Your next vacation can be virtual
The largest Japanese airline is guessing that the future of travel will not travel at all. Last month a married couple from the Oita prefecture exchanged a robot named Avatar, driven by his daughter hundreds of miles away in Tokyo. Made by ANA Holdings Inc., it looks like a vacuum cleaner with a connected iPad. But the screen shows her daughter's face as they chat and her wheels let her roam the house as if she were real and sitting at her parents' table.
This may seem strange to an international airline. As the population ages, tourist attractions become more popular and travel abroad less sustainable. ANA and its competitors are counting on making money by keeping potential travelers at home.
The "virtual journey" is of course nothing new. Storytellers, travel writers and artists have been stimulating the senses of wheelchair tourists for centuries. Only in recent decades have frequent and safe journeys - especially abroad - been made accessible to the poor, largely thanks to cheap air fares and sharing services. In 2018, the travel and tourism sector grew by almost 4% and accounts for more than 10% of global GDP.
And yet, even as the middle classes of the world rise up and take positions in the economic class, there are allusions to a post-voyage society. Sustainability issues - and movements such as flight simulation - are a burden on carbon-intensive airlines and can spread to other forms of travel. The growth of tourism focuses on popular destinations and forces them to look for ways to limit the number of visitors. And the aging of rich societies hinders both physical travel and the demand for alternative ways to experience the world and stay in touch with others.
Virtual reality offers an attractive answer to these trends for the travel industry. First Airlines, another Japanese company, now allows customers to sit in an aircraft model in Tokyo, where original meals are served before making RV journeys to selected destinations. The company focuses on older travelers who do not want to move in real life and "flights" to cities such as New York, Paris and Rome are often complete.
ANA thinks big. He wants to use robotics, touch technology and fast communication to create a "new direct mode of transport" that allows people to "bring their presence, awareness, knowledge and skills" to faraway places. In less noble terms, the idea is to make virtual reality activities more attractive by stimulating multiple senses, including touch. For example, video conferencing can be improved quickly by letting participants shake hands, while other technologies can one day simulate the feeling of walking on a distant beach or on a mountain. The Japanese space agency even hopes to use the company's avatars for lunar exploration.
Of course, far-off technologies encourage far-reaching claims. ANA is not going to sell Avatar until next year and the first versions will certainly be rudimentary. Profits are also likely to be difficult to achieve: an estimated global market for this type of technology in 2023 will only be $ 300 million. ANA's traditional travel business, on the other hand, has more than 19 billion dollars last year.
Although the costs of virtual vacations are still low, the technology market that connects physical distances between families and colleagues seems likely to grow. In the past two decades, video conferencing applications have changed the way families and businesses communicate around the world. The economic robots with which they can physically communicate are the next natural step. ANA robots may not replace their planes quickly, but they will certainly be part of the technological future of the journey.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editors or those of Bloomberg LP and its owners .
This may seem strange to an international airline. As the population ages, tourist attractions become more popular and travel abroad less sustainable. ANA and its competitors are counting on making money by keeping potential travelers at home.
The "virtual journey" is of course nothing new. Storytellers, travel writers and artists have been stimulating the senses of wheelchair tourists for centuries. Only in recent decades have frequent and safe journeys - especially abroad - been made accessible to the poor, largely thanks to cheap air fares and sharing services. In 2018, the travel and tourism sector grew by almost 4% and accounts for more than 10% of global GDP.
And yet, even as the middle classes of the world rise up and take positions in the economic class, there are allusions to a post-voyage society. Sustainability issues - and movements such as flight simulation - are a burden on carbon-intensive airlines and can spread to other forms of travel. The growth of tourism focuses on popular destinations and forces them to look for ways to limit the number of visitors. And the aging of rich societies hinders both physical travel and the demand for alternative ways to experience the world and stay in touch with others.
Virtual reality offers an attractive answer to these trends for the travel industry. First Airlines, another Japanese company, now allows customers to sit in an aircraft model in Tokyo, where original meals are served before making RV journeys to selected destinations. The company focuses on older travelers who do not want to move in real life and "flights" to cities such as New York, Paris and Rome are often complete.
ANA thinks big. He wants to use robotics, touch technology and fast communication to create a "new direct mode of transport" that allows people to "bring their presence, awareness, knowledge and skills" to faraway places. In less noble terms, the idea is to make virtual reality activities more attractive by stimulating multiple senses, including touch. For example, video conferencing can be improved quickly by letting participants shake hands, while other technologies can one day simulate the feeling of walking on a distant beach or on a mountain. The Japanese space agency even hopes to use the company's avatars for lunar exploration.
Of course, far-off technologies encourage far-reaching claims. ANA is not going to sell Avatar until next year and the first versions will certainly be rudimentary. Profits are also likely to be difficult to achieve: an estimated global market for this type of technology in 2023 will only be $ 300 million. ANA's traditional travel business, on the other hand, has more than 19 billion dollars last year.
Although the costs of virtual vacations are still low, the technology market that connects physical distances between families and colleagues seems likely to grow. In the past two decades, video conferencing applications have changed the way families and businesses communicate around the world. The economic robots with which they can physically communicate are the next natural step. ANA robots may not replace their planes quickly, but they will certainly be part of the technological future of the journey.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editors or those of Bloomberg LP and its owners .
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