From your sofa, climb Mount Everest, visit a museum in New York or dive through a coral reef: virtual experiences have received an enormous boost from the pandemic.

This has not gone unnoticed by the travel and leisure industry. No longer is the technology being used just for their marketing, but also as a product. Is the hype here to stay? And if so, where is the journey heading?

Two experts – Armin Brysch, who researches this topic at Kempten University of Applied Sciences, and Tristan Horx, who studies new trends at the Zukunftsinstitut (future institute) in Frankfurt, Germany – share their thoughts about the future of virtual reality travel.

If you look at virtual travel, it quickly becomes clear that the industry is only just trying its hand at it. For example, the Tourism Authority of Madrid has begun offering a virtual experience to see the Spanish capital before an actual trip.

A visitor needs to book a 30-minute appointment on the authority’s website, with the tour using a video phone call via Zoom. Once connected, a tour guide virtually surfs through the streets of Madrid, stopping at places when the visitor has questions.

Soon, 360-degree images appear with the tour guide zooming in, for example, at the Royal Palace. The service provides a useful first impression of a city, but it really doesn’t amount to a complete virtual reality (VR) experience.

VR travel requires a “computer-generated, virtual, three-dimensional environment that you perceive with VR glasses”, explains Brysch.

Shielding all outside light by means of the VR glasses – in what is called a “cave”, or a room fully equipped with monitors – is necessary for the viewer to be completely surrounded by the virtual world.

“The deeper the traveller is immersed in the world provided them, the more realistic the artificial experience is,” says Brysch. Experts call this immersion, and it requires high-resolution images and an exciting narrative.

Even if some tourism experts still call virtual reality travel a niche development, there is no doubt that something is afoot.

With German company Timeride, for example, you can go on a virtual journey through cities at different points in history, and immerse yourself in the life of earlier eras.

Does all this have a future? According to a recent survey by market researcher Bitkom Research, it would appear so.

The next big thing is the “metaverse” – the virtual space that expands on today’s internet and in which one moves and interacts as a digital model of oneself.

The Bitkom survey found that 21 per cent of respondents aged 16 and over expect to explore foreign places with the help of VR goggles in 2030 instead of travelling there in the traditional way.

The proportion is higher among younger people, but even among the over-64 age group, 15 per cent share this view.

“[VR] will remain where it makes sense … By looking at four places with VR glasses and then deciding on one, that can work,” Horx says about choosing a travel destination. His remark should please the tourism experts in Madrid.

The question remains whether virtual travel will replace real travel. Brysch is sure it won’t: “Just because we can look at the destination in 3D, we won’t give up going there.”

For some target groups, however, there could be trade-offs, he says. For example, those people who cannot travel because of physical limitations, or for people who find travel too expensive, stressful, dangerous or harmful to the climate.

“VR can create a substitute experience,” Brysch says.

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