Travelvrse

Problem Statement

Marriot's US Grant Hotel in San Diego, want potential visitors to explore the hotels features and activities in advance of visiting, so that they can earn rewards and discounts. This will encourage travellers to book directly with the hotel instead of using third-party booking services.

Project Concept

Travelvrse are a startup that want to tackle this problem head on, and have devised a platform that will allow travellers to 'play before they stay'. With help from Dyna4 Studio we created a digital twin of the hotel lobby using the Unity Game Engine. This beautiful environment became the stage for a unique and exciting treasure hunt activity. Controlling an avatar the user can explore the lobby, listen to clues, and discover the secret speakeasy.

Production Process

The environment needed to be beautiful and accurate to the hotel. Dyna4 Studio provided incredible assets and materials for us to use to construct the environment in Unity. We had initially wanted to build the experience so it could be played in a web browser using WebGL technology, but this would have relied on users having sophisticated computers with powerful GPU's. We still wanted maximum engagement, however, so we decided to partner with PureWeb to stream the experience in the browser instead.

Streaming is a fantastic way to deliver high-quality gaming experiences to users regardless of their computing power, and it also works on mobile browsers too. We worked with PureWeb to create mobile touchscreen controls using web technologies and WebRTC communication to the servers. This method worked really well, and we were surprised at how robust and fast the PureWeb solution was.

We also worked on a React web site to accompany the activity, and this included a custom theme for the PureWeb streaming process.

Results and Impact

Travelvrse have been running a very succesful Beta of the US Grant experience here https://usgrant.travelvrse.com and Marriot and the US Grant are extremely happy with the result.

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