Tim Baxter, president of Samsung Electronics America, announced at theCES 2017 technology show in Las Vegas lastmonth that the company topped five million sales of its $100 Samsung Gear virtual reality (VR) headsets since launching them 13 months ago.

Also at CES, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich held his companys press conference in virtual reality with 260 media wearing Oculus Rift headsets.

VR is moving into the mainstream consumer mindset in 2017, and travel brandsare leveraging that to engage themin new ways using 3D immersive technology. Brands are also discovering the power of VR to drive higher conversion rates.

Virtual reality is changing the game for a variety of industries including health care, agriculture, manufacturing, and business, said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, which producesCES, in a Reddit chat. Doctors are using VR to enhance traditional therapies, architects use VR to design stronger buildings, and travel agencies are using it to simplify vacation planning.

For example, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA) reports that its Vegas VR app, showing experiential videos ranging from helicopter rides over the Strip to bartenders mixing drinks, has been downloaded over 19,000 times since March 2016, and the videos have been viewed more than 17 million times.

We were relying on Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat to tell our story, but we felt that VR and 360 video really helped us improve our connection with consumers, and move them down the path toward conversion, saidNick Mattera, senior director, digital engagement at LVCVA. Were also looking to partners to help us on the conversion side, and really begin to quantify how Vegas VR can not only get people excited about Las Vegas, but ultimately book.

The meetings and events industry is now moving in on the action. This month, the Freeman event company, which handles logistics and production duties for CES, among other large shows, announced a new slate of virtual reality products and services. Coinciding with that, Freeman published a white paper on VR event applications.

The new products include a VR Product Explorer for event planners to create immersive simulations of products too bulky for trade shows; a VR Design Explorer that provides a virtual walk-through of meeting and exhibition spaces; and VR Live Streaming where anyone with a VR headset can view live events from anywhere simultaneously within a 3D environment.

VR is a platform for dynamic and highly engaging storytelling, so theres a whole new class of interactions in the experience design process that are far more powerful than any videos you can create, saidWilson Tang, VP, digital experience for Freeman. When you put the headset on, theres a dramatic increase in the level of empathy and connection because you feel like youre actually in that space.

Demetrius Wren, a Freeman digital experience designer, also emphasizes the capacity for VR to drive higher conversion rates. Wren, who previously worked with the United Nations, supplied Skift the following UN data:

During the Third International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria in 2015, the Clouds Over Sidra VR film was shown to top donors. Commitments were originally projected at $2.2 billion but the conference ended up raising $3.8 billion, which was $1.2 billion more than the previous year.

UNICEF is now pilot testing Clouds Over Sidra with face-to-face fundraisers on the streets of 40 countries to measure the effectiveness of VR as a fundraising tool. According to Wren, one in six people viewing the experience have made donations to UNICEF, twice the normal rate of giving.

Furthermore, as described in this Venture Beat story from August 2016: Emeryville, Calif.-based Immersv has a platform that tracks whether someone is viewing a particular ad embedded within a virtual reality experience. It found that click-through rates, or more correctly gaze-through rates, are nearly 30 percent on Immersvs platform, compared to industry averages of 1 percent for mobile and 0.4 percent for desktop, according to theInnovid 2016 Global Video Benchmarks. And Immersv said that VR drives12 new installs for every 1,000 video ad views, compared to 0.5 for mobile and 0.2 for desktop. Video completion rates on Immersv videos are over 80 percent.

The Gear technology holds a Samsung phone in place for users to watch web- and app-based VR videos, as does the Google Daydream for Android phones and Zeiss VR One goggles for iPhones.

For serious tech users who want the most immersive 3D digital experience possible, a mobile phone VR platform is not true VR. They instead gravitate toward headsets such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, whichhave a cable tethered to a powerful computerand wireless handheld devices. They provide a much higher resolution experience, and they also allow users to manipulate their movement and objects within the VR environment. Lenovo and Intel announced at CES that theyre bringing similar new headsetsto market as well.

Following CES 2017, however, more than a few reviewers panned the level of innovation across allVR platformsat the show, with media like CNET decrying: Virtually Boring: VR Really Disappoints at CES This Year. The Wall Street Journal posted, CES For Marketers: Alexa Wows, Virtual Reality Underwhelms.

