virtual tours specialist 360TravelGuide.com has joined forces with travel agents’ bible, DG&G Gazetteers, to provide online tours of 1,000 hotels a year.

London-based 360TravelGuide.com is providing the specialist camera equipment and training for DG&G researchers to go out and create the panoramic hotel tours and write their reviews. The DG&G team will work to a planned itinerary of properties to ensure properties in the most popular cities and resorts are captured.

360TravelGuide.com will then process the images and turn them into virtual tours. The hotel virtual tours will be available for licensed use by companies requiring rich, user-friendly content for their websites. The tours bring the hotels to life for consumers so they get a taste of their holiday before departure and encourage the booking decision.

Virtual tours for the initial 1,000 hotels are expected to be completed by March 2007 including properties in some of the most popular tourist destinations in Spain, Bulgaria, Egypt, Hawaii, Portugal, Malta and the Maldives.

Revenue will be generated through various licensing models, including flat fee, pay per click and sponsorship opportunities.

360TravelGuide.com marketing director Paul Baderman said: “Travel companies are striving to differentiate themselves online and bring holidays alive with exactly this kind of rich content. The deal with DG&G will open up opportunities for companies of all sizes to take advantage of this cost-effective opportunity to enhance their websites, attract more visitors and realise a substantial ROI.”

DG&G Gazetteers.com Head of Product Development Paul Hobden said: “We’re very pleased to be working with 360TravelGuide.com. The partnership enables us to provide truly immersive hotel tours online in addition to our already trusted reviews. This sort of technology is proven to increase website visitors and encourage sales.”

This latest deal builds on an already strong relationship between the two companies, which have worked together for the past two years to develop a complete package of content for their respective services.
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