Author: Fatema-Tuz-Zohra Nabila

Choosing a college is one of the most important decisions a student will make. It’s not just about academics—it’s about finding a place that feels right, offers great facilities, and has a campus students can’t wait to call home.

If you manage a college or are responsible for showcasing its appeal, having a virtual campus tour on your website isn’t just an option—it’s essential.

Why?

Because most students and parents begin their college search online. An engaging online campus tour can be the difference between someone scrolling past your site and a family deciding your college is worth exploring further.

In this article, I’ll show you how to create a virtual campus tour that grabs attention and builds excitement. You’ll learn:

• Why a virtual tour is a must-have for your college website
• How to create one step-by-step
• Tips to optimize it for maximum impact

By the end, you’ll have everything you need to attract local and international students—and get them to picture themselves walking your campus.

Let’s dive in.

What is a Virtual Campus Tour?

A virtual campus tour is an online experience that lets students and parents explore your college from wherever they are. It’s like walking through your campus, but instead of being there in person, they navigate it through photos, videos, or 360-degree views on your website.

For example, imagine a student looking for a college with modern science labs and vibrant student areas. With a virtual campus tour, they can click through high-quality 360-degree views of your biology or chemistry faculty buildings, lecture halls, dorms, and recreational spaces.

They get a feel for what it’s like to study and live on campus, all from the comfort of their home.

Why Do You Need To Have A Virtual Campus Tour?

A virtual campus tour will let your prospective students get a glimpse of how the campus is in reality.

Through this virtual campus visit, you will have a chance to show off all the best areas of your college, including hallways, college rooms, faculty areas, dormitories, classrooms, labs, etc.

If well-presented, it will help with generating prospective student leads, as well as getting approval from their respective parents.

And if you can make it more engaging with additional information in the tour, it may help connect with them even more.

Let us look at some key reasons you must have a virtual campus tour.

1. Have An Engaging Strategy To Attract New Students

A virtual tour is probably the most engaging piece of content that you could have to connect with potential students.

While having the right subjects and faculties are essential, the campus is just as important.

If you have an attractive virtual college tour in place, most students would want to spend more time finding out about your college.

You could also add contact forms within the tour so that students can easily inquire for more information while taking the tour – a perfect way to connect with them on the go.

In the process, you could get more inquiries and have a chance to register more new students.

2. Attract Both Local And International Students

Local students can take a college tour directly. But if you do admit international students, they aren’t lucky enough to get a tour before taking admission.

Hence, they need to either observe images & video tours, or you could entice them more effectively with a VR campus tour.

A near-realistic tour will help remove any doubts about your college campus and may influence international students to put you on their priority lists.

The same can be said about distant local students, who can travel to the college, but the virtual tour would make it much easier to attract them while they are researching your college.

3. Impress The Students With Your High-Standards

Your virtual tour should show off how well-built your campus is and that it is of the highest standards.

They want a campus they can be proud of. Similarly to that for students quality education is another major factor they can be proud of, and writing help for university students from experts is necessary.

Similarly, Images and videos can hardly do that. But, a quality virtual campus tour can be the best way to present the high standards to the students.

4. Captivate The Parents With Quality and Well-being

Parents are more interested in finding out if the college campus is safe and well-groomed for the upbringing of their children in the next few years.

You have to demonstrate the safety measures, culture, quality, and innovation within the tour.

To do so, you may add additional information on every important aspect of the tour, such as the lab facilities, sports & fitness areas, club facilities, surveillance for security, etc.

5. Highlight The Key Features Of Your College

As mentioned before, the college virtual tour allows you to showcase the best areas & facilities of your college.

For example, some students want dedicated sports fields, while some parents may want to observe if a good library is available. In the case of international students, vr tours of the dorms would be a huge plus.

Requirements To Create A Virtual College Tour

When creating a VR college tour, you need to do the following:

1. Capture 360 Panoramas Of Every Area Of Your College
   You may use digital 360 cameras to take high-quality 360 panoramic images of your college.
   ~ Here are a few 360 cameras you could consider using.

