Blippar is one of the well-funded augmented reality software providers to have targeted the travel industry in 2016.
The company raised $54 million in a Series D round in March this year, just 12 months after bringing in $45 million with a C-round.
Investors like it, clearly.
Unless you've had your head under a rock for the last six months, augmented reality seems to have captured the attention of a number of brands this year as The Next Big Thing.
Some brands, such as Monarch, have been playing around with virtual reality for a while, with a direct marketing-to-mobile AR campaign back in 2012.
Blippar's president for global marketing, Omaid Hiwaizi, says that that simple campaign (from a user perspective) alone brought in 7,200 direct bookings, giving the airline an additional £2.2 million in revenue.
Speaking at the Travelport Live event in Macau, Hiwaizi says there are four areas in which AR can take hold in the travel industry.
- Bringing the experience to the customer before they book.
- Navigation and guiding (airports, hotels).
- Making travel frictionless (such as translation tools).
- Destination discovery (tours of attractions).
Hiwaizi says the parallel moves in virtual reality, where users take an "immersive experience" into a scenario via a headset, have their merit but the upfront costs are often prohibitive for brands.
Where this all goes next is anyone's guess, but Hiwaizi claims the most likely outcome is actually in a combination of the two disciplines - what he calls "mixed reality".
One of the pioneers in this area is Magic Leap, a US-company which has managed to raise $1.4 billion in funding but still hasn't brought anything into the market for users to play with.
Magic Leap uses a wearable device, like spectacles (but infinitely more "wearable" than the nerdy Google Glass hardware), but then enhances the visual work through an augmented reality-type interface.
The latest proof-of-concept video from Magic Leap is pretty extraordinary, and clearly contains huge opportunities for the travel industry.
Enjoy...
NB: Disclosure - the author's attendance at the event was supported by Travelport.