TECHNOLOGY

How Metaverse is Reshaping the Tourism Industry

Published

1 year ago

November 19, 2022

How Metaverse is Reshaping the Tourism Industry

Industries worldwide gradually realize the significance of the ever-growing developments in metaverse technology, including the travel and tourism industry.

The use of the metaverse in tourism is anticipated to alter the meaning of travel altogether, taking customer experience to an entirely new level.

The distinction between what is physical and what is digital is becoming increasingly hazy as a result of a quantum jump in technological breakthroughs. The metaverse and its effects on numerous industries and how we live our lives have recently generated a lot of attention. The latest developments in the metaverse technology have inspired multiple industries to start adopting this sophisticated tool, and the tourism sector is no exception.

The recent pandemic not only disrupted the tourism business temporarily but also showcased the vulnerability of the industry. With more natural calamities and uncertainties expected to come due to global warming and other factors, there is a fair chance people might want to switch to local travel instead of international tourism. These shortcomings serve to highlight some of the most significant ways that the idea of metaverse for tourism is influencing the travel sector. Immersive virtual worlds have the potential to improve how consumers interact with destinations and even replace some cases of actual travel without negatively impacting the industry.

The metaverse has the potential to deliver some of the most immersive travel experiences in the coming years. The majority of customers tend to try products before making a purchase. By enabling virtual experiences for travelers prior to booking their vacations, the metaverse has the potential to totally alter the tourism industry. This will advance the notion of “try before you buy.”

The metaverse is increasingly seen as a catalyst rather than a substitute for existing technologies. As a result, businesses like hotel chains, tour companies, travel agencies and others may publicize their services through the metaverse. As a result, the metaverse has the power to influence travel patterns. The metaverse is anticipated to have a greater impact on the tourism industry, enhancing user experience and communication as more metaverse travel and tourism options emerge and user adoption increases.

While it’s crucial to comprehend how the metaverse is affecting the tourism and hospitality industries, business owners, entrepreneurs and other key decision-makers also must be aware of the true advantages of travel in the metaverse. Here are some instances of how this type of travel technology trend could help businesses benefit from metaverse tourism:

1. Inspiring Virtual Tourism Purchases

One of the main advantages of metaverse for tourism is that it may encourage tourists to try out virtual visits to the destinations on their wish list. For instance, using an interactive virtual experience that can accurately depict a real-world landscape, visitors can get a solid idea of a particular region before they visit it. Similarly, for lodging and travel, prospective travelers can use virtual reality experiences to understand what amenities a place offers and the distance to prominent locations. With the help of the metaverse, tourists can get motivated and finish making a reservation or purchase.

2. Boosting the Booking Process

Apart from inspiring virtual tourism purchases, metaverse tourism also significantly improves the booking experience by offering useful data that has never been communicated before, at least not as accurately. As a result, the likelihood that a consumer would continue their booking process rather than cancel increases. For instance, hotels can use virtual reality tours that let guests physically walk in what’s a reproduction of the hotel premises, allowing them to understand the size of the rooms, the geography of the property, and the available amenities in the hotel. Travel agents, on the other hand, can similarly leverage VR to give their clients a tour with realistic impressions of a destination they want to visit.

3. Rising Booking Volume

The metaverse offers to raise the booking volume, which truly represents their value throughout the booking process. The two previously mentioned elements are combined to accomplish this. When it comes to booking concierge apps for hotels, flights, restaurants and other services, virtual reality and augmented reality travel technologies can initially inspire, but over time, these experiences become even more educational, enjoyable and valuable as a tool for influencing purchase decisions.

The Metaverse and Web 3.0 Why It Matters

Virtual Trade Exhibitions

The COVID-19 epidemic had a negative impact on trade exhibitions, expos and similar events, necessitating their entry into the internet world. Solutions for metaverse tourism can assist in elevating these online events and enhancing the experience of immersion. The social interactions that are feasible in a physical setting can be duplicated through VR, the usage of avatars or by alternative methods in addition to moving the events into the digital environment.

VR Tourism

Metaverse tourism and AR/VR technology for development are interconnected, but VR tourism can enhance the scenario. VR experiences can either reduce or eliminate the necessity for physical travel or provide more valuable experiences to enhance it. Tours in virtual reality may already provide lifelike experiences, enabling individuals to indulge in sightseeing from the convenience of their homes. This has advanced to the point that many virtual locations for tourism are being used to host business meetings, concerts, and other forms of entertainment virtually.

Destination Window Shopping

The incorporation of augmented reality for metaverse travel and tourism solutions would be highly advantageous to let customers check out a destination before actually visiting it. Before choosing a destination, one could compare sites, determine whether an attraction is worthwhile or consider the view before choosing a hotel. AR games and apps can assist hotels in providing a virtual experience for their customers beforehand.

The present methods of the vacation planning, which include reading blogs and publications and watching YouTube videos, will be greatly outpaced by this new immersive experience. An embedded AR technology can lead you through your virtual visit much like a tour guide would, enhancing the realism of the experience.

