Virtual technology is gaining ground in hospitality, not only as a marketing tool but also to create event spaces and train staff remotely, in association with Matterport
Although virtual and AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology is used by only a modest amount of hospitality and leisure companies, this looks likely to change as it becomes recognised as a tool for much more than virtual tours to help with sales and marketing.
The Caterer has carried out research with spatial data specialist Matterport, which uses digital twin technology (where a virtual model is designed to accurately reflect a physical object) to digitally scan the interiors of properties and create 3D tours. Over 300 businesses were surveyed which concluded that 17% presently use 3D virtual tours, but 25% of businesses are interested in adopting the technology in the future, and 36% could also join them but are currently undecided.
Bill Linehan, global strategy at Matterport, says: "More and more companies are adopting digital twins across their businesses, but there is an identity crisis as to what are their best uses." For the hospitality industry the obvious one is 3D virtual tours, but there are many others, such as training, evaluating spaces for corporate events, remotely inspecting buildings for potential construction work or even prospecting for acquisitions.
Double act
The value of digital twins and 3D tours has been recognised by Lindner Hotels & Resorts, which owns, operates and franchises its boutique brands across 30 properties in seven European countries. It is determined to digitise its entire customer journey, beginning with showcasing its guest rooms and spaces online. For this it has worked with Matterport to digitally capture (by digital scanning) guest rooms, restaurants and bars, fitness areas, conference rooms and event spaces. These images will be rendered into immersive, 3D imagery as well as the associated spatial data.
Oliver Stotz, corporate director of marketing and distribution at Lindner Hotels, says: "The digital twins are very detailed and clear. Unlike with photographs, guests can interact with the digital replicas of the hotel. We can showcase our properties better than the big third-party booking sites. Those sites might include a lot of photos and general written information, but we want to provide potential guests with even richer details about our property that our guests find exciting. We want them to experience our hotels long before they set foot in one."
Guests can virtually move through a digitally captured room and decide if an economy room has enough space or if they'd rather upgrade to a suite. "We want our guests to be confident that they're booking the right room, and that can only be done if we provide detailed visual information upfront," says Stotz.
The consumer engagement is a critical aspect of the technology and it helps generate three times the level of interaction that is typically achieved with standard photography, according to Linehan. He says: "It allows people to resolve concerns they have but which they are not voicing to the hotel or rental company, such as which room will grandma be staying in versus the grandchildren?"
This engagement is translating into extra bookings, according to the survey, which found 14% of businesses agreed strongly and 48% agreed that 3D virtual tours lead to more bookings. "Our clients are seeing three times more online consumer engagement, which translates into an increase of around 14% in terms of booking conversions," adds Linehan.
Where such tours have particular value is for the booking of rooms where people would not necessarily have prior access, such as those on cruise liners. "We're seeing wide adoption on cruise lines with 3D tours enabling people to navigate the whole space," says Linehan.
This is recognised at Lindner Hotels, where the digital twins can showcase many amenities in addition to its guest rooms, meeting rooms and event spaces. For example, for the Lindner Golf Resort Portals Nous in Mallorca, guests can visualise a dinner at Niko's Place or an evening of tapas and cocktails at the Chumbo Pool Restaurant. Guests who want to get a massage can view both the Bahari Spa and the bamboo hut at the outdoor spa before they decide where to book.
It is not just about the high-end though, as Linehan believes there is also a place at the budget end of the market: "We'll see rich media come into play with all types of bookings because consumers want it. It will never replace 2D, but we have to augment this. At the higher end we will see more experiential digital twins being used to show off the rooms as well as the entire public spaces, but with the budget-end properties they can show a basic ‘scan', which helps to avoid the over-selling of a room."
Be prepared
Chris Fung, co-founder of Lunch.co thinks the technology's immediate use case will be in the luxury end of the market – cruises and private members' clubs – as well as corporate events, where there are very high costs involved and high risks around booking an unsuitable venue.
"There is a risk factor because if a person screws up then they could lose their job," he says. "Weddings are another event where 3D tours make sense. It's the most important day of people's lives and they don't want to make a mistake by booking the wrong venue."
Stotz says guest feedback on the business side of things, where booking assistants can show their senior managers an immersive view of meeting areas and event spaces, has been very positive. "We host a lot of conferences, so we created a mini-map within Matterport that can take potential clients straight to every space in the locations we want to show them. And we can virtually stage our event spaces to demonstrate various possible layouts," he explains.
