Looking for a destination wedding? Worry not. Step into the world of virtuality at a click of the mouse to solve all your woes, says MUSBA HASHMI
Planning your or a family member’s wedding can be tedious. More so, if one lives abroad and want to get married nowhere else but in his Motherland — India. In such a case, travelling to and fro could be time consuming and leaving all the decor to the organisers is the only solution. To solve all the wedding woes, Crowne Plaza, Greater Noida has come up with world’s first hotel virtual reality experience center.
“We have collaborated with a start-up, The Knotty Tales who have designed this platform for the wedding and MICE industry. The idea to brace this technology is that we believe that this is the future and we want to become a part of it before it becomes the past. Now, the customer doesn’t have to come to us, we will go to him. All the customer has to do is just open the link provided by the hotel and they are ready to step in our world,” Ashwani Nayar, General Manager, Crowne Plaza, Greater Noida tells you.
The technology allows the product to be carried to the doorsteps of the potential customers and allow an advanced way to explore a hotel like never before. One thing that makes it stand out among the clutter is 8K technology which has not been introduced in India yet but the start-up has made it happen.
“It involves virtual and physical inspection which means the client can experience 8K VR services that would enable them to experience a 360 tour of various hotel spaces from one point at the lobby. This will be a unique immersive and interactive virtual experience that would etch an impact the guests will remember for a long time. Also it would help customers to experience multiple decor setups while sitting at the comfort of their homes. Customers can visualise multiple decors for the same space, thus assisting them with decision making and positive closure of business queries. There is also a 24X7 live chat option that will help customers with all their queries and bookings,” he explains. This way, the customer doesn’t have to settle with what the hotel has to offer for their D-day instead he can simply just scroll through the different decors in several colours and decide what suits them best.
There is a reason why this unique concept was launched. “I would like to ask why not? This branch is one of the largest of the hotels in South-west Asia. It is a destination hotel for wedding and events. Also, Greater Noida is a popular destination among people. The major reason being its geography. It is situated near Yamuna Expressway that connects Agra-Mathura and Delhi, such a place is preferable among visitors. We were just the right hotel to bring forth this new technology to the world,” Nayar, who joined the hotel eight months back, says.
The start-up has been working on this technology for a quite a while now but it was in the India Expo mart that the two crossed their paths. “It was a casual meeting and I would say that they chose us. They had us on their radar as one of the first hotel to propose the idea to. When I heard the idea, I was sure that this would going to work and without any ifs and buts we decided to launch the virtual reality center. Although some people were apprehensive of my decision but I was confident that this would be a success. However, in the back of mind I was scared that how will we make this a scalable and monetised tool but once we sat and had discussions all my doubts were cleared,” he tells you.
Adapting to a new technology can be quite risky, more so if you are the first one to experiment, but Nayar believes nothing ventured, nothing gained. “Risks are always there but one have to be brave enough to take risks as long as one takes calculated decisions. For me, the biggest risk would have been inaction and not having embraced the technology,” he says.
Nayar tells you that the start-up is in talks with around 12 other hotels who could possibly adapt to the same technology soon.
“We don't have any problem with hotels embracing this technology. In fact, one risk could be when if we were the only hotel to embrace it. Because if you have to create an ecosystem, it has to be with every stakeholder including your competitor. Only if it excites my competitor, it will excite the consumer. So if other hotels are taking up the technology it is not posing a threat to us instead it is a blessing. The increasing interest of other hotels in the technology makes me realise that I have made the right choice and at the right time. Moreover, the tag of launching the world's first hotel virtual reality center cannot be stolen,” he says.