Virtual Attractions

The main reason for the rise of metaverse tourism is the birth of virtual attractions such as theme parks, museums, zoos, etc. Since these attractions would be able to indulge in anything that resembles a real-life event, users will have a more immersive experience. However, it might also offer considerable advantages to businesses. For instance, a theme park that can be accessed virtually is not constrained by gravity or rigorous safety regulations like in a real-life theme park. A virtual museum, likewise, need not have actual historical artifacts but can host virtual replicas of practically any relics, even from the bygone era.

Train Stations and Airports

At times, crowded areas might feel daunting, especially if you’re traveling with family and young kids. Similar issues arise in crowded airports with numerous terminals. The majority of the time, tourists are the ones that have difficulty navigating these locations, especially if they are doing so for the first time. Travelers who have had a metaverse experience may feel more at ease with their surroundings in such a scenario.

Historical Travel

The current generation might not be able to visit the Egyptian Pyramids in all their ancient magnificence. But can this wish come true in the metaverse? Using the metaverse to simulate the restoration of historical structures in all their former splendor is possible. Travelers will be able to do this to explore the past and experience life as it was in history.

A parallel virtual world that will be a virtual representation of the real world will enable the possibility of all of this and more. There are countless opportunities in the metaverse for tourism. The travel and tourism industry, which includes the hotel, airline, cruise, and other sectors, can prosper from the advent of the metaverse. Since the metaverse is still in its early stages, different people presently hold differing opinions on it. But things are developing quickly as more established businesses like Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and a few others have begun to invest in this sector, including but not limited to gaming, hardware, networking, virtual platforms, financial systems, social media, social media, etc. This enhances different standards and technologies, creating a more developed and authentic metaverse. Being digital natives and tech-savvy travelers, the younger generations may adapt to the metaverse at an unfathomable rate. As a result, it won’t be long until people realize that the metaverse is real and here to stay.

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TECHNOLOGY

Next-gen chips, Amazon Q, and speedy S3

Published

2 weeks ago

December 1, 2023

Max

AWS re:Invent, which has been taking place from November 27 and runs to December 1, has had its usual plethora of announcements: a total of 21 at time of print.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the huge potential impact of generative AI – ChatGPT officially turns one year old today – a lot of focus has been on the AI side for AWS’ announcements, including a major partnership inked with NVIDIA across infrastructure, software, and services.

Yet there has been plenty more announced at the Las Vegas jamboree besides. Here, CloudTech rounds up the best of the rest:

Next-generation chips

This was the other major AI-focused announcement at re:Invent: the launch of two new chips, AWS Graviton4 and AWS Trainium2, for training and running AI and machine learning (ML) models, among other customer workloads. Graviton4 shapes up against its predecessor with 30% better compute performance, 50% more cores and 75% more memory bandwidth, while Trainium2 delivers up to four times faster training than before and will be able to be deployed in EC2 UltraClusters of up to 100,000 chips.

The EC2 UltraClusters are designed to ‘deliver the highest performance, most energy efficient AI model training infrastructure in the cloud’, as AWS puts it. With it, customers will be able to train large language models in ‘a fraction of the time’, as well as double energy efficiency.

As ever, AWS offers customers who are already utilising these tools. Databricks, Epic and SAP are among the companies cited as using the new AWS-designed chips.

Zero-ETL integrations

AWS announced new Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Relational Database Services (Amazon RDS) for MySQL integrations with Amazon Redshift, AWS’ cloud data warehouse. The zero-ETL integrations – eliminating the need to build ETL (extract, transform, load) data pipelines – make it easier to connect and analyse transactional data across various relational and non-relational databases in Amazon Redshift.

A simple example of how zero-ETL functions can be seen is in a hypothetical company which stores transactional data – time of transaction, items bought, where the transaction occurred – in a relational database, but use another analytics tool to analyse data in a non-relational database. To connect it all up, companies would previously have to construct ETL data pipelines which are a time and money sink.

The latest integrations “build on AWS’s zero-ETL foundation… so customers can quickly and easily connect all of their data, no matter where it lives,” the company said.

Amazon S3 Express One Zone

AWS announced the general availability of Amazon S3 Express One Zone, a new storage class purpose-built for customers’ most frequently-accessed data. Data access speed is up to 10 times faster and request costs up to 50% lower than standard S3. Companies can also opt to collocate their Amazon S3 Express One Zone data in the same availability zone as their compute resources.

Companies and partners who are using Amazon S3 Express One Zone include ChaosSearch, Cloudera, and Pinterest.

Amazon Q

A new product, and an interesting pivot, again with generative AI at its core. Amazon Q was announced as a ‘new type of generative AI-powered assistant’ which can be tailored to a customer’s business. “Customers can get fast, relevant answers to pressing questions, generate content, and take actions – all informed by a customer’s information repositories, code, and enterprise systems,” AWS added. The service also can assist companies building on AWS, as well as companies using AWS applications for business intelligence, contact centres, and supply chain management.

