Interactive Venue Guides vs. Conventional Virtual Tours

Traditional Virtual Tours assume that simply allowing a visitor to "tour" a venue will get more bookings. As you know preparing a great "showround" requires careful planning and creating an itinerary that matches your potential clients needs and highlights your best features.

We blend your knowledge with our technical skills to create a bespoke presentation of the total experience, not just the building.

If a potential conference/wedding client arrived at your venue would you just hand them a pass key and let them look around? Unfortunately many standard format 3d tours do just that, but our virtual guides are different.

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User Experience

Do visitors need to wait while it loads?

Forget irritating loading messages, we are able to offer (and recommend) in-line embedding of our guides, drawing viewers instinctively to start looking around.

What's the best way to introduce our Guide?

It"s up to you. Often we start the guide with an aerial or high level panorama to allow them to see the "big picture" (if appropriate we can indicate local attractions/area links)

How about finding a particular area of interest or sending a client direct there?

Users can use the pop out menu to , with a single click, navigate directly to where they want to see. When you share the guide on email/social media you can send a link that opens it directly in the area your clients are interested in or you want to feature.

We've spent a lot of time and money creating a beautiful environment: how will it look?

For our venue guides we use traditional high end photography techniques (professional DSLR cameras and wide angle lenses) to take 20 photos for each panorama. You can truly look around inside, even into dark areas, but also view clearly through windows. It takes more time and care but it's worth it!

How "user friendly" are your guides.

Our core design philosophy is KISS ("keep it simple st----d") less clicks and less screen clutter creates a more relaxing/productive viewer experience. Call to action buttons ensure it has a clear purpose both for the viewer and the venue.

Clients have complained that on some tours they can get lost/confused on virtual tours?

We design them to move quickly between areas, the scene title changes as they navigate and all clickable links have clear text titles. Floorplans can be offered but for larger sites these are often irrelevant and a map view can be more effective.

Do you offer video?

Video is great for grabbing attention. We offer "fly through" video to drive users from social media to your virtual guide, where they then have the time to properly explore what you offer.

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It's About Your Venue

How can you differentiate our venue from others?

Your venue is far more than a building, it is a complete experience. We don't produce standard virtual tours, we design together with you (the experts) a bespoke virtual guide with clear objectives (e.g. book a face to face showround, reserve a room etc.) and direct hyperlinks to your forms/website.

Can we tailor a guide to a particular type of enquiry?

To allow even easier "quick" navigation we design (with you) simple next/previous selections on each view to move between, for example, wedding photo locations, meeting room layouts, bedroom types, etc.

What about audio introductions?

By adding a relaxed voice over to either the overall guide or linked to particular views/areas we can improve engagement. Where appropriate pop up info boxes/video embeds can also be added to answer questions or emphasise a venues key features.

How can we showcase visually actual events and experiences?

Presenting a clean canvas so viewers can imagine their own design ideas is important, however by including a simple (max 5) image gallery at the top, you can add a human touch and some alternative layout ideas. These can be drawn from your existing galleries but also updated as you have new events etc.

Can we include surrounding attractions?

Apart from links/flags within the guide we can also offer a pop out interactive map populated with other local attractions/partners. An ideal local marketing/partner recruiting relationship enhancing tool for many venues.

Can we use at exhibitions or in our Reception Areas?

If you want a (automatic playing) version to use at exhibitions or in foyers/guest area then a separate adapted version can be supplied to run on a standard PC/laptop without the need for an internet connection whilst still offering the full range of guide interactions.

What about if we want to add or update individual areas?

We hand-code and design your guide (not using cloud auto tour generators) so we can easily update your guide seamlessly to match your venue/s service developments and refurbishments..

Some venues also like to share areas across separate locations for promotion or cross selling

Can we show areas with different layouts or before/after changes

There are various ways we can do this: just ask for a demonstration.

What if there are changes we want to make to the photography?

It's important to preapre the rooms to look their best for photography but we do understand there are sometimes things that are missed. We will always do our best to help and editing spherical images is problematic, there may also be some time costs involved. Because we hand edit all photographs we have more options than the automatic virtual tour systems.(s).

What about our corporate colours and branding?

We have been careful to create a clean user interface where the star is your actual venue. If you would like us to recolour our symbols to blend with your website then just ask (small fee).

What are the ongoing costs?

We host and maintain your guide for a single annual fee of 10% of the guide production cost (first 12 months free).

Who Owns the Photography?

We will happily supply you with the 360° (equirectangular) panoramas which you can use in Facebook posts, Booking.com listings. We can also upload them to your Google Business/Maps listing.

What is the Development Process?

Your Brief

A bit about what you do and what you'd like to communicate. Think about how you "show visitors around" (or would like to)

Outline Quote/s

Clearly as bespoke developments we don't offer standard pricing (or a "standard" service)but based upon your brief (any floor-plans or photos could help) we can give a price indication with options pretty quickly.

Multiple Photography Visits

Sometimes it is necessary to visit at different times dependent upon room (or layout) availability. We have a standard revisit fee and that applies to future tour updates etc.

Photography

At a convenient time (for externals weather dependent). Please have it looking perfect as you can at the scheduled time: remember 360° imagery literally captures everything visible from the camera position.

Imagery Generation

The complicated bit. We take the imagery and combine/edit different exposures (HDR) which are then stitched to create panoramic 360 images and are further edited and colour corrected.

Guide Alpha

We create a linked "tour" from the panoramas.

Detailed Content

Here we add your logo, text boxes, video, photo albums, hyperlinks etc.as agreed.

Guide Beta

We upload so you can review, give your feedback and we can agree the final format and "look".

Embedding in website etc.

We can liaise with your web designer and advise on the best ways the guide can be linked within your website.

Drone Safety & Privacy

We intentionally exceed any legal or insurance requirements. We prefer to think creatively rather than take unnecessaary risks.