Holidaymakers will now be able to try before they buy on a virtual reality tour at their travel agent.

Instead of flicking through brochures, Thomas Cook customers can put on a headset and experience their luxury hotel or cruise ship.

The goggles will also allow travellers to take a reality walk on foreign beaches or go sight-seeing without leaving the store.

Customers can choose from 40 videos which will bring to life different parts of their trip, from the plane journey to the resort itself.

Thomas Cook has tried out the headsets at eight branches and plans to introduce them at 17 more by 2019.

Figures from the Association of British Travel Agents show three-quarters of four holidays are now booked online. But Thomas Cook believes new technology may attract us back to stores.

A spokesman said: Customers like it. The Royal Caribbeans cruise ship video led to 45 per cent increase in bookings.

Rival firm Tui, which owns Thomson and First Choice, is also trialling reality headsets with videos and interactive touch screens and plans to ditch its own brochures by 2020.

But Thomas Cook says it has no plans to scrap brochures yet.

Fancy abseiling down Table Mountain or taking a helicopter ride across the New York skyline?

I experienced both when I tried the virtual reality tours at Thomas Cooks branch at Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, East London.

The videos, which last from two and a half to five minutes, are surprisingly realistic.

Thomas Cook manager Zak Bihmoutine showed me how to use a headset.

One moment I was listening to a jazz band in Central Park, the next I was admiring the view from Empire State Building.

Even better was my virtual reality trip to South Africa where I inched my way down Table Mountain then hang-glided across the beach at Cape Town.

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Virtual reality tours through headsets at travel agents could spell the end of holiday brochures - Mirror.co.uk