2. Take Aerial 360 Photos For Larger Attractions Of Your College
   To highlight larger areas, such as the football field or the birds-eye view of the whole campus, you could take 360 photos using a drone.
   ~ Here is a guide on how you can capture 360 photos using drone.

3. Use A Virtual Tour Creator To Craft An Engaging Virtual Campus Tour
   Choose a reliable virtual tour creator to build a virtual tour and make it engaging with more details.
   • We recommend you use a WordPress website and use WPVR, which is a brilliant VR tour creator.
   • Once you have a basic tour in place, you may then use WPVR Pro to add more engaging elements such as a college map, introductory video etc.
     

4. Place Your Virtual Tour On The Website
   Create a separate page to host the virtual tour. You may also add it to the home page of your college.

5. Encourage More Students To Take A Tour
   Add pop-ups and CTAs on your home page and other website pages to take a tour. You may also do the same via social posts.

Now, let us look at how you can craft a virtual campus tour using the tool we recommended, WPVR.

How To Create Virtual Campus Tours For Your College Using WPVR

First, install and activate WPVR in your WordPress Dashboard. Here’s how

Go to WPVR Get Started Page & configure the basic Settings

Here are the options that you may enable so that your Virtual Tour is flawless.

1. Create Your First Virtual Campus Tour Scene

At first, Add a New Tour,

Now, Add the title of the tour,

Then,

• Click on Upload to add a Scene
• Provide a Scene ID
• Click Preview to check how the virtual campus tour will look

If you like how the tour looks, then click on Publish.

2. Add Engaging Hotspots To Add Interactive Content

Hotspots are different pointers that give information about something from a virtual tour. It can be texts, images, videos, and other media files.

Here’s how you can add a hotspot to a Virtual Tour,

• Go to Hotspot Tab under the Scenes Tab
• Provide a Hotspot ID & a Hotspot Type.

– Here’s a guide on how to add Hotspots.

• Click on the spot you want to add a hotspot on. You will notice the values of Pitch & Yaw appear below the tour preview. Then click on the arrow icon to assign these coordinates to place the hotspot there.

• You may add some On-Hover Content and On-Click Content in the hotspots
• There’s a Hotspot Custom Icon and a Custom Color Option to show the hotspot in a more interactive manner.

Once you’ve added the hotspot, Preview the tour to see if the hotspot is in the right place. If it is, then update the tour.

*Note that the Hotspot Custom Icon & Hotspot Custom Icon Color will not be visible in the backend. You’ll need to place the tour on a page and preview it to get a glimpse of how it looks.

3. Use Advanced Features For Connecting With Students

There are many advanced features in the WPVR Pro Version that will let you add more interactional elements in a Virtual Tour in order to connect with your students more.

i. Contact Form For Student Query

Your students might have different questions about college facilities or maybe the application process. So why not add a contact form within the Virtual Tour?

With WPVR Fluent Forms Addon, you can now add Contact Forms in the hotspots. In fact you may add multiple forms inside a virtual tour.

Here’s how it looks in a virtual tour,

ii. Add Explainer Video

The Explainer Video feature will let you add an introductory video inside of the Virtual Tour. Your prospective students can play the video and take the tour at the same time.

Use this feature to showcase College’s history, present opportunities, and all the other exceptional trademarks.

iii. Scene Gallery To Show All Campus Grounds

You may add multiple Scenes in a Virtual Tour and show them in a gallery.

Take 360 panorama images of all the spaces of your college covering the sports grounds, study halls, dormitory, and canteens, then add them as scenes in your Virtual Campus Tour.

Your prospective students can move from one scene to another using the Scene Gallery option.

And that’s it.

4. Embed Your VR College Tour On Your Website

The next thing to do is to embed your tour on your website.

You may use the virtual tour shortcode or use blocks/widgets to place it.

• Here’s a guide to embed your virtual tour on a webpage.

