Ready to take a cruise? I’m not a big fan of cruises (in fact I still have to take one), but if I ever decide to go on cruise it would probably be with Royal Caribbean on their new ship Freedom of the Seas. And the reason why I’m so impressed?
My colleague pointed me to their website, which is everything but ordinary! She described it as “a quite innovative site that offers a truly virtual reality experience, through interactive videos....to demonstrate what the real experience on board of the Freedom of the Seas will be like.” Upon entering, a virtual guide greets guests and directs them to desired locations and activities on the ship. You can tour the actual 2,000 plus square-foot presidential family suite, “experience” the whirpool or flow rider, or interact with “actors” who escort visitors through three-dimensional renderings of the ship. Nothing about this site is ordinary. Not even their press room and news page. Read more in this article. I think Royal Caribbean managed to get as close as possible to their potential customers, creating a truly interactive, life-like experience.
The success to date of FreedomoftheSeas.com has been above expectation. Since the launch of the latest updates, the average time consumers have been spending on the high-bandwidth site is more than eight minutes, which is well beyond industry standard. This level of consumer engagement is a testament to the highly interactive and engaging content of the site, not to mention its innovative use of technology and design.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see more websites like this one in the future, in particular in the travel industry. As more and more people feel comfortable booking their trips on the Web (online travel now accounts for 30% of U.S. travel market), they want to get familiar with the places they plan to visit. Most online travel agencies already provide virtual tours and 360 degree images of resorts and hotel rooms, which are no longer “nice to have” but definitely “must-have“ features. In the future we’ll probably see more avatars, virtual agents and personal assistants, providing even more interactive experience, like this one.
As I said, visiting the Freedom of the Seas site almost felt like being on the ship and experiencing it on my own. It will be interesting to watch if this highly interactive website will also capture more cruise reservations. Check it out!