With the latest extension of the national coronavirus shelter-in-place advisories, Visiting Media – maker of TrueTour™, hospitality’s leading immersive sales and marketing SaaS platform – sees a new normal emerging from the way hotels, resorts and event centers communicate, sell and show their properties from afar. Visiting Media’s industry adoption metrics have been fast-forwarded, with no sign of slowing down even after travel traffic rebounds.
Despite what some experts predict will be a swift bounceback in the overall US economy by midyear, the hospitality industry is going to need to bridge the gap with innovative solutions to maximize revenues and address changes in consumer expectations.
The Data Doesn’t Lie
With interest in virtual touring/visiting soaring, and customers being forced to acclimate to a remote method of communication, the hospitality industry is faced with a world which is now only available virtually. Customers aren’t necessarily foregoing future planning, they’re just looking for ways to plan and shop virtually, online. Our internal data shows, in March alone, the number of people looking for virtual tour content of hotels and resorts jumped by more than 10,000%; this is more than the previous 15 years combined. Google Trends data shows a similar skyrocketing interest in virtual content and experiences during the month of March.
Now that customers are adjusting to web-based platforms to fulfill 100% of their communication needs, hotels who don’t have a comprehensive virtual sales and communication platform (more than a simple virtual tour or video on their smartphone) will lose business to their competitors, especially as things begin to rebound.
“Don’t Create Your Own Recession”
“The last thing you want to do is create your own lengthy financial recession by cutting your marketing lifeline,” says Chelsea Schroeder, Head of Communications and Marketing for Visiting Media. “For companies facing grim projections, we’re here to provide our industry expertise, rapidly accelerating a company’s training and adoption phase through expert virtual training and one-on-one, company-wide support. We’ve shifted our business model from an external sales approach to a fully support-based orientation. Our customers need solutions, new customers need solutions, and we’re dedicated to being there for them with all of our resources.”
Visiting Media’s TrueTour™ sales tool, the first-to-market immersive sales platform for the hospitality industry, empowers properties with extremely high-quality 360°, 3D and virtual reality presentation, delivery, tracking and integration capabilities. Virtually performing walk-throughs and site tours at a distance provides a safer way to plan events and future travel.
“Relying on TrueTour Now More Than Ever Before!”
Visiting Media’s current customers have overwhelmingly voiced their relief that they have a virtual SaaS platform, “relying on TrueTour now more than ever before!” To help current customers launch their fully-remote strategies, Visiting Media’s senior sales team has already started presenting webinars to unveil data-driven tactics properties can implement immediately, and training which will smooth the virtual marketing transition across their organization.
As many hotels cut sales and marketing expenses, TrueTour helps hotels and resorts maintain a market advantage by increasing average booking speeds, upsell rates and incremental revenue. This unprecedented wide-spread adoption of remote communications and business dealings produced a consumer base who is exceedingly comfortable and immediately able to virtually visit. After this forced acclimation, travelers and planners will start to see in-person visits as a time-consuming and expensive alternative. Planners and travelers will prefer a virtual visit from the comfort of their home or office as hotels and event venues streamline their virtual marketing techniques.
Don’t Panic — Pivot
Knowing that consumer’s travel confidence has been affected this year, it doesn’t mean these customers have stopped shopping and planning. Hotels with virtual selling and visiting capabilities are now capturing customers’ attention while they plan future travel and events. As planners move events away from properties without virtual planning capabilities, Visiting Media is helping properties bridge this critical communication gap now and into the future.
Interested to learn more? Contact us today and hear from our Enterprise Sales Team how TrueTour can provide your unique property with a turnkey solution as quickly as possible.
About Visiting Media: Visiting Media is a technology and immersive content production company dedicated to delivering the world’s best visual selling tools to inspire, describe, promote and convey our customers’ spaces as early as possible in the buying cycle. We build innovative and powerful, yet simple solutions that deliver both traditional and immersive (360, 3D, virtual reality) content and focus on making selling easier, pragmatic and more joyful. Our products immediately increase conversions, selling speed, sales team efficiency and actionable data collection. (www.visitingmedia.com)