Virtual World Internet, the travel industry’s leading virtual imaging service provider, has launched Virtually-theWorld.com,  and has already been snapped up to be featured on BT Broadband landing page which aims to channel 1 million subscribers by summer 2003.
Virtually-theWorld.com, the world’s first and biggest directory of virtual images, is a gateway linking users to over 100 Virtually sites, featuring over 14,000 virtual tours of major cities and countries. These include Virtually-London.com , Virtually-NewYork.com , Virtually-Namibia.com, Virtually-Brazil.com and Virtually-Caribbean.com.

Available in eleven languages including English, French, German and Korean, the site features dynamic 360 degree virtual tours of destinations worldwide ensuring clear, representative and totally unbiased visuals of destinations.

Uniquely, Virtually sites direct the consumer to individual hotels and establishments, driving more traffic for direct bookings, whilst enabling consumers to easily browse through the sites and make their choices. By clicking on an image, users will automatically jump to the relevant web site.

Other key features of the site include a speedy search function with a swift download time of only eight seconds on a broadband connection, drop down menus that are fast and clear, and a flash map that is easy to use.

Individual Virtually sites offer users a range of local tourist information and travellers tips, including weather forecasts and city maps. Users can also search and purchase airline tickets and even organise a car for airport collection.

Graham Cooke, Virtual World Internet Group Managing Director commented: “The new site reflects the changing trends in the tourism industry. We’ve seen the Internet truly reshape the way travellers plan their vacation. The new Virtually-theWorld.com site provides users with a totally unique one-stop visual and information gathering resource, meaning a fun and interactive way for travellers to plan their trip.

“Virtually-theWorld.com is the first website of its kind and is available to everyone. This is quite simply an unrivalled travel web guide to help travellers make an informed decision about where they want to go”.

Claire Gribbon, Director of BT Broadband commented: “We are very happy to have the Virtually sites on our BT Broadband landing page. We’ve had a real increase in visits to the page - we currently have approx. 2.5m visits per month and we hope to deliver more customers to both of our sites through this partnership.”

The virtually sites are constantly being updated and the number of sites is ever increasing. There are 126 Virtually sites at present; some 100 virtual destinations, and an additional 20 sites encompassing various popular fields including hotels and resorts, spas, restaurants, meetings and villas.

Founded in 1995, Virtual World Internet is a virtual imaging service provider that delivers interactive solutions for a wide variety of applications in the travel and tourism sector. Virtual World Internet designs, develops, hosts and markets high-value visual content and has a proven track record of delivering world class solutions to some of the world leaders in travel and destination marketing. They place particular emphasis on developing intuitive, easy-to-use solutions for our clients and their customers. Virtually sites have played a major role in creating the virtual tours experience worldwide and is leading the development of the next-generation Visual Information.

Virtual World Internet is headquartered in London, UK, and has an extensive global network of approved virtual tour developers, photographers and designers. Using this network and combining it with the mobile development studio, they are able to deliver a comprehensive and rapid virtual tour solution to anyone, anywhere.

——-