The tourism industry takes a look at the metaverse

If you don’t have anything planned for May 22, how about a return trip to Benidorm… without leaving your home? On this date, the famous seaside resort on the east coast of Spain, on the Costa Blanca, BenidormLand, is launching a metaverse (or metaverse) that will be accessible to the 140 million users of the Steam online gaming platform. The promise of this pilot project, developed with the Spanish company SIX3D? An immersion in the city, between beaches and skyscrapers, as if we were there ourselves.

Tourist players still not very interested in the metaverse in France

Benidorm is the first European tourist destination to announce its positioning in the metaverse, this immersive and interactive virtual world that has been gaining momentum since July 2021, after Marc Zuckerberg announced the construction of a metaverse by Facebook (renamed Meta, by the way). “This evolution of the Internet is part of a context where social networks are in a very competitive environment with the arrival of new entrants. There may be a saturation of users, who have to switch platforms or experiment with new ways of communicating”says Naïma Aïdi, a PhD student in information and communication sciences, specializing in tourism.

Cities in Asia, including Seoul and Tokyo, have also announced their arrival on the metaverse. South Korea’s capital plans to open its own metaverse in 2023, which will offer a tour of the city’s top attractions, from Gwanghwamun Square to Namdaemun Market to Deoksugung Palace.

In France, tourism players are still cautious about the metaverse. While the director general of the tourist office of Val d’Isère announced the purchase of land on Next Earth, a decentralized virtual world, on its own, the city of Cannes announced on Twitter in early April “the first city in France and Europe to invest in the metaverse”. Specifically, a partnership has been entered into with a Cannes-based company specializing in artificial intelligence to store certain emblematic sites in Cannes in the form of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT).

🔴 Cannes, 1st city in France and Europe to invest in #metaverse !

The #TownhallDeCanneslooking to the future approached a Cannes company specializing in the#AI to digitize and enhance elements of its heritage, secured by the #blockchain. pic.twitter.com/ZT1kU8Cx7n

— Cannes (@cannesville) Apr 4, 2022

“The prized sites are the Palais des Festivals de Cannes, the Boulevard de la Croisette, Port Canto, Île Sainte-Marguerite, the Underwater Eco Museum, Malmaison, the Old Port, the Forville Market, the Suquet, Pointe Croisette and Campus Georges -Meliès”the town hall says. During the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity next June, an auction will be organized to acquire these first 10 NFTs. “Buyers will receive a 3D reproduction of the object. The 11th will be offered to a resident of Cannes as part of a draw,” the town hall completes.

A parallel tourist offer

The metaverse, which is still in its infancy, is a new playground for the tourism industry. So what can we expect in terms of products in this virtual world? “We can imagine extraordinary catalogs, in 4D, of the destination, in which it will be possible to walk around. As with augmented reality, we can also imagine that we can walk back in time and discover how the monuments used to be goods”describes Sophie Lacour, general manager of Advanced Tourism.

“The metaverse can be a promotional tool for brands and destinations, a recreation of what they offer.” Sophie Lacour, General Manager of Advanced Tourism

“The added value of the metaverse is to offer things that you can’t provide locally, such as walking around old destinations, interacting with historical characters”, adds Sophie Lacour. The metaverse could also be a way to encourage tourists to return to a destination where they would not have had time to fully explore it, thus encouraging the phenomenon of “repeaters”, those tourists who visit at least twice. visit the same destination.

Tourist destinations invented in the metaverse?

The specialist goes even further, wondering whether in the long run it will not be possible to come up with tourist destinations in the metaverse. After all, many artists have already created their own universe in the metaverse, such as MoyaLand, the virtual universe of artist Patrick Moya on Second Life, which has been around since 2007. This touristic virtual universe includes a tourist office, an airport, but also several museums. “With the metaverse, tourism will have to be redefined”enthuses Sophie Lacour, who nevertheless wants to be careful.

5 to 10 years before you see a successful offer

According to the consultant, neither the servers nor the people are indeed ready for a democratization of the metaverse. At the moment, only technophiles and early adopters seem to be interested in these new worlds, even if the studies are encouraging. For example, a Yougov study conducted on February 24-25, 2022 reports that nearly one in two young people (47%) between the ages of 18 and 24 would be curious to visit a tourist destination through a metaverse.

“It will take hardware, perhaps glasses — gear that not everyone has — as well as powerful machines to make the experience enjoyable. For now, the metaverse isn’t for everyone around the world, for technological and sociological reasons related to this disruptive technology.” It will be like this for another 5 to 10 years”says Sophie Lacour.

For this reason, the advisor advises its clients in the tourism sector to be very careful. “The question is also to invest in the right metaverse, the one that will last. We look at what happens, we can buy pieces of land, but it’s not worth making big investments at the moment”she explains.

The metaverse will not replace the real one

Especially because there is a fear among various tourism stakeholders that the metaverse will replace reality. No chance, thinks Sophie Lacour, who believes that people always want to move. In addition, when we refer to the definition of tourism as set forth by the World Tourism Organization, the latter denotes: “a social, cultural and economic phenomenon in which people are moved to countries or places outside their usual environment, for personal reasons or for business and professional reasons.” So nothing to do with visiting a virtual world sitting in your own couch.

“There is a big difference between eating a skewer at the Baltic and eating a hamburger in the metaverse.” Sophie Lacour, General Manager of Advanced Tourism

For Naima Aidi, “the tourist experience is still strongly linked with hedonism, with pleasure, with the feeling of discovering new things, of being amazed. The metaverse can arouse a desire to travel, but it cannot replace an entire experience.”

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