Marriot Hotels will introduce a whole new hospitality experience to its guests, by offering Virtual Reality as one of the amenities available as part of the hotel chain’s room service options. The high-end hotel chain is offering the experience as part of a trial run in two of its 500-plus properties around the world. The service has been named the VRoom service, and is being rolled out at the London Marriott Park Lane and New York Marriott Marquis hotels. The innovative new service from Marriot is in collaboration with Samsung Electronics, meaning guests will be able to order the South Korean company’s Gear VR headset for up to a period of 24 hours, during which time, guests will be able to take a virtual tour of the British Museum and Natural History Museum in London.
Marriot has been bullish on virtual reality for a while now, according to reports circulating in the media. The famed hotel chain has reportedly been working on VR content of its own – named VR postcards – and has tied up with London-based Framestore VR Studio to work on the VFX experience. The studio is best known for its work in the 2013 film Gravity, and in bringing the HBO series Game of Thrones to Oculus VR. Marriot meanwhile, has inked up a deal with Samsung Electronics, to bring its VR postcards to consumers through the South Korean company’s Milk VR platform. As for the hospitality major’s new initiative, the trial phase is expected to last for about two weeks, beyond which, the company will presumably assess the financial viability of rolling out the full commercial service across more of its properties around the world. For now though, Marriot hasn’t announced either the pricing, or the timeframe for doing the same.
Marriot Hotels jumping into the VR bandwagon, of course, is not an isolated case. Virtual Reality has become one of the buzzwords in the consumer technology space, and is being viewed in many quarters as the next frontier of entertainment. Many companies, big and small are entering into the fray to stay one step ahead of the competition, as tech enthusiasts and industry observers alike believe that Virtual Reality could potentially revolutionize and redefine what constitutes immersive entertainment.