Routehappy subsidiary will provide look inside aircraft during booking
ATPCO announced a new partnership with 3D SeatMapVR by Renacen, a provider of 3D seat map technology that brings “an immersive shopping experience to life via interactive virtual tours.” This collaboration, said the announcement, will provide travelers an “unprecedented” look inside an aircraft during the booking process, arming consumers with more insight into the type of seat, its features and the layout a particular aircraft offers.
Virtual Tours, the newest tool in Routehappy Visuals, is now available to all Routehappy airline subscribers who also subscribe to Renacen. (Routehappy is ATPCO’s merchandising content platform.) This partnership, said the announcement, enables Virtual Tours to be seamlessly integrated and distributed to any channel subscribed to Routehappy.
ATPCO also enables Virtual Tours for airlines working with their own 360-degree content providers, offering full flexibility to use the partner of their choice. Corporate booking tool AmTrav, part of the TravelPerk Group, is the first sales channel to integrate the content and offer this display and enhanced visualization to its users.
Thomas Gregorson, ATPCO’s chief strategy officer, said Virtual Tours “represent a major leap in airline merchandising, transforming how consumers shop for flights.” He said travelers can now interact with and explore cabins and seating arrangements before making their purchase. Not only do Routehappy Visuals enhance traveler confidence, said Gregorson, “but they also enable airlines and sales channels to deliver a more engaging shopping experience while boosting ancillary revenue opportunities such as seat and cabin upgrades.”
AmTrav’s Routehappy integration already includes Renacen’s Virtual Tours for Gulf Air, Iberia, Iberia Express, Hawaiian Airlines’ 787s, most United Airlines flights, and Delta Air Lines’ Airbus A330-900neo and A321 aircraft. Additional airlines and aircraft types are set to be added soon.
Jeff Klee, CEO of AmTrav, said savvy travelers are “obsessed” with where they sit on a plane. At AmTrav, he said, “we want to make sure we equip those travelers with enough information to understand which option will be the most comfortable so they can make the most well-informed decisions.
“To that end, Virtual Tours are an absolute game-changer, giving travelers amazing visibility into what they’ll experience.”
Diego de Alcalá Cachero Rodríguez, Renacen’s CEO, said airlines have increasingly complex seating offers that have historically been difficult for consumers to visualize. His company’s technology, he said, “has allowed flight shoppers on airline websites to see exactly what they will pay for during the seat selection process for some time, and our partnership with ATPCO will expand that reach, which means more airlines, sales channels and consumers will have access to best-in-kind cabin tours.”
