Best Virtual Tour Software

Whether it is travel related to cultural immersion, business-related purposes, or even purely entertainment and sightseeing activities, travel aficionados dot the globe. Heritage and historical sites are great attractions these days. However, people also need to visit schools for admission spread across geographies, business centers for work-related activities, and real estate properties. 

All the above require a significant amount of travel. So what happens when you can not transport yourself to a destination owing to multiple reasons such as money, time, and even health-related issues? Thanks to the advent of technology, those unable to travel to these places need not fret any longer - the location will come to you remotely in the comfort of your home or office. 

This process is called a Virtual Tour. This buyer’s guide delves into the features and advantages of virtual tour software and highlights the key reasons for your business to have one. Explore the many versions of the virtual tour platforms on GoodFirms’ dedicated page and make the right choice for your business!

First coined in 1994, virtual tour systems have Colin Johnson to thank after he created a 3-dimensional render of  Dudley castle - as it was in the 16th Century - in England. Since then, virtual tours have undergone multiple transformations and innovations and are the fine-tuned product that we use today. 

It is a simulation or virtual recreation of a location, room, building, or monument. We can create virtual tours using still images or videos stitched together to form one unified experience. Sound effects - music, narration - and even text-based information generally accompany the videos. 

So, how can one enjoy a Virtual Tour? You can use virtual tour software on devices of any size (desktop, laptop, mobile, tablet). There are Virtual Reality (VR) headsets that offer immersive tours along with site information using geoinformatics.

Planning a tour of a location is often a headache. You need to make schedules match between different individuals participating, and then make sure that disturbance during the trip is minimal.

Besides offering a realistic experience, virtual tours tend to be far more effective in giving people a hands-on experience of the destination with latent information of use.

However, that’s not all. Here are some significant reasons why virtual tours have exploded in popularity - 

• Cheaper than an on-site visit: Simulated tours can be conducted with the comfort of your own home, on a computer device, by paying a nominal sum. It nullifies the expense incurred on multiple travel modes, hotel stays, commissions and charges, and other miscellaneous costs. Also, the experience is as authentic as the original! 
• Pace Yourself: A virtual tour, once booked, can be conducted at one’s own pace within a period. The experience of a location is not hindered owing to timing, crowds, or even the behest of a fast-moving tour guide/agent.
• Interactive and Informative Tours:  Programmers can integrate a lot of information into a virtual tour. The data is available and spread out in the form of snippets associated with specific spatial points on the location grid. The user can scroll over to these points and interact with the image, to get the necessary information. It is a common tactic seen in virtual tours of archeologically significant locations. 
• Accessibility: Virtual tour software and devices are straightforward to set up and use. The total time to sign-in and immerse yourself takes less than two minutes. Added to this, they can be accessed on the move or while remaining stationary. 
• In-Depth user views: Some users prefer to scan every square centimeter of a location to ensure they are comfortable with the information they have gleaned. In the case of business viewers, particularly real estate, users will zoom and scan the images to ensure there is no irregularity.  
• Countless repetitions:  Missed out on parts of the tour? No problems, you can re-scroll or navigate back to the point you skipped almost instantly to get a fresh perspective of the area. You can do this for multiple locations, any number of times. 

With the explosion of computing capability in smaller devices, creating and participating in a virtual tour has become extremely simple. Today,  virtual tours find rich applications in a variety of industries.

One of the biggest gainers of the virtual tour boom has been the tourism industry. Many companies - travel operators and fully-fledged businesses - offer people unable to travel a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience exotic locations as part of virtual tour packages. It includes hotel rooms as well. 

Another beneficiary is the education industry, particularly universities. They offer international students seeking admission a chance to experience the campus before finalizing entry to a particular institution. Virtual tour setups may be adapted to showcase elements of human and animal anatomy for better understanding by students at top medical schools. With the boom in online education, institutes in various streams are using virtual tour software to augment the practical experience with virtual know-how and in-depth analysis. 

The real estate industry is not further behind, either. Developers provide would-be buyers tours of model houses and apartments virtually so that the purchase decision is quicker.  Businesses may also want to purchase real estate or structures (e.g., factories, warehouses, etc.) at a particular site. They may tour these facilities virtually before striking a deal. 

Interior designers use virtual tour software to show clients the work they have completed - or even on-going projects - without disturbing other house owners. It builds trust within the interested parties. Even entertainment companies have jumped onto the virtual tour bandwagon, offering fans customized tours of sets of famous movies and/or popular TV series when recording. In this fashion,  users feel a part of the show themselves. 