However, creating a virtual campus tour is more than just uploading pictures and videos. To make it effective, you need to focus on providing a meaningful experience that reflects your campus’s best features.

Best Practices to Create a Virtual Campus Tour

Let’s go over some best practices to ensure your virtual campus tour stands out.

• Use high-quality visuals: Include clear, professional 360-degree photos and videos of key areas like lecture halls, dorms, libraries, and recreational spaces. Make sure everything looks inviting and well-lit.
• Keep navigation simple: Design your virtual tour with an easy-to-use interface. Ensure visitors can click or tap to move through different areas without any confusion.
• Add engaging descriptions: Include short, detailed descriptions for every location. Highlight what makes each area special, such as modern equipment in labs or unique study spaces.
• Incorporate student stories: Use audio clips or captions to share student experiences and testimonials. Hearing from current students makes the tour feel more relatable.
• Make it mobile-friendly: Ensure the tour works smoothly on smartphones and tablets, as many visitors will use their mobile devices to explore your campus.
• Include calls to action: Add buttons or links that encourage viewers to schedule a physical visit, request more information, or start the application process.
• Update regularly: Keep your tour current by adding new features, renovated spaces, or updated visuals. An outdated tour can leave a negative impression.

When you apply these practices, your virtual campus tour becomes an engaging and effective tool for reaching prospective students. It’s all about making the experience as informative and user-friendly as possible.

Final Thoughts

As you saw, it’s super easy to create and embed a virtual campus tour on your website.

Having an online college tour that is engaging and revealing about your college standards and best campus facilities could be a game changer to grow your educational institution significantly.

So go ahead and get WPVR now. Create your own campus tour now and start admitting more students.

Cheers.

It’s that time of the year when people have started planning for short vacations and traveling. And if you own a hotel, you must grab their attention for more bookings.

People usually browse available hotels in their planned destinations before heading out. But stale images and even video tours have become quite common nowadays and don’t always impress possible customers.

So what can you do differently? Use an interactive hotel virtual tour. Did you know that prospects browse 5 to 10 times longer on websites with virtual tours?

The longer a prospect stays on your website, the more the chance he/she will book a room in your hotel (if it’s within their budget).

In this article, you will learn why you should use a virtual reality hotel and how you can easily create a hotel virtual tour where the buyer can book a room directly from within the tour.

So let’s begin.

Why A Hotel Virtual Tour Is The Perfect Solution for More Bookings

A hotel virtual tour gives the prospect a clear view of what they can expect in real life and increases their confidence in your hotel.

According to Virtual360NY, over 50% of adults prefer viewing virtual tours when researching hotels and resorts.

In fact, according to a survey from 3D Tours Dubai, a quality virtual tour can increase online bookings, during peak season, by up to 85%!

And why not? A virtual tour can make it easier for your prospects to choose the right hotel.

• The prospect will get a clear idea of exactly how the rooms are organized and what other facilities they might get when staying at your Hotel. This is often not so realistic via images.
• A virtual hotel tour will give the prospect the control to navigate around the hotel and view available rooms. This extra control will make them feel special, and they will find it more comfortable with making a decision.
• You will be able to exclusively highlight the main feature of a room in a luxury hotel virtual tour. For instance, let’s say your hotel room offers a private pool, and you added a virtual tour of the room along with the pool. The client will remotely experience exactly how amazing that is.
• Plus, you may include tooltips that they can click to get a written description. In the case of the pool, you can mention if you allow a mix of warm and cool water, and you can even mention the capacity.
• And most importantly, you can have your prospect attempt to book a room while on the virtual tour.

There are countless reasons why a virtual tour makes it easier to connect with the prospect. But the most important of them all is that you will give the prospect full control. You can also use some WordPress booking plugins to enhance your functionality as well.

How to Create A Hotel Virtual Tour on Your WordPress Site

Following is an example of an interactive hotel room virtual tour created using WPVR.

You can see there are icons that you can click to get more details about the service you get, and you can navigate a whole 360 view to get a good idea of how the room is organized.

Plus, there is a booking form for you to book the room right away. You can see how engaging this is. In the next few steps, you will learn exactly how you can create a similar tour using WPVR.

Once you know how to create a scene for a hotel room, you can then go ahead and create a complete hotel tour by adding more scenes of the rooms, hallways, swimming pools, and other facilities of the hotel.

In the following steps, I will walk you through everything you need to know to create a VR hotel tour on your WordPress website.

So let’s get started

1. Preparing Proper 360 Degree Images

First, you should consider taking good quality 360-degree hotel pictures. You can use a good DSLR camera or even an iPhone to take pictures of your hotel.

A good picture will always make sure that what you’re trying to show is reaching the customer. Don’t lag on the basics. Let’s check out a quick guide on creating our virtual tour of a hotel room.

2. Consider Using A Single Image for Hotel Rooms

One tactic you can consider following is to use a single 360 image for each of your hotel rooms, angled from the center.

You might have seen in the past that people used multiple images of a room from different angles, which resulted in a lower conversion rate.

This is mainly because the room may look different from different positions. Rather it is wise to give a 360 view from the center of the room.

However, if you are offering a honeymoon suite or royal suit with more than one room, then you can consider including one scene from each room. You can also add multiple scenes for your virtual tour If you want.

3. Install and Activate WPVR on Your WordPress Site

Now, go ahead and activate WPVR on your WordPress site. (It’s free)

• Go to the WordPress Dashboard and hover to plugins.
• Click “Add New”.
• Search for WPVR. Once you find it, install and activate it. (You may also download and upload the plugin directly from the WP VR page in the WordPress repository,)
• Next, get WPVR Pro and activate it.
• You will also need the WPVR Fluent Forms Addon.

**The free plugin will let you create a simple virtual tour, but you will need WPVR Pro if you want to make it more engaging and meaningful. **The WPVR Fluent Forms Addon is used to embed booking forms within a hotspot. You will learn more about it later in this article.

4. Basic Configuration of WPVR

Once you have WPVR on your site, there are a few things you need to configure in the General Settings.

• Disable WordPress Large Image Handler on WP VR: Since you’re showing off your hotel rooms, you need good-quality images. Good-quality images tend to be large files. This option lets the large images keep their quality and stop WordPress from compressing them.
• Enable Mobile Media Resizer This option will let your 360 images get optimized for smaller screen sizes, especially for mobile and smartphone users.
• Front-End Notice for Mobile Visitors You can give custom notices to mobile users about flipping their phones for a better experience.

5. Create The Hotel Virtual Tour Scene

Now let’s focus on creating a virtual hotel 360-room tour with the WPVR plugin.

On your Dashboard menus, hover on WPVR and click on Add New Tour.

It will take you to the new tour creation page.

Here, first, give a title to your tour.

Next, enable the Auto Rotation feature.

Set the rotation speed to a slow velocity (-5 is a good value) so that your tour doesn’t rotate too fast.

Now, move to the Scenes tab and upload a 360 image of your hotel room.

Then provide the Scene ID, scroll down, and click on Preview.

This will convert the 360 panoramic images into a virtual tour and give you a preview of how it looks on the right side.

Here, you can see the basic controls appear on the left side of the top left corner of the tour preview. You can also see that since I added a title to the image, the title has also appeared in the tour preview.

Then click on the Publish button above the preview and the tour will be saved.

So far, what you have created is easily doable with the free version of WPVR.

Now, let’s add more features to this virtual tour to make it more engaging, and the features we will be using next are the reason why you need WPVR Pro.

6. Use Advanced Control Options

In the Generals Menu, if you go to the Advanced Controls Tab, you will find several Pro features that can increase your conversion via this virtual tour.

You should use the following features for your Hotel room tour:

• Gyroscope: Enabling this will let your prospects experience an improved experience on their smartphones.
• Compass: This option will view a compass on tour, which will help the viewers to understand the direction.
• Background Music: The Tour’s Background music is a crucial feature that can make the tour more attractive. You can either add a personalized recording or simply add soothing music on tour.
• Add Company Information: Your hotel branding is necessary for marketing and advertising. Add your hotel’s logo and details to this section.
• Explainer Video: You can also use the explainer video feature to add a short introductory video of yourself, which the prospect can view if they want to.

