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Cape Town - South Africa's Tourism Office in the United Kingdom has successfully launched a 360° immersive visualization of an truly South African experience, that allow prospective travelling Brits to step into SA through the use of virtual reality technology, by means of a video and audio headset named Oculus Rift.
The first virtual immersion was opened to the British public over the past weekend, on 24 April, in Corbet Place Bar in Brick Lane.
Juan Herrada, SA's tourism's marketing and communications manager for UK and overall manager of the project, believes that through the use of 360° head-tracking in combination with binaural sound, Oculus Rift let viewers experience the country as if it were real life.
Herrada told Traveller24 that the first consumer showing of the content in London on 24 April was "an absolute success".
"We smashed our predicted engagement targets within the first 1.5 hour after opening," he said. "Our key partner, KLM airlines, was very happy with the performance and we're all now looking forward to taking it on the road to Manchester this week and other key UK regions following that.
The Royal Dutch carrier, KLM, is partnering with the Oculus Rift to give two lucky Brits a chance to win a trip to South Africa.
The ideal is to merge the UK viewers into the sought-after South African experience and, once they start picturing what it would be like to be in our environment, to get them to take a step toward coming to SA.
What is the Oculus Rift?
The four-and-a-half-minute-long video includes various scenes of iconic South African experiences, like the Table Mountain cable car ride with its panoramic views, adventurers paragliding down Lion’s Head, as well as urban scenes of Neighbourgoods market and the Maboneng precinct in Johannesburg.
You can see a short preview of the South African 5-minute holiday here. (Take note, however, that the 3D footage should be viewed on an Oculus Rift headset in order to get the real 360° virtual experience.)
Apart from the major tourist and sightseeing opportunities, the SA teaser also shows scenes of surfing, kitesurfing and abseiling, shark and elephant encounters and, best of all, the friendly South African people. 
The video, which has been branded the 'South Africa: a 5-minute holiday', gives consumers as very real insight into all the traveller experiences that make SA the unique and sought-after tourist destination it is. 
Although the show-case of the virtual experience will be ground-breaking in terms of world-wide travel marketing, the dynamic behind such a project is equally exciting.
See: See The Making Of This 360° Virtual 5-minute Holiday in South Africa
Herrada says the 5-minute holiday which is experienced in this novel way "has positioned SA Tourism as a marketing pioneer in the UK and has allowed us to cut through the noise in a highly competitive and saturated market".
Henry Stuart, the co-founder of the company doing the filming, Vizualise, says this type of technology lends itself only to certain kinds of locations, and that South Africa was the perfect project because "everywhere you look, it's just breathtaking".
Herrada says, "SA’s diverse range of attractions and contrasting experiences provide the perfect environment for virtual reality. No other destination would be able to offer such a wealth of unique experiences to capture viewers’ imagination and have such a strong emotional connection with them".
Herrada hopes that the use of modern technology will broaden the British tourist demographic into South Africa. He says that, "although ‘Empty Nesters’ have always been one of our largest demographics, we have identified the under-45s as a key market to unlock further growth in arrivals from the UK".
With the use of the tech-savvy Oculus Rift, Herrada hopes to bridge this gap in the market. He says, "UK travellers are not necessarily aware of the wide range of activities that they could do in SA in addition to safaris; nor are they aware of the recent positive changes in urban areas, such as downtown Johannesburg. Innovative and ground-breaking content like the one we filmed for the Oculus Rift is therefore the perfect way to engage with tech-savvy and highly mobile consumers".
The short film was first introduced in the UK because it is the largest market to South Africa. But other tourism offices, like those in the Netherlands, France and Australia have also shown interest.
Apart from Vizualise who managed the filming of the 5-minute holiday, other powers involved in the making of this project are Somethin' Else, who managed audio production and Universal McCann, the media buying agency.
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The short film can be viewed in the TechZone at the tourism Indaba, held in Durban this year. Anybody who owns an Oculus Rift headset, however, can download the South African 5 minute holiday for free from the app store WeareVR.
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