How do you get tourists to travel to British Columbia? Strap an Oculus Rift to their head, of course! Destination British Columbia is testing out using the virtual reality technology recently acquired by Facebook in order to attract potential tourists to vacation up north.
It's called "The Wild Within." Think of it as a preview for what the real vacation would be like. The VR experience takes potential tourists on a tour of the Great Bear Rainforest on the Pacific Coast, where users can choose their paths and what to explore thanks to the Oculus tech.
"It really gives people the opportunity to really get a sense of what it's like to be in BC and what it's like to feel the powerful nature around you, and the wildlife and the wilderness we have to offer the world here in British Columba," Maya Lange, vice president of global marketing for Destination BC, says in a "making of" video about the project.
By looking in a certain direction, the headset will detect which direction the user wishes to go. Look up and you see the sky. Look to the right and you may see the coast, or to the left a rainforest trail. It makes for an immersive experience that Destination British Columbia is hoping will attract tourists to the area in the real world.
"We just really wanted to make it an interactive experience, on top of being immersive, and give people the opportunity to make choices as if they were actually traveling in BC," David Giovondo, a creative director who worked on the Oculus experience, says in the video.
The interactive brochure was filmed over five days using seven HD GoPro cameras, drones and special rigs to capture all the rainforest footage from a first-person perspective. Destination British Columbia is planning on bringing the virtual trip experience to trade shows in 2015. Once Oculus Rift headsets become available to the public, Destination British Columbia plans on releasing the experience as a free download.