Nowadays, virtual tours are conducted by automobile and manufacturing companies, willing to showcase their products to the rest of the world. Product concept unveiling as well as launches have vast audiences remotely, who can experience the products first hand through tours. These audiences could then potentially turn into immediate customers. 

Virtual tours find employment throughout industries, e.g., advertising and marketing and museum tours. Their application is deriving new benefits.

You may look at everyday examples, like Google Street View, and believe its format is the most popular form of virtual tours. However, there exist classification types for these simulated tours based on camera angles and the ultimate objective of the trip. They are as follows: 

• 360 or Panoramic Tours: One of the most common forms of virtual tours, a panoramic tour, is composed of numerous images of a location patched together to form one coherent representation around a point called the no-parallax point. It gives us a rotating view of the entire site. 
• Interactive Floor Plan Tours: As the name suggests, this form of a virtual tour is employed by real estate developers to give users an in-depth experience (architectural layout) of what houses will look like once completed. It combines still images with interactive elements to help users navigate around a simulated environment of their homes, through computer designed floor plans.   
• Video Tours: This type of virtual tour uses a camera in video mode to capture the experience of a person or entity walking through a location at a particular speed. Filming the entire place occurs between different fixed points. It doesn’t offer the solidity of a panoramic view,  but the integration of interactive elements and accompanying text or narration makes it an enjoyable experience. 
• Still Photo or Photo Gallery Tours: These tours are a collection of still images that involve users browsing through to glean more information about a product or service. They are generally one dimensional and have minimal interactive elements.

The growth of virtual tours has spawned primarily owing to the software that makes it possible to experience it over multiple devices. It is called a Virtual Tour Software.  

Virtual Tour Software helps represent a location virtually for a user, in multiple modes such as 360 degree or panoramic mode, video mode, and photo mode. 3d virtual tour software can be adapted to multiple devices for various industries all over the globe. Virtual tour tools help businesses create immersive experiences for users to enjoy remotely, within cost-effective means.  

Virtual softwares can be combined with virtual reality tools to offer users a one of a kind experience in different locations. The best virtual tour software helps you create, curate, improve, and optimize offerings for users.

Does your business operate in the real estate industry where customer experience and retention go hand in hand? Or perhaps you are a part of a university admissions committee trying to attract students from far away places - nationally and internationally. Or maybe yours is just a business that explores the possibility of giving your customers an authentic remote experience. 

Well, virtual tour software has all the answers to your problems. The 360 virtual tour software is a popular choice for organizations in the real estate industry. Users are given a tour through their locality of residence as well as the house itself in almost life-like clarity. 

Museum tours use 3d virtual tour software to give hundreds and thousands of guests an in-depth representation of the structure’s history through interactive content embedded within. As mentioned earlier, western universities are turning to virtual tours to help students acclimatize with their possible alma maters. 

The travel and tourism industry has benefitted like no other. Adventure sports and trekking companies have turned to virtual tours to help audiences take in breath-taking views from dangerous terrains, all from the safety of their homes. Virtual tours of monuments, historic natural formations, and even exotic stays have become the norm. 

Consumers are the lifeline of any business - but in industries such as real estate or tourism, the dependence on individual customers is acute. However, with the proliferation of virtual tour software, many businesses are now beginning to see the benefits. 

Virtual tours offer customers a realistic view of the brand and its offerings at their convenience. Organizations can brand individual products within tours so that prospective buyers, such as in real estate, may get the first-hand experience of the company’s products virtually. It leads to a firmer brand name and better consumer referrals. 

One of the fundamental advantages of virtual tour platforms is the ability for businesses to reach out to consumers spread across geographical areas, thereby increasing their penetration. The experiences are easy to craft,, and businesses also have the option to make it as customized and personalized as possible. 

The better a customer experiences a product, the faster he/she is drawn to purchasing it. Businesses can also benefit from a shortened sales cycle through virtual tour software, leading to better ROI. The investment made into virtual tour software can be used to cover hundreds of users or buyers.  

Using virtual tour tools, companies can express their full range of products and services, proving to be one of the most effective marketing and communication channels. 

