London Hotspots

There are many parallels between this London on the Thames with its grand namesake in England. Each is a vibrant, exciting city that offers a myriad of attractions that range from the historical, cultural and family-fun whimsical to soft adventure and outdoor activities.

Tourists are fascinated by the British nomenclature - on streets, the River Thames, buildings such as the Middlesex County Court House (1824-1825 in Gothic Revival style) and the traditional red, double-decker sightseeing buses operated by Tourism London.

Tourism London markets and promotes tourism to consumers, the  travel trade and travel media throughout Ontario the rest of Canada and US border states. 

About VR2020.com
VR2020™ is the leading provider of dynamic, media-rich, self-build Virtual Tour software with over 40 different features enabling anyone to manage, create and update their own professional VR Tours.

Backgrounder
Tourism London was the first adopter in Canada of the VR2020.com Virtual Tour Software Platform. The virtual tour to date has been comprised by only using still pictures to create a virtual interactive slideshow effect and one video versus the use of any panoramic photography and/or HD spherical panoramic images. The tour is completely created, managed, updated and published by the staff without the need of a webmaster or IT department.

About London, Ontario
Nestled in south-western Ontario on the Québec City-Windsor Corridor, London  Ontario, has a lot going for it.   Although a major urban center, London   still possesses many of the attributes of a smaller city.
The community has, for over a century, planted at least 1,000 trees annually, earning it the nickname the "Forest City."

Marty Rice is the Manager of Leisure Travel and Advertising for Tourism London

We caught up with Marty recently and asked him about his experience with VR2020's™ virtual reaqlity tour platform.

Tourism London markets and promotes tourism to consumers, the  travel trade and travel media throughout Ontario the rest of Canada and US border states. 

VR2020
Q-1. Marty what was the main reason you initially bought the VR2020™ software?

M. Rice
“The solution sounded really unique when I was first introduced to VR2020 over a year ago. I also liked the idea that we could be one of the first destination management organizations to implement and use the extensive features and capabilities inherent in the VR2020 solution.”

VR2020
Q-2. Can you provide some feedback on how easy or difficult it was to build and customise your tour.

M. Rice
“Initially a lot of time was spent building the site and marketing hot spots to our partners. We expected that given we needed to build the tour and that with all new applications there is also an initial learning curve.  Now that all the hard work is done not a lot of time is needed to keep it going.  There is no huge drain on staff to do this.”

VR2020
Q-3. How important was the ability to "Rent" hotspots in your decision?

M. Rice
“It was not that important in the initial decision. Now that we have sold Hotspots through direct calls and emails the application more than pays for itself. It’s an added bonus.” 

VR2020
Q-4. So would you say that you have achieved a good return on your investment?

M. Rice
“I am very pleased. After 11 months we have seen over 40,000 hits and we currently support about 30 Hotspot partners. As I mentioned the application is self funding.”

VR2020
Q-5. What benefits have you achieved through the use of VR2020?

M. Rice
 “Most important to me is that someone coming on the web site is comfortable with it and VR2020 provides that with its easy to navigate, intuitive design. We now have a dynamic interactive virtual tour. Visitors can get around the tour easily.  It is very user friendly. ”