Radisson Hotel Group is rolling out immersive digital experiences of its properties, with 100 hotels set to offer the service by the end of the year.
The so called ‘digital replicas’ allow customers to view hotels virtually from their laptops, mobile phones and VR headsets.
Radisson said that the service “has blended the digital and physical worlds, where guests can move around, explore the hotel spaces virtually, see what the view from the room looks like, and even interact with surrounding objects”.
Customers can then “book the specific place they see on their screen via a simple and seamless booking process”.
The service has grown from a pilot launched in 2020, to 86 properties today and plans to increase this to 100 hotels by the end of 2023.
The group says that the immersive experiences have delivered a 279 per cent increase in the number of clicks, a 3.85 per cent increase in average time on the page, and a 20.91 per cent increase in interactions, when comparing 2022 with 2021 when the properties had only static images.
Hotels offering digital replicas include The May Fair, A Radisson Collection Hotel in London – a video outlining the experience can be seen below.
Radisson also said that immersive content had resulted in a 12 per cent increase in booking conversions for meeting and events business at participating properties.
The rollout is part of the next phase of the group’s “comprehensive digital transformation”, which also aims to increase the number of languages available on its reservation system from the current 29 to 31 by the end of the year.
Radisson cited data showing that “the local language conversion rate is on average three times higher in markets where English is not the main language”.
Commenting on the news Raul Alvarez Barrera, vice president global digital experience, Radisson Hotel Group, said:
“In 2020, we decided to shift our business focus from international to domestic and to adapt our digital experience to be more interactive and localized by translating the full booking funnel of our website and app into key strategic languages.
“The next phase included the roll-out of our Immersive Experiences. Thanks to these virtual and interactive tours, our customers can discover our hotels from anywhere in the world. This technology has been invaluable, especially to our Meetings and Events business, as it allows us to show busy meeting planners the different flexible, and customizable options we offer across our portfolio.
“Localization and immersive experiences have helped us to strengthen the trust and relationship we have with existing customers and have proven to be great long-term investments, as they have contributed to increased customer satisfaction and higher conversion rates.
“We are extremely proud of the results achieved by these projects which highlight our passion for innovation and our aim to bring the digital experience closer to our customers.”
