The article recounts how a Nintendo Game Boy rescued the writer from the repetitive, dreary summer holidays of his youth.
Via the machine’s luminous green screen he escaped the cold, wet beaches and sandy ham sandwiches of Cornwall to discover exciting new worlds. It is this “opportunity to flee one’s immediate vicinity in favour of another, perhaps more preferable place” that our writer suggests is “at the heart of the video game’s strange magic”.
It’s not a magic that has ever attracted me; nevertheless as I continue reading, a frightening vision of the travel industry of 50 years in the future enters my mind: “As technology enables video game worlds to be ever more finely rendered on the screen, so the tug of digital wanderlust grows stronger. No need to gamble your wages on a plane ticket to a destination whose wonders might be fully exhausted three days into a fortnight’s trip. For a fraction of the cost, a video game will transport you to Hong Kong (Sleeping Dogs), Paris (Broken Sword), Detroit (Watch Dogs), Tokyo (Persona 5) or Venice (Assassin’s Creed 2), all from the comfort of the fat couch”.
Imagine the traveller of the future considering visiting the Sistine Chapel or the Great Wall of China. It is within the realms of possibility that within a jiffy they could be there, albeit not in body, but fully immersed in a virtual reality world, sharing the sights and sounds of their destination of choice with hundreds of other virtual tourists.
No spending hours in airport security. No flying on a cramped aircraft where service and comfort has long since been sacrificed for profit. No transfer that doesn’t turn up, or hotel that isn’t quite what it portrayed itself as. And no queuing with the masses to visit each overpriced attraction.
See why I’m alarmed now? Could virtual tourism signal the end of Mr Cook’s travel industry as we have always known it?
Spooked by this thought I interrupted the Holidaysplease tech team’s afternoon tea break to share my vision of travel in 2067.
Tom replied: “Yep, I can see that.” Josh felt that people would certainly use the technology for quick taster breaks, while Ryan foresaw consumers sick of technology and therefore desperate to escape and experience the real world again!
In this cross-section of perspectives lies the travel industry of 2017. Technology is a tool for success and a major threat in equal measure.
What our industry across every sector must recognise is the need to step up and deliver a product that excites, fulfils and inspires.
Fail to do so, and virtual tourism may just catch on.
Richard Dixon is director of Holidaysplease