Today, virtual tours are vastly employed and serve as a revenue-generating arm of the marketing wing for many organizations. However, to ensure the tour offerings are up to standard, the 3d virtual tour software must be replete with the best features. Some of them are as follows - 

• Drag and Drop: Add any number of interactive elements of different styles of virtual tours as needed.  
• Immediate Publishing and Sharing: Push the virtual tour links across various social media platforms or bespoke publishing avenues for users to sign up and have an enlightening experience. 
• 360-degree site stream: An innovative digital solution, this feature integrates virtual reality into tours to present users with an ever-changing landscape around them. The site’s streaming is consistent, and interactive elements make users feel in-situ.
• Hotspots:  This feature is central to a virtual tour system - it helps integrate links, notes, and other snippets of information into the tour. 
• Voice Over: Add narration, music, and other audio forms into the tour to make it more interactive. 
• Scene Navigation: Get users all the information they need, like a virtual map, to navigate the entire tour in an orderly sequence and not in a haphazard manner. 
• File Storage and Recovery: Integration with cloud data storage to ensure files are readily available at any time.
• Auto-Responsiveness: Adjust tour to size and specifications of the screen size on which the virtual tour software is running. 
• Payment Gateways: The 360 virtual tour software you will use to attract users must have integrated payment gateways so users can not only purchase the experience but also add integrations on the application without navigating away. 
• Tour Modes: You should be able to program locations in the virtual tour software so that a 360 virtual tour, 3d virtual tour, video tours, and photo tours are readily available for users to experience. 
• Branding: Use the custom branding option to highlight your company’s name and tagline as front and center of the user experience. 
• Reporting and Analysis: Use the analytics dashboard to assess user and software statistics. Reporting creates visualized data reports for easy analysis and improvement. 
• Photo Button: Ensure users get the opportunity to click realistic photographs of monuments, settings, or real estate locations during the tour. 
• Enlarge and Email: Virtual tour links can be emailed to clients who have purchased it, from where the buyer can open up a more interesting experience of the tour. 
• Map Button: Locate specific businesses or places on a map during the tour.

Whether free virtual tour software or paid versions, there is no doubt that these digital innovations are beneficial to businesses and customers. Some of their advantages are as follows. 

• Ubiquitous (can be used anywhere)
• Increases Visitor Retention 
• Builds a broader customer base thanks to personalized interactions on the virtual tour building platform
• The software is easy to scale
• Data analytics can accurately show customer drop-off rates, tour popularity, and content integration needs
• Better SEO performance of the business (Local and World Wide Web)
• Increased sales rates (particularly in real estate)
• Realistic representation of company sites 
• Considerably money-efficient to implement, which also contributes to better ROI
• Can be used to increase employee engagement and employer branding 
• Easy to use and share virtual tour links

The price of the best virtual tour software is dependent on a variety of factors, not just limited to the popularity of the software, its features, or the brand that created the software. 

If you need to go light on the wallet, then do not miss to check out a list of the best and open source virtual tour software. Real estate virtual tour software such as Lapentor and Round Me offer free versions of their software.

Real estate virtual tour software Enscape offers a two week trial on their paid version, while Virtual Tour Creator has a six-month trial period. Some affordable virtual tour solutions include Seekbeak ($11/month), Kuula ($12/month), and 360ToVisit ($9.99/month) and LiveTour ($5/month). 
 

ViewPlex and Hauzd Engine are examples of mid-tier priced options at $47.49/month and $45/month. Build360 Tours charges a yearly fee of $49.99/year. More exclusive versions of the software are also available, which include Virtual Tour Cafe ($125/month). Fusion is software that charges a one-time price of $99. Viur charges users on a quote-basis. 

While it is beneficial to make your mind up early in the buying process of a virtual tour system, the process is a lot more complicated due to the following factors you must consider before purchasing. 

• Cost - Do not pay over the top for software with features you will not use regularly. Make sure you have plenty of options in your budget. 
• Customer support - Even the best virtual tour software for real estate often needs an adjustment period and plenty of expertise while setting it up. Make sure apt service support is available to help you ease into the software. 
• Security: Ensure the real estate virtual tour software is secure with no way for hackers to access sensitive geo-location or consumer data, especially with regards to payment. 
• Features: You have to assess the overall feature set of such softwares and how it complements your business’s ambitions to move forward. 
• Type -Different types of virtual tours have different types of dedicated software. It is up to the user to decide which form of a virtual tour he wants to implement - 360 virtual tour or photo tours - and then decide on the appropriate software. 

GoodFirms strives to help organizations achieve the best possible results using software that suits their purposes. This meticulously crafted buyer’s guide for virtual tour software has been created with the intention of providing prospective buyers with information on features, benefits, uses, and other important aspects of virtual tour systems. 

Our information about all the software here is up to date, saving you the headache of multiple time-consuming checks.  Be sure to check out our extensive software directory to find the right software to fit all your present and future business needs. What are you waiting for? Make your hassle-free choice on GoodFirms!