A peek into Visit Philly’s new virtual reality platform – Generocity

A year ago, Kristina Jenkins considered herself a total novice when it came to virtual reality.

Thats changed since the summer, when Visit Philadelphia, the tourism marketing agency where shes digital content director, began the process for launching its own virtual reality platform.

Once considered inaccessible to the masses, virtual reality is now everywhere,including youriPhone;360-degree cameras are now fairly affordable, too. (Were setting aside the debate about whether systems like Google Cardboard have all the qualities that make up pure virtual reality, like full-motion tracking.)

And for place-based nonprofits in particular, tech like this can be extremely beneficial, saidJenkins, who will be speaking at our augmented and virtual reality bootcamp,Tech in the Commons, this Friday, as part of Philly Tech Week Presented by Comcast. Its hard to break through the noise online and I think content like this can help destinations do that and reach new audiences with a compelling, immersive viewing experience that really isnt like anything else.

Virtual view of the Schuylkill River. (Screenshot via visitphilly.com/virtual-tour)

(If you need a primer on these subjects, try our reading list here.)

According to Jenkins, who managed the virtual reality project for Visit Philly, the 20-year-old organization has always been ahead of the curve in the destination marketing world when it comes to using new technologies, such as implementingsocial media into its marketing strategy beforeit became the essential tool it is today.

But this brandof tech struck Jenkins as especiallyappropriate for Visit Phillys mission: Potential visitorsget an immersive view into a citys best features, thus (hopefully) improving their impression of the city and encouraging them to check it out in person.

It was really important for us to engage online visitors with a small snippet of what they could experience in Philadelphia, she said.

Virtual view of Pats King of Steaks. (Screenshot via visitphilly.com/virtual-tour)

Development of the virtual reality project started last summer. Visit Philly picked virtual reality marketing agency YouVisit as a partner because of its previous destination marketing work with cities such as Houston and Antigua, Guatemala. YouVisit alsohad its own hostingplatform with options for photo and video as well as virtual reality, so Visit Philly didnt need to do much of its own web development, Jenkins said.

After a fewdays of filming local landmarks in October and severalweeks of beta testingon Visit Phillys website, the project officially launched in March. Jenkins couldnt share numbers but said shes seen some pretty solid use of the platform: Website visitors whoengage with the toolhave almost doubled their time on the site.

Here are Jenkins tips for nonprofits looking to take on a similar project:

This Fridays Tech in the Commons event is sold out, but you can still sign up for the final three bootcamps, which will teach place-based nonprofits best practices for employingdata visualization, live video and social communicationsin their digital engagement strategies.

Julie Zeglen is Editor of Generocity. Previous to joining the Technically Media team, she served as managing editor of Star Community Newsweekly, a hyperlocal newspaper focused on Philadelphias River Wards. The Temple alumna lives in West Philly.

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A peek into Visit Philly's new virtual reality platform - Generocity