by senior contributor Brendan Kownacki
Photo credit: Brendan Kownacki
Moving across the globe with the click of one button has been a fantasy – until now. What was once something you could only see in the movies, or maybe in an old episode of the Jetsons, is now a dream that might be closer to reality these days.
The new #GetTeleported campaign by Marriott hotels has created a virtual experience for all the senses that makes that trip around the globe feel like reality.
The promotion, coming to select hotels around the country, is a small booth whose power is much more imposing than its size. The tele-porter combines live-action video, computer graphics, movement and sound to make you feel like you’re dropping through a wormhole and splashing down on a beach in Hawaii and after that, shooting through the air to the top of a building in London. It’s virtual reality to the highest degree.
“There are so many applications for it” said Lucia Stoller, Director of Social Marketing at Marriott International. “We’re only limited by our imagination.” Stoller explained that this creation took several partnerships and that the final product is really an innovation of the future. The video comes courtesy of an Oculus Rift device—the much anticipated technology that was acquired by Facebook that people are saying will change the way people look at visual media. The 4-D experience uses smells and movement, heat to make you feel like you’re in the sun and a burst of mist to make you feel that ocean breeze—all in an effort to enforce the digital images the user is seeing. The graphics are top notch and come from the same team that worked on the Oscar sensation Gravity, so you know they know what they’re doing.
The potential for this type of technology is just beginning when you consider virtual travel, virtual games or even tours of venues so you know exactly what any room is like before you set foot in it. The tele-porter has currently landed in DC at the luxurious new Marriott Marquis downtown and will be on hand for the public to try until Sunday, October 5th. After that, it heads to Atlanta and toward the West coast.
Check it out while you still can:
