09 Feb 2015
Google technology allows gym and spa guests to book appointments during virtual tours
BY Helen Andrews
A fast-growing virtual marketing tour developed by Google has the potential to transform the way leisure facilities like health clubs and spas attract new customers.
Google Business View is a technology based on Google’s established StreetView system that allows viewers to take a 360-degree interactive virtual tour of businesses – designed to allow potential customers to virtually explore and interact with places before they visit.
Clients and visitors can explore facilities and locations before they arrive by virtually walking through buildings and can even interact with objects in the pictures – for example a virtual browser could click on a treatment menu that is visible in a tour of a spa. The menu can be read and treatments can be booked during this tour.
This interactivity allows virtual guests to reserve rooms in hotels, select classes to take at gyms, make appointments with personal trainers and is being marketed as a way to better replicate the visitor experience and actively drive appointments and win new business – rather than just a way to showcase facilities.
Still in its infancy, the service does require a business to pay for a photographer to 'map' their premises, but the technology is expected to make major gains in 2015.
“We’ve seen an explosion in the demand for virtual tours as businesses have begun to recognise its value as a marketing tool," said Jay Scott-Nicholls, founder of aardvark360, one of Google’s trusted photographic agencies.
"As the majority of consumers start their search for local services, products or information using the Google search engine and regularly using Google StreetView, we see this innovative technology as an invaluable addition not only to a small business but any size or type of business too."
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