Home sharing giant Airbnb wants to give customers to opportunity to walk through their next Airbnb rental even before leaving home.
It has hinted at adding virtual reality and augmented reality capabilities to listings to give a more immersive search and trip planning experience.
That could mean 360 photos and 3D scans to ‘allow a person to step inside a home or city and understand what to expect and how to orient themselves before they leave the comfort of their own home,’ Airbnb says on its website.
Travelers could ‘share a virtual world together, perusing and touring destinations and home options while interacting in a more natural manner.’
By overlaying augmented reality tech, travel can become more seamless, it says.
It will help ease the experience with real world problem solving such as ‘how to unlock the door or turn on the hot water for a shower, or when they’re hopelessly lost and everything is in a foreign language.’
While this and other advances are being worked on, the company is ‘looking far into the future.’
"We want to make sure anything we introduce really brings value to guests, hosts and the communities to and from where they travel. All of this requires experimentation, iteration, and technological evolution—so stay tuned. "
