VR, or virtual reality, has developed into one of the latest and most well-liked technical advancements and could have an effect regarding the hospitality and tourism industry. “Incredible India,” a 360-degree virtual reality film produced in 2018 in collaboration between the Indian Ministry of Tourism and Google India, portrayed India as a multifaceted getaway. The utilisation of VR technology shows great promise in increasing competitive advantages within the hotel industry. Comprehensive research on VR technology's impact on the hotel business is necessary, as its adoption in India has been limited. The study intends to close this gap by investigating the advantages of integrating technology of VR in Indian hotels. Finding the main competitive benefits of VR technology adoption in hotel industry is the aim of this study. The methodology includes interviews with industry professionals and a review of the literature. According to the research, virtual reality technology can boost competitiveness by offering immersive experiences and raising customer engagement.
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Virtual reality (VR), being a widely acknowledged technological advancement, possesses the capacity to impact the travel and tourism industry. “Virtual reality” is the term used to describe a interface generated by computers, multidimensional, graphical, virtual world that utilises a diverse range of interface devices (Vishwakarma, P et al.,(2020). Ranasinghe et al., (2020) claim that tourism is a social phenomenon of great significance and one of the globe's largest and most rapidly growing industries. Numerous nations recognise tourism as a key driver of economic expansion (Aslan et al., 2021). Prior to the pandemic, the sector produced 1.5 trillion USD in revenue in 2019 (UNWTO, 2020).
Due to government-imposed laws restricting access to communities, which allowed people to visit vacation destinations, the tourism industry was primarily impacted by the pandemic. As a result, players in the tourism sector must employ alternative marketing techniques to imaginatively promote their goods. Among these strategies is virtual reality marketing, or VRM for short. According to Tussyadiah et al. (2018), the hotel and tourism industries stand to gain greatly from the development of VR marketing technology.
Virtual Reality in Hospitality
As per the study of Subawa et al., (2020) is to examine the virtual reality marketing strategies used in the Bali tourism industry. The outcome demonstrated hegemony in the use of advanced technology in VRM i.e. Virtual Reality Marketing between the targeted customer and tourists. It is generally accepted that Virtual Reality (VR) represents an extremely attractive advancement in tourism and hospitality businesses. It has the remarkable ability to deceive the senses into seeing a virtual world as real, achieved through the creation of environment that is simulated by computer in 3D interactive sessions. Such are prototypes may accurately portray any site or visitor area using 3D visuals. They are operated by high-performance computers that generate a comprehensive Virtual Environment (VE). Virtual Environment (VE) is a computer-generated digital space that, when experienced with virtual reality (VR) technology, creates a sensation of being physically present within it. A comprehensive Virtual Reality (VR) phase is considered as intermediary among users in the physical world and the Virtual Environment (VE).
There are various display technologies regarding the virtual reality which are Stereoscopic imagery, Field of view (FOV), Interpupillary distance (IPD), HMD Resolution, On-Board Processing and Operating System (Ghandour, A et al., 2021). When choosing VR equipment, the primary consideration to choose a device that is easy for the user to operate, meaning it should be comfortable to wear, easy to operate, and capable of providing a visually immersive experience with a decent sense of depth and dynamic virtual environment. A fierce competition is underway among various developers specialising in virtual reality (VR) gear and software, with VR technological advancing at such a quick pace that the current technical specifications mentioned at the point of words, this information could have become obsolete by the time of publishing..
Virtual reality (VR) has greatly influenced the tourism and hospitality sector, resulting in an increase in both the availability and popularity of these immersive experiences. Prior debates have encompassed the question of whether virtual reality (VR) poses a danger to the industry (Cheong, 1995) or if it exists as a tangible reality or simply a figment of imagination (Williams and Hobson, 1995). Present concerns mostly focus on the enhancement of its capacity as a marketing instrument (Skard et al., 2021). VR technologies are presently employed to augment the travel experience for individuals by creating immersive digital environments prior to, during, and after their journey. These technologies are also giving rise to a novel form of tourism, known as virtual tourism (VT), which involves experiencing genuine tourism landscapes in an immersive online setting (Bogicevic et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2022).