You can then go to the Control Options tab and use custom icons for the control buttons in the bottom left corner of your screen.

7. Use Hotspots for Improved Engagements

Hotspots are the best feature of WPVR. This is what will make your tour from a basic 360 panorama to an interactive virtual tour.

In the example tour you saw above, you will notice a few blue icons that you can hover over or click to get more details. Those are what we call ‘hotspots’ in WPVR.

It’s an icon that you can use to create engagement with the buyer by providing information on click/hover, showing images or videos on click/hover, adding music, and even offering the booking form.

Let’s see how you can use them.

First, go to the Hotspot Menu just below the Scenes Menu.

Now, there are 4 types of hotspots. Let’s know about them real quick.

• Info Type: Info-type hotspot allows you to view information either by clicking or on hover (i.e., a tooltip). You can also display images, videos, or gifs (which you can include using basic HTML). We will be using hotpots of this type.
• Scene Type: This type of hotspot will let you connect two scenes. So, if you have two rooms, you can include a Scene Type hotspot to allow the visitor to click and move between the two rooms. In a hotel room tour, we will not use this unless it’s a two-room suite. But for a complete hotel virtual tour, this will be very useful to allow visitors to move between different locations in the tour.
• Fluent Forms integration: This is a great feature. The way you add a booking form to WPVR is by creating a form using Fluent Forms. Once you have a form ready, you can then assign that form to a Fluent Forms type hotspot. Then, a visitor can click on it to get the booking form right within the tour. You will get this option when you have the WPVR Fluent Forms Addon. We will be using this type of hotspot to place a booking form within the tour.
• WooCommerce Product integration: This hotspot is used to link WooCommerce Products to the icon, which visitors can click to purchase products while on tour. We will not be using this type of hotspot in a hotel room virtual tour. But this can be used in the complete hotel virtual tour, around the bar area, or maybe a souvenir shop where you take orders.

Now that you know the hotspot types, let us learn how you can add a hotspot meaningfully.

While on the hotspot menu, initially, a blank hotspot is available to be set up.

Here, include a hotspot ID. Then on the tour preview, click where you want to place the hotspot icon.

Then below the preview, you will see some coordinates updating. Click on the button beside the coordinates, and you will see the Pitch and Yaw values updating on the left side.

Then, assign the hotspot type and input the required details.

Next, change the icon of the hotspot and assign a suitable color.

Now that the hotspot is in place, you can update the tour, and on the preview, you can see where the hotspot is placed.

But you will notice the custom icon you used is not visible in the preview. That is something you have to view in the front end. Here’s how you can place the tour in a post and page to view them.

Use that to get a preview of how it has turned out so far. Here’s an example view:

Just like this, if you have multiple scenes, you can add hotspots in different scenes easily.

To add a second hotspot in the same scene, simply click on the Plus icon ‘+’ above, and options to configure a second hotspot will appear.

Now that you know how to add hotspots let us go ahead and add the booking form.

8. Add A Booking Form In Your Hotel Room Tour

Before you can assign a form, you need to create one in FluentForms.

In Fluent Forms, you will find a beautiful room booking form that you can use on the go. Or you may create one from scratch.

Once you have the form ready, go back to the WPVR tour you created and add a hotspot just like you did earlier. But, this time, choose the hotspot type as Fluent Forms.

Once you do, you will get all your available forms on a dropdown view.

Simply select your desired booking form and then add a text in the ‘on hover content’ field that says “Click To Book This Room Now” so that people can hover over it and know that they can book this room by clicking there.

Once you have the form up, update the tour, and the changes will be saved. And that’s it. Your Hotel room tour is ready. You can directly embed it on the main room listing page, where people browse to view available rooms.