I felt there wasnt a ton of new with VR at CES this year, but there was a bigimprovement on the old in terms of quality, contends Mattera. Thats what the VR world needs because its moving so quickly to make it a thing. For the key players, this isnt a novelty anymore. Its a functional experience, and consumer demand is driving all of the investment in VR.

Tapping intothat demand at CES, multiple pop-upVR experiences around Las Vegas showcased the abilities of VR as both a sales conversion engine and community engagement vehicle.

In the lobby at MGM Grand Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, there was a VR installation for anyone to watch a video of the KA Cirque du Soleil show, with the view placed in the middle of the fight scene atop the slanting platform. After watching the scene in VR, it sold this writeron attending the show, which hasnt ever happened while watching other Cirque promos instandard video.

There is another CES VR pop-up experience still operating at the Alto Bar in Caesars Palace Las Vegas throughFebruary 28. Branded as the Oculus Virtual Reality Lounge, the space has multiple Oculus Rift setups with full-time Oculus staff helping people learn about the technology. The value here is the chance for anyone to experience the more immersive Oculus VR environment, compared to the phone-centric VR platformslike Samsung Gear.

The more we see the goliaths like Oculus investing in VR content, the barrier will break down more quickly in the consumer space, saidMattera. That includes the meetings and events industry where plannerscan hold an event in a virtual world with people manipulating the environment around them. Shows like CES are helping everyone in Las Vegas stay ahead of that innovation.

The UploadVRmedia group held a VR-themed party on the top floors of The Palms Casino Las Vegas during CES, with almost a dozen differentVR experiences placed around the various rooms. The event was packed with patrons paying $50 to attend, but the delivery was a little confused and random without a lot of people stewarding the crowds around each installation. A few people also learned that drinking and VR do not mix.

However, the UploadVR event showed that, during a conference filled with free parties at top-tier hotel nightclubs, people are willing to pay for VR-themed experiences embedded into a sales and marketing environment.

Virtual reality content developers such as XplorItare working increasinglywith tourism bureaus, which Skift profiled followingthe launch of Los Angeles Tourisms new Meet L.A. VR platform for meeting planners. The portal provides a good example of howplanners can engage attendees in more immersive ways using VR.

Our Meet L.A. VR experience for meeting planners is basically Google Street View on steroids, and were averaging over 10 minutes per view, which is almost unheard of, saidGreg Murtha, president of XplorIt. VR allows what we call self-select discovery because its interactive, non-linear experiential media. Meaning, the user is empowered.

Meanwhile,South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin announced yesterday that itscreating a dedicated track for VR content at its annual Film Festival this year. There will be 38 projects showcasinghow different industries are usingVR storytelling.

This year we have expanded our virtual reality programming, launching the Virtual Cinema and elevating the medium to its own category in the SXSW Film Festival, saidBlake Kammerdiener, VR programmer at SXSW. We not only put an emphasis on storytelling and ingenuity, but also showcase how other industries are embracing VR with projects from the health, fashion, music industries, and more.

The major event tech players are also increasingly promoting VR to their audiences. The latest atEvent Manager Blog explains: How 360 Live Video is Paving the Way for Virtual Reality at Events.

While we wait for full VR capability for live events, live 360-degree video is the perfect immersive experience 101 every event planner should evaluate for their event, suggests Julius Solaris, founder of Event Manager Blog.

As expected, venue owners are launching permanentVR-themed event spaces.For example, the newmk2 VR facility openedinside one of Paris largest cinema complexes, located in the citys burgeoning tech district. Bookable event venues for up to 200 people include theLe Perchoir mk2 terrace bar.

We are bringing VR to a multiplex-like environment with the opening of the first-ever entertainment venue fully dedicated to upscale VR experiences, saidElisha Karmitz, general director of mk2. mk2 VRs concept offers consumers a lively, culture-filled facility focused on VR and good times.

Back at CES 2017, the Samsung Galaxy Studio virtual theme park was the highlight of VR experiences at the show. Thousandsof people duringthe 4-day event lined to strap into several different installations with moveable seats. Participants were flipped upside down and jerked sideways while wearing VR headsets placing them inside virtual environments ranging from airplane stunts to luge racing.

Thats really pushing the boundaries ofexperiential marketing today,Shapiro said. It doesnt get muchbetter than that.

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Travel Brands and Meeting Planners Are Using Virtual Reality to Drive Conversion - Skift