Customers cited as early adopters include Accenture, BMW and Wunderkind.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

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TECHNOLOGY

HCLTech and Cisco create collaborative hybrid workplaces

Published

2 weeks ago

November 29, 2023

Max

Digital comms specialist Cisco and global tech firm HCLTech have teamed up to launch Meeting-Rooms-as-a-Service (MRaaS).

Available on a subscription model, this solution modernises legacy meeting rooms and enables users to join meetings from any meeting solution provider using Webex devices.

The MRaaS solution helps enterprises simplify the design, implementation and maintenance of integrated meeting rooms, enabling seamless collaboration for their globally distributed hybrid workforces.

Rakshit Ghura, senior VP and Global head of digital workplace services, HCLTech, said: “MRaaS combines our consulting and managed services expertise with Cisco’s proficiency in Webex devices to change the way employees conceptualise, organise and interact in a collaborative environment for a modern hybrid work model.

“The common vision of our partnership is to elevate the collaboration experience at work and drive productivity through modern meeting rooms.”

Alexandra Zagury, VP of partner managed and as-a-Service Sales at Cisco, said: “Our partnership with HCLTech helps our clients transform their offices through cost-effective managed services that support the ongoing evolution of workspaces.

“As we reimagine the modern office, we are making it easier to support collaboration and productivity among workers, whether they are in the office or elsewhere.”

Cisco’s Webex collaboration devices harness the power of artificial intelligence to offer intuitive, seamless collaboration experiences, enabling meeting rooms with smart features such as meeting zones, intelligent people framing, optimised attendee audio and background noise removal, among others.

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, HCLTech, Hybrid, meetings

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TECHNOLOGY

Canonical releases low-touch private cloud MicroCloud

Published

2 weeks ago

November 28, 2023

Max

Canonical has announced the general availability of MicroCloud, a low-touch, open source cloud solution. MicroCloud is part of Canonical’s growing cloud infrastructure portfolio.

It is purpose-built for scalable clusters and edge deployments for all types of enterprises. It is designed with simplicity, security and automation in mind, minimising the time and effort to both deploy and maintain it. Conveniently, enterprise support for MicroCloud is offered as part of Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro subscription, with several support tiers available, and priced per node.

MicroClouds are optimised for repeatable and reliable remote deployments. A single command initiates the orchestration and clustering of various components with minimal involvement by the user, resulting in a fully functional cloud within minutes. This simplified deployment process significantly reduces the barrier to entry, putting a production-grade cloud at everyone’s fingertips.

Juan Manuel Ventura, head of architectures & technologies at Spindox, said: “Cloud computing is not only about technology, it’s the beating heart of any modern industrial transformation, driving agility and innovation. Our mission is to provide our customers with the most effective ways to innovate and bring value; having a complexity-free cloud infrastructure is one important piece of that puzzle. With MicroCloud, the focus shifts away from struggling with cloud operations to solving real business challenges” says

In addition to seamless deployment, MicroCloud prioritises security and ease of maintenance. All MicroCloud components are built with strict confinement for increased security, with over-the-air transactional updates that preserve data and roll back on errors automatically. Upgrades to newer versions are handled automatically and without downtime, with the mechanisms to hold or schedule them as needed.

With this approach, MicroCloud caters to both on-premise clouds but also edge deployments at remote locations, allowing organisations to use the same infrastructure primitives and services wherever they are needed. It is suitable for business-in-branch office locations or industrial use inside a factory, as well as distributed locations where the focus is on replicability and unattended operations.

Cedric Gegout, VP of product at Canonical, said: “As data becomes more distributed, the infrastructure has to follow. Cloud computing is now distributed, spanning across data centres, far and near edge computing appliances. MicroCloud is our answer to that.

“By packaging known infrastructure primitives in a portable and unattended way, we are delivering a simpler, more prescriptive cloud experience that makes zero-ops a reality for many Industries.“

MicroCloud’s lightweight architecture makes it usable on both commodity and high-end hardware, with several ways to further reduce its footprint depending on your workload needs. In addition to the standard Ubuntu Server or Desktop, MicroClouds can be run on Ubuntu Core – a lightweight OS optimised for the edge. With Ubuntu Core, MicroClouds are a perfect solution for far-edge locations with limited computing capabilities. Users can choose to run their workloads using Kubernetes or via system containers. System containers based on LXD behave similarly to traditional VMs but consume fewer resources while providing bare-metal performance.

Coupled with Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro + Support subscription, MicroCloud users can benefit from an enterprise-grade open source cloud solution that is fully supported and with better economics. An Ubuntu Pro subscription offers security maintenance for the broadest collection of open-source software available from a single vendor today. It covers over 30k packages with a consistent security maintenance commitment, and additional features such as kernel livepatch, systems management at scale, certified compliance and hardening profiles enabling easy adoption for enterprises. With per-node pricing and no hidden fees, customers can rest assured that their environment is secure and supported without the expensive price tag typically associated with cloud solutions.

Tags: automation, Canonical, MicroCloud, private cloud

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