Virtual 3D Tour
A NEW DIMENSION OF TOURISM TOWARDS THE EXPERIENCE OF TRAVELLING
- Parikshit Sharma
Tourism as an industry deals with the socio-economic and cultural wonders of a destination, motivating people to travel to different places, states, and countries away from their usual place of residence. This movement of people may be categorized into travelers, tourists, and excursionists who are involved in some kind of activity implying tourism expenditure.
As per the World Travel and Tourism Council’s (WTTC) Report on World Economic Impact, 2014, the travel and tourism industry’s total contribution to the Global economy was US $ 7 Trillion in 2013. The industry generated 266 million jobs in 2013-14, ensuring 1 out of every 11 jobs in the world or generating 1 direct employment and 11 indirect employment in the Tourism and allied industries, respectively.
Travel is the basic essence of the tourism industry. Travel is the key to have an insight of the foreign culture, food, infrastructure, language, lifestyle and related activities. Books can be a source of motivation to travel, but, literature cannot replace the experience of travel. Literature may provide a person living in Chennai information about the weather, terrain, culture, food and lifestyle of inhabitants of Shimla, but, to experience all the above, physical travel is a must and vice-versa, just as simulation may provide you the tactics of flying, but, you will improve flying only after you actually fly a plane learn the skills. One may get all the information about the history, manufacturing and the right way of drinking a Scotch whisky, but, until you actually drink it, you may not make a difference between others, a Scotch has smoky, earthy overtones which is not common in other variations of whisky.
Virtual travel has made this experience of travelling easy. With the advancement in technology, websites and applications like Google Earth, Google Maps and other similar providers, a person may get the information about the different key motivators of a destination visually. The users may see the attractions in real time with panoramic views and street views of the heritage and modern architectures, likewise. These applications provide the commuting time required by different available modes of transport, eateries on way, first aid facilities, gas stations, bank, ATM’s, zoo and other related information. The pictures may be uploaded by the users as well as the application administrators. The application administrators use advanced technology through the specially modified vehicles that gather images of the places in real time and publish it on these application.
Though the virtual travel gains merit over actual travel on reducing the hassles and costs incurred in actual travel pertaining to the ticketing and VISA formalities, extreme weather conditions, accommodation arrangements, reducing the environmental burden, etc. it also has certain demerits. The true essence of tourism, that is, physical movement of people to different place is lost. The meeting of developed and developing economies is lost, the local economies suffer financial drain due to these websites, and the advancement of the locals suffer.
Therefore, these growing platforms may give more opportunities and advancements for virtual tourists, but, it will also create a threat to the actual essence of physical movement that is the real travel. Virtual tour/ travelling/ tourism may be used as a tool towards motivating a person to travel to places at a later time, just as the movies provide a stimulation for the viewers to travel to different serene, pristine places. An example to quote here is the classic movies were mostly shot in the northern parts of India having hills and snow studded peaks. These created a starving desire for the people in the middle and southern parts of India to plan a vacation trip to north India. Now, in modern times, the glamor industry has moved to The U.S., U.K. and distant island nations, creating the same thrill and desire to visit these places for vacationers.
The Virtual Tourism, in coming years may aid as a boon to the people who face problems in physically travelling to these luring areas due to matters of money, time, physical inability due to old age, office demands, peer pressure, children’s academic responsibility, or family dependence, etc.
Though a new concept, it requires extensive research in providing tourist the basic characteristic sensory appeal in terms of smell for the local cuisine, visual appetite for the beauty of nature and modern marvels, sense of touch, where a virtual tourist sitting in his air-conditioned room in Delhi may feel the scorching heat 47 °C (116.6 °F) in July of the Great Sahara desert crowned as the largest hot desert in the world covering countries like Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Tunisia.
The technological trend signifies significant advancements in simulation applications which may create a background a holistic sensory experience like hearing the splash of a whale diving to an audience in the Himalayan homes or experiencing the majestic eruption of volcanoes in a village of Madhya Pradesh or even tasting delicious Italian cannelloni in the confines of a research base in Antarctica or touching the Australian coral reefs by people in a suburb of Russia and finally the smell of valley of flowers of Uttarakhand in Aberdeen, U.K.
The major work would be towards bringing the costly 7D theaters into mini forms to the homes and the extensive marketing and promotion of these highly advanced electronics to the common people at a price they may afford. With a myriad of sectors in tourism, like health/ medical (which considered to be economical by the western world), India shall have a limitless possibility to explore and tap the potential through the use of technologies. Google Glass, a wearable glasstechnology with an optical head-mounted display (OHMD) has the power to record visuals of the doctors operating on a patient and transmit the same visual to the interns without affecting the precisions required at the operation table. Religious/ Pilgrimage tourism on the other hand, may provide the experienced and old age people having issues with the physical commutation to experience the Live arti, sermons, and religious discourses of their deities and gods. With the advancement in technology, it may be possible to have the other senses also experience the essence of religious tourism, through having the fragrance of incense sticks, or the splashes of holy water during the arti and consuming prashad after the arti.
Education also being a part of tourism, may further provide an integrated and a comprehensive approach to the classroom and practical teachings by developing a virtual teacher which will guide a student in making thesis, performing practical’s, etc. as evident from the virtual assistant of fictional superhero movie Iron Manseries Tony Stark and J.A.R.V.I.S, where, the latter is always available for assistance through voice commands and guidance.
The accommodation sector would also need an instant restructuring by taking a giant leap to remain in vogue through creating the same applications for the guest to have a complete experience, but, it will definitely add a new dimension in the ever rising Travel and Tourism industry. Those who will be stimulated with the promotion and branding of different destinations, hotels and accommodation units will start flourishing again as in the current days.
