Why virtual tours and activities will stick around after the pandemic

It’s been nearly six months since Amazon launched Amazon Explore – a platform of interactive, virtual tours and experiences led by experts located around the globe.

With much of the world many months into lockdowns at that point, it seemed Amazon was jumping in to fill a void created by COVID-19, an opportunity already recognized by others such as Airbnb and Tripadvisor’s Viator, which both launched online experiences in April, as well as Klook and GetYourGuide.

In fact, Amazon says the product was in development pre-pandemic, and now it and other virtual experience providers say even as borders and destinations reopen, this type of product is here to stay, both as a new medium to experience the world and as a complement to in-person travel. 

Amazon Explore now offers more than 250 experiences starting at $10 from 20 geographic locations and in seven categories, ranging from culture and landmarks to food and drink, wellness and beauty, nature and outdoors and – naturally – personal shopping. Partners include individual hosts like Ken Sakata of Ken’s Tours Tokyo and larger suppliers like Intrepid Group’s Intrepid Urban Adventures.

For now the experiences can only be streamed by customers in the United States, with an Amazon spokesperson saying in an email that the company will “explore expanding the service to other regions based on the findings gathered during the initial launch period.”

Amazon would not share statistics on bookings but does indicate the shopping opportunity is a key component of the strategy. When asked about bookings, the spokesperson says, “Amazon is always innovating on behalf of customers and looking for ways to enhance their shopping experience. Amazon Explore promotes connections with new people and places, enables customers to shop for unique products and teaches new perspectives and skills.”

When asked if Amazon will enable booking of in-person experiences if some of its Explore hosts offer that format as travel resumes, Amazon says, “Amazon Explore was intentionally created as a virtual service and will continue to be a virtual service once travel reopens. ... Even as travel reopens, virtual experiences serve as a resource for customers to trial vacation spots and destinations.”

Enduring opportunity

The strategy of maintaining virtual experiences to complement in-person travel is top of mind for Walks CEO Stephen Oddo.

Walks has offered various forms of virtual experiences for about a decade, but the format became a priority in March 2020 when the company’s largest market – Italy – effectively shut down.

By April, Walks had launched more than two dozen “Tours from Home,” online replications of what had been in-person walking tours, narrated by some of the company’s 800 guides and incorporating videos, photos and stories.

In subsequent months, Walks added a “Spotlight Series” - focused presentations on timely topics, such as a walking tour of Wuhan, China, as it reopened and one last summer related to Black Lives Matter highlighting street artists in New York – and a series of live online experiences with guides in six cities, each doing a 15-minute tour and answering questions. 

Oddo estimates they have had about 10,000 customers book virtual experiences since the pandemic began, with prices starting at $10 for an individual ticket up to about $1,000 for large corporate clients such as Google and Cisco. He acknowledges the virtual tours have not generated a lot of revenue, but they have provided income for some guides and enabled Walks to both maintain connection with past customers and engage a new audience.

In fact, according to a recent 2,500-person survey from the Tourism Marketing Agency, only 14.8% of all tour operators who tried virtual tours amid the pandemic say they generated "a lot" of revenue. Another 39.3% say that virtual tours did not generate venue, but did help raise awareness of their brand.

“If some percentage come back and tour with us, those are customers we don’t have to pay Google for or pay whomever for,” Oddo says.

“The fact I already have a relationship with those customers, they had a good experience, that’s what we are hoping is going to pay dividends in the future.”

If some percentage come back and tour with us, those are customers we don’t have to pay Google for or pay whomever for.

Stephen Oddo - Walks

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And in that future, with borders open and international travel climbing back to pre-pandemic levels, Oddo says he sees opportunities to market virtual experiences to travelers both during their pre-trip planning phase and also post-trip.

“Before you book, take an experience with us to get an idea and then we convert the virtual [cost] into the booking so it becomes effectively no cost,” Oddo says.

“And also many of the customers on our virtual tours were customers that had taken those tours with those same guides in the past. They were loving this reconnection. That shows you can continue to delight the same guests even on later virtual experiences.”

Amsterdam-based Tiqets has taken a different approach with online experiences, but echoes the belief that these options will exist even once the pandemic is no longer stifling travel. 

Tiqets worked with some of its venue partners to create one-time virtual experiences that brought participants inside the museums and attractions, tied to specific themes such as Halloween or Valentine’s Day. 

The company says more than 55 venues and 21,000 customers have participated in the events, which have all been offered for free. 

“We hosted these campaigns in an effort to connect our venues who were shut at the time to consumers who were stuck at home and having that itch each to travel and couldn’t actually leave their house ... inspiring them for when they are able to travel again. Then from the B2B side with the venues, making sure their brands were still relevant,” says Daniel Hackett, Tiqets’ regional director for the Americas.

Rather than trying to replicate an in-person visit to these museums and attractions, Hackett says the virtual experiences are focused on providing unique, compelling content.

“Along the lines of what can you do on a virtual platform that you can’t do in person, to create that enticing message for consumers to join,” Hackett says.

“For example the Met [Metropolitan Museum of Art] in New York gave us a sneak peak into an exhibition that wasn’t open to the public.”

Hackett says he expects virtual experiences to remain an option Tiqets offers to its venue partners, and the company is exploring how to use things like Facebook Live and Instagram Live to market the events, but it has no plans to turn them them into sources of revenue.

“We’re not trying to replace the in-destination, person-to-person experience at all, and we are not looking to monetize them either. This is a way for us to make sure consumers can engage with venues pre-travel and potentially post-travel, but not a strict replacement."