara Cave Hotel, which is nestled in a hillside in Cappadocia, simply can’t be captured in a few photos. The 3D tour allows guests to get a sense for the tall ceilings, interesting architectural features, and incredible views, making the hotel appear even more compelling online.
13. The William Inglis Hotel, Warwick Farm, Australia
The William Inglis nailed their virtual tour, which is hosted by Google, rather than an industry-specific vendor like Matterport. Each room is impeccably presented, and the tour features friendly touches like a smiling front desk agent at the reception desk, which makes the hotel seem more welcoming.
14. Hotel Indonesia Kempinski Jakarta, Indonesia
This luxurious hotel succeeded at capturing its glamorous vibe in the 3D tour, which features a vast array of guestrooms and public spaces, even including a peek at the designer shops on-site. But hotels of all kinds can take a page out of Kempinski's book by styling props like water bottles and notepads on the table in the tour of a meeting room.
15. The Ritz London, UK
Aside from the stunning decor at the Ritz, the virtual tour of their meeting rooms has a great navigational structure, which allows viewers to seamlessly toggle between the 3D tour, a floorplan, a photo gallery, and some notes about the room capacity.
We hope you’re inspired to create your own 3D virtual tour. Did we miss any standout virtual tours? Let us know!
