Perillo Tours Launches Virtual Reality Marketing

New Jersey-based Perillo Tours has launched a new virtual reality travel marketing company that it says will “enhance the customer’s pre-travel experience.”

Perillo Travel VR is a project that Perillo Tours CEO Steve Perillo and President John C. Graham said will help the company take advantage of “the rapidly growing role of virtual reality in selling the travel experience.”

“The time is now for the introduction of this immersive, new creative medium to enhance the customer’s pre-travel experience,” Perillo said.

To do so, Perillo has partnered with virtual reality production companies to showcase its tours on virtual reality devices such as smart phones, tablets, desktop computers, and headsets. Graham called the technology a “natural progression” of the history of Perillo Tours, a company that got its start in travel more than 70 years ago.

Perillo has made the technology available to other travel companies partnering with the company.

“With [the technology], travel companies can use this new medium to provide an immersive pre-travel experience for both travel agents and consumers,” Graham said.

Perillo is just one on a list of travel companies dedicating resources to virtual reality.

Late last year, Royal Caribbean showcased the technology during the announcement for its new stateroom of the future. Royal said it would use “virtual reality vignettes” to help travelers experience shore excursions at home before their sailings. 

The Walt Disney Company also announced, last summer, that new virtual reality technology will come to its theme parks. Virtual reality startup The Void installed experience centers at Downtown Disney at Disneyland Resort and Disney Springs at Walt Disney World Resort. According to the company, visitors to Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire will “move freely throughout the untethered, social, and multi-sensory experience in a way that allows them to interact and engage with friends, family and Star Wars characters."