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Internet Tourism

Along with the benefits that the internet has already provided the tourism industry with there are many more possible ways that it can continue to affect the industry in the future. One of these ways is with the introduction of virtual tourism. Virtual tourism is just beginning to be experimented with and has a very bright outlook for the near future. “Real life travel companies are also beginning to recognise the possible benefits of cyberspace to their industry. STA Travel, the world's largest student travel organisation, just recently opened its virtual doors in Second Life. Visitors can pick up electronic travel brochures from the virtual STA office staffed by avatar travel advisors as well as book real-life trips” (Gaskell, 2007). This means that in the near future the consumer can choose to either go on a conventional trip to their desired location, or they could upload a virtual version of that location and visit it with a virtual character. Within this virtual world the possibilities would be endless, and you could interact with other virtual tourists visiting the same location when you are. Not only could travel agencies take advantage of virtual tourism, but hotel companies could do the same. “Starwood Hotels, owner of the Westin and Sheraton chains as well as the W brand, recently opened their virtual boutique hotel, Aloft, in Second Life. Based on a real-life model that's not due to open until September 2008, the virtual hotel is seen by Starwood as an easy way to test their market and raise their profile” (Gaskell, 2007). Hotel chains could create virtual versions of their hotels online through the program Second Life and can test out new ideas without heavily investing money into it. This could ultimately save companies millions of dollars and could also save the consumer money. In the end the possibilities for virtual tourism are endless and future technologies will make this type of tourism more and more popular.