Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, September 12. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
25.08.2023 - 14:02 / skift.com / Dawit Habtemariam / London
Destinations and attractions are investing in virtual and augmented reality technologies to drive interest and foot traffic to historical attractions. During the ITB Berlin conference last week, some attractions, tech providers and destinations discussed how such technologies will heighten the visitor experience.
As immersive technologies continue to improve, there’s been a growing interest to integrate them seamlessly with experiences at attractions. At the 2022 Skift Global Forum, Disney Parks, Experiences and Products Josh D’Amaro used the term “next generation storytelling” and wants its implementation to be the next step at Disney theme parks and attractions.
Historic Royal Palaces, a charity that manages the UK’s unoccupied royal palaces, partnered with Layered Reality, an immersive experiences technology provider, to launch the Gunpowder Plot, which allows visitor groups to follow the story of the 1605 failed assassination plot through a combination of virtual reality and live acting at the Tower of London, said Andrew McGuinness, founder of Layered Reality, at an ITB session titled “Augmented Reality: The Potential, The Upsell & The Opportunities.”
Singapore Tourism Board wants to bring some attractions to life with augmented reality technology as part of its plan to enhance the “wow factor” of the destination, according to CEO Keith Tan at the session titled “Digital, Personalized and Open: How DMOs Gain Ground in Digital Travel.”
One site of focus now is Fort Siloso, a World War II fort, on Sentosa. “If you go today, you don’t know the story, you don’t know what happened there,” he said. “You just see the cannons and the fort and that’s a very poor, very limited experience.”
Singapore wants to use 5G-powered augmented reality technology to show visitors what World War II was truly like for the fort’s defenders, especially the British troops, said Tan.
McGuinness thinks the future of augmented reality technology will in advancing personalization. Artificial intelligence will be able to give visitors a personalized experience even if they share a group tour.
“It’s kind of paradox that we want personalization, but we also want shared experiences. We need to solve that,” he said. “Augmented reality and artificial intelligence will definitely allow us to do that.”
Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, September 12. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
Thousands of Airbnbs and short-term rentals are about to be wiped off the map in New York City.
A new themed restaurant, Tiana's Palace, is opening Thursday at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California.
With the pandemic now over, what’s the future of tourism? What does the decline of full-time office employees mean for tourism and business travel? Why hasn’t U.S. solved its visa delay mess? We’ll discuss these topics with the executives of NYC Tourism+Conventions, U.S. Travel Association, Visit Britain, Intrepid Travel and others on-stage at the Skift Global Forum in New York on September 26-28.
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At an age when most schoolkids are still learning to tie their shoelaces, Nathaniel Prebalick — AKA Gold Plate Nate — was teaching budding treasure hunters how to pan for gold. As a third-generation prospector, he was raised amid the sparkling streams of California’s Gold Country, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, getting to know its watery veins as well as the life lines of his own hands.
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