When Mark Zuckerberg announced at the end of 2021 that Facebook would invest 10 billion dollars in the metaverse, the public began to get a sense of where the investment focus of the world’s major technology companies was heading. According to a study jointly commissioned by CoinGecko, Bloomberg, MVIS and Roundhill Investments, virtual gaming revenue will grow from 180 billion dollars to 400 billion dollars from 2020 to 2025. Although the metaverse is still in the early stages of development, it offers huge potential for growth — especially for the hotel industry, as it provides a new environment for interaction, communication and collaboration. “An entire dimension is being added to the business ecosystem of the hotel industry,” stresses Prof. Vanessa Borkmann, initiator and project manager of the FutureHotel Innovation Network at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO. “On the one hand, it is possible to reach out to new and existing customers, but on the other hand, it also puts the importance of location into perspective, as accessibility is subject to different principles in the metaverse.” In light of this, the institute has published a new study: “FutureHotel — Extended Realities. The Metaverse and its Potential for Hotel Business.” The publication details the appearance, functionality, advantages, disadvantages and potential of the metaverse across a variety of sectors, with emphasis on the hospitality industry. It outlines how the metaverse can be applied in different business areas, where the foreseeable and anticipated future developments are heading, and presents specific use cases.
The research results presented are taken from the seventh project phase (from 2022 to 2025) of the FutureHotel Innovation Network led by Fraunhofer IAO.
Metaverse technology opens up new spaces for interaction — irrespective of time and place
Communication and entertainment will reach unprecedented levels of sophistication in the metaverse, revolutionizing many different domains, such as hybrid work, gaming, e-commerce, and social media. Through virtual events as well as digital assets, people can be directed to and gathered in specific locations in the physical world, as demonstrated in recent years by the augmented reality mobile game “Pokémon Go”. For the hotel industry, this creates new opportunities for digital business models. The study presents three specific use cases of hotels that are already embracing the metaverse:
- Making real estate virtually accessible in 3D
For a client in the hotel industry, the German streaming platform “Arcware Cloud” developed the virtual 3D experience “Prime Bay” to give potential buyers a highly realistic insight into a proposed hotel in the Croatian coastal town of Primosten and its individual apartments. Even after completion, Prime Bay can continue to be used to market the hotel rooms and facilities online by enabling potential hotel guests to view everything in 3D prior to their stay.
- Linking physical hotel rooms to virtual community spaces
Hotel brand Roomza plans to launch a new hotel concept later this year by partnering with hosts who offer one or more rooms in a variety of buildings in different locations across the United States. All of the hosted hotel rooms are combined to form the Roomza Hotel, which provides all visitors with access to additional virtual common areas. This enables guests to interact with each other in different ways regardless of their location, for example by talking to others at a virtual bar while holding a drink in their hand in the physical world.
- Virtual venues and events in the metaverse
Marriott let visitors at a trade show in Seville use a VR headset to view the rooms of a virtual hotel that had been completed by that point. It was a digital twin of the Marriott Auditorium Hotel and Conference Center in Madrid, which comprises the auditorium, conference and networking rooms of the real-life hotel. Marriott wants to use this to offer digital events for up to 2,000 participants that are more engaging than a straightforward video conference.
Establishing new revenue streams and diversifying traditional service portfolios
Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO
