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TOURISM has become one of the first and worst business sectors during the corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic. But, most of the tourism business people are not broke in response to the conditions that occur. Various efforts they made to survive.
Until created a tour that utilizes digital alias virtual tour technology. In the virtual tour activity, participants will get treated to tourist destinations that they can enjoy through digital devices, can laptops or other gadgets. During the tour, there is a tour guide who will explain the tourist destination.
According to Irwan Thamrin, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of School Tourism, the emergence of virtual tourism is inseparable from digital meeting trends or webinars, either through the Zoom, Hangout or Google Meet applications. The business traveler finally utilizes this webinar activity to present a virtual tour. The webinar is only one place, while the virtual tour can be several places.
Irwan also tried to make a virtual tour service to several tourist attractions. This step is to boost the performance of its business which dropped to 90% during the corona virus pandemic and was forced to lay off five employees until only three workers were left.
The virtual tour service started Irwan, opening in mid-April with various themes. Every theme he runs once a week. There are themed Jakarta Urban Asia, Geopark in Indonesia, the oldest mosque tour, Penyengat Island tour in Bintan, international tourism in Germany, and urban legend tourism in Jakarta or Bandung.
He is priced at IDR20,000 to IDR30,000 per package. Once he held a virtual tour package, he was able to capture 40 to 50 participants.
To hold the virtual tour, Irwan cooperated with a tour guide at the place of origin of the tour. If there are participants who want souvenirs from the tourist spot, the guide can serve him. Of course, Irwan gives fees to the tour guide.
Seeing the decent results, Irwan will offer virtual tour packages to schools. Currently, it is still in the exploratory stage to schools, with the hope that it will run in the new school year later.
Meanwhile Theresia Magdalena, Vice President of Blibli Tour & Travel Category, said virtual tour is now also one of the services of Blibli Tour & Travel. The service began operating on June 1 yesterday. This is a form of Blibli’s support of the tourism industry in the new normal era.
“Each session, the number of participants who took an average of 70 to 90 people with a duration of 60 minutes. The fare is IDR25,000-IDR30,000 per person for virtual domestic tours, and foreign ones are IDR50,000-IDR150,000. Blibli collaborated with several parties in this virtual tour. [kontan.co.id/photo special]
