Best Western Hotels and Resorts is a global network of over 4,100 independently owned hotels in more than 100 countries worldwide. This venerable hospitality brand recently completed a $2 billion brand refresh that has driven its digital transformation.
The most exciting part of this effort: a 360 degree virtual reality (VR) experience across all its North American Hotels. “If you look at our images through virtual reality, they’re so much more vivid,” says Best Western CEO David Kong. “It allows the user to do so much more than just look at a plain photograph.”
Customers will be able to view a three-dimensional view of each hotel’s pool, lobby, fitness, center, parking lot, and one room of each room type using the Google Cardboard viewer or simply a smartphone. “It’s a significant game-changer,” explains Dorothy Dowling, CMO at Best Western. “Customers will pre-qualify experiences.” Dowling was number 18 on Forbes’ The World’s 50 Most Influential CMOs Study for 2015.
Best Western is partnering with Google, a relationship that successfully rolled out an earlier version of the offering. “We’re a first mover with Google Street View technology,” Dowling says, “Which we’re leveraging for next-generation virtual reality.”
The VR application is only one aspect of Best Western’s digital efforts. “We just launched our new global digital platform and enhanced BestWestern.com, enabling us to offer a gated discount rate to the Best Western loyalty members,” says Kong. It is also in the process of preparing to launch an all new responsive BestWestern.com, due out later this year.
Read the entire article at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2016/07/19/virtual-reality-is-the-sizzle-digital-transformation-the-steak-for-best-western/.
Intellyx publishes the Agile Digital Transformation Roadmap poster, advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives, and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. As of the time of writing, Dynatrace is an Intellyx customer. None of the other organizations mentioned in this article are Intellyx customers. Image credit: Best Western.