The next stage on from this involves using digital twins to enable event participants to collaborate in order to create realistic 3D floor plans from anywhere in the world at the same time. Planners can virtually move through the event room and determine what kind of seating will work best. Virtual furniture can be reconfigured and even the colours of the tablecloths can be changed. In the future, banquet employees from the hotel will be able to conduct live virtual walkthroughs with prospective event planners, caterers and florists to work out specific details.
Remote control
This business end of things is certainly an area where digital twins and their 3D creations are increasingly coming into play. For example, Linehan says hotel inspections can be done remotely to check brand standards are being maintained: "It's more efficient for us to scan a property and for the hotel team to then check it remotely than for them to physically visit all these properties. In fact, a number of well-known quick-service restaurants, franchise businesses and hotels are adopting digital twins in their operating and marketing strategies."
The other area that is proving popular is the use of digital twins for training purposes. This has been recognised by airline KLM where Chris Koomen, virtual reality engineer and specialist, says the technology has permanently changed the way the company trains its employees.
"We regularly use them for training across our global operations. Cleaning crews work more efficiently, flight attendants learn the layout of an aircraft ahead of time, and pilots reference digital twins during safety checks. With remote access to digital twins, trainees avoid disrupting the maintenance work of an aircraft, enabling our fleet to return to service faster. All of this adds up to performance efficiency," explains Koomen.
For cleaning crews the efficiency gains came quickly and dramatically, he says: "We found out the cleaners had completed their work 15 minutes faster than normal, without having seen that aircraft's layout before. And they didn't make any mistakes. At first we thought it was a coincidence, but then we saw that every time we used the digital twins to familiarise crews in advance, they were an average of 30% faster."
Despite the upsides there remain some reservations over the adoption of 3D virtual technology, with the survey revealing the key obstacles referenced most by businesses were cost (59%), not enough skilled employees (33%), implementation (32%), system integration (28%), additional work (25%) and industry adoption (20%).
Linehan suggests the underlying obstacles fall into two main camps for hospitality companies. First, there is the capture of the images, which he says is in reality "easy and flexible". It can be done by the companies themselves, using the relevant camera that can be hired, or the task can be undertaken through the Matterport ‘Capture Services Network'. Secondly, there is the use of the scanned files, which Linehan says is "not complicated" and access to them is handled on a software-as-a-service basis.
There are also obstacles to hospitality businesses including the metaverse in their long-term strategies – partly because the technology is immature and the concept is still somewhat ill-defined. This is maybe why the survey found only 12% of businesses have already included it in their long-term strategies and 16% don't know if it is in their plans.
More positively, there are a variety of business areas where the metaverse is forecast to play a part in the future – albeit with the focus skewed to sales and promotional activity. The survey found the key areas referenced most by businesses were sales and marketing (97%), development (45%), operations (34%), HR and training (31%), and brand compliance (28%).
Tom Cheesewright, applied futurist, believes it will be some time before the metaverse has a meaningful impact on the sector and that it will also not likely feature headsets and virtual reality. Instead, he describes it as a digital overlay on physical reality, so would more likely involve some form of smart glasses or similar technology. He views the technology as a current issue as he suggests there are "no good user interfaces for the metaverse yet".
Despite the issues he foresees some interesting developments, such as restaurant fit-outs being potentially a mix of the real world and virtual creations. "Signage, menus and other things that change frequently could be virtual. If you know your regular customers, you could tailor the environment to them. And there could also be virtual waiters taking orders. It's real crazy stuff," he says.
Although Cheesewright acknowledges there are challenges facing food and beverage companies looking to embrace the metaverse, chiefly because it is expensive to create these new environments, he says there is big change ahead. "We're a decade away from customers using their devices to rewrite reality," he suggests.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding the metaverse, the survey found hospitality businesses were hopeful it will have a positive impact on operations. Only 22% believe the metaverse will not add any new revenue streams, while 29% believe the technology could be a real business driver.
Just under half of companies are still on the fence, unsure of how it could impact their businesses, but as with all emerging technology, it only takes a couple of trailblazers trialing a new digital solution for it to start truly making waves.
About Matterport
Matterport is the leading spatial data company focused on digitising and indexing the built world. Its all-in-one 3D data platform enables anyone to turn a space into an accurate and immersive digital twin which can be used to design, build, operate, promote, and understand any space.
The platform helps customers realise the full potential of a space at every stage of its lifecycle.
