Thomas Cook lets you experience your holiday in virtual reality before you buy

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By Matthew Griffin Virtual World 24th October 2016

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Virtual reality holidays come to the high street.

Virtual reality content is being trialled for the first time by Thomas Cook at a new concept store at the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.

Customers will be able to ‘enter’ a virtual world where they can experience a 360 degree, stereoscopic tour of one of the company’s Sentido resorts as well as the in flight experience from Thomas Cook Airlines.

The first pilot will see customers enjoy a virtual tour on a developer’s version of Oculus Rift, a head mounted virtual reality 3D display, which features an ultra-wide field of view and low latency head tracking.

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The headset combined with the newly developed application will translate head and motion movements across to the virtual world as customers explore the resort, while bespoke audio and even the smell of a Sentido fragrance complete the experience.

With Oculus primed to transform the retail experience, Thomas Cook claims virtual reality will allow customers to take a sneak peek into the future of the high street travel agent.

“The technology advancements in virtual reality over the last 18 months have made it a real contender for playing a key role in changing the way we can showcase experience-based products to our customers, especially in the high street environment,” said John Straw, the group’s digital advisory board chairman.

“We have a roadmap to move forwards into more testing which looks at how we integrate innovative content into a virtual experience for our customers across Europe.”

Future plans include offering customers the ability to experience New York City with Oculus later this year, tying in with the company’s strategic partnership with BrandUSA promoting America’s ‘Great Outdoors’ as well as Cook’s new US flights.

“This trial is an industry first which, using developing technologies, demonstrates our ambition to leverage digital advancements to further improve the customer experience – in this instance to enhance what our customers experience in retail today and in the years to come,” said Joanna Wild, Managing Director of the Thomas Cook retail network.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

Matthew is regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, and his mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.