You can also include a preview image of the tour, which will be visible upon embedding it on a page so that people can click on it to enter the tour.

So, you can either create a separate hotel room tour for each of your rooms and use them on your room listing page, or you can add more scenes of different rooms and other facilities of the whole hotel and turn this into a complete interactive tour.

That’s it. You now know how easy it is to create a hotel virtual tour in WordPress.

Hotel Virtual Tours Examples

Now, I am going to tell you about hotel virtual tour examples that showcase the best use of hotel virtual reality in the hospitality industry.

01. Hard Rock Hotel

The Hard Rock Hotel Maldives offers an exceptional example of a hotel virtual tour. This immersive VR experience allows potential guests to explore the stunning overwater villas, vibrant dining areas, and serene beaches of the resort.

The virtual hotel tour highlights luxurious amenities such as the Rock Spa, fitness center, and various recreational activities, providing a comprehensive view of what guests can expect.

With interactive 360-degree views and detailed room descriptions, the Hard Rock Hotel Maldives’ virtual tour effectively captures the essence of the property. it entices visitors with a realistic preview that can significantly boost booking interest.

02. The Langham

The Langham offers an exquisite hotel virtual tour that showcases its elegance and luxury. Through this immersive virtual experience, potential guests can explore the opulent rooms and suites, grand ballrooms, and fine dining establishments of The Langham.

The virtual hotel tour highlights key amenities such as the Chuan Spa, fitness center, and indoor pool, providing a detailed look at the upscale services available.

With 360-degree views and interactive features, Langham’s virtual tour allows guests to get a realistic feel of the property. It helps to make it easier to visualize their stay and encourage bookings.

03. Sheraton Grand

The Sheraton Grand provides an impressive virtual tour highlighting its luxurious offerings and sophisticated ambiance.

This immersive virtual experience allows potential guests to explore the luxury rooms and suites, state-of-the-art conference facilities, and beautiful dining areas.

The virtual hotel tour showcases key amenities like the wellness spa, modern fitness center, and rooftop pool, giving a comprehensive view of the hotel’s features.

With interactive views and detailed descriptions, its virtual tour effectively captures the essence of the property, attracting visitors with a realistic preview and helping to get more bookings.

Conclusion

Creating a hotel virtual tour is an effective way to attract more bookings and showcase your property to potential guests. By offering an immersive and interactive experience, you can highlight the unique features and amenities of your hotel, giving guests a realistic preview of what to expect.

Start by choosing a high-quality 360-degree camera and software that suits your needs. Plan the tour carefully, focusing on areas that guests are most interested in, such as rooms, dining areas, and recreational facilities.

Ensure the lighting is perfect and the spaces are tidy and welcoming. Once you’ve captured the footage, use editing tools to enhance the visuals and add informative annotations.

By providing a captivating virtual experience, you can engage potential guests, build trust, and ultimately increase your bookings. You can easily create your hotel virtual tour with WPVR.

** FAQs **

How can I make my virtual tour more engaging for visitors?

• To make your virtual tour more engaging, include interactive hotspots with detailed information, images, and videos. Adding background music and a personalized welcome message can also enhance the experience.

What equipment do I need to create a high-quality virtual tour?

• You will need a good 360-degree camera to capture panoramic images of your hotel rooms and facilities. Consider using a DSLR camera or even a high-quality smartphone camera or app to take these pictures.

How can I ensure my virtual tour is mobile-friendly?

• Make sure to enable the Mobile Media Resizer option in the WPVR settings. This ensures your 360 images are optimized for smaller screens. In addition, it provides a seamless experience for mobile users.

Can I update my virtual tour with new images or information?

• Yes, you can easily update your virtual tour by uploading new images and adding or modifying hotspots with updated information. It ensures your tour remains current and engaging.

How can I track the effectiveness of my virtual tour in increasing bookings?

• Use analytics tools to monitor visitor behavior on your virtual tour. Track metrics such as time spent on the tour, interaction with hotspots, and conversion rates to measure its effectiveness in driving bookings.