Typical holiday resort photography tends to bend the truth through the use of clever optical tricks. Even the smallest bathtub can be turned into an Olympic-sized swimming pool with a little help from a wide-angle lens. Virtual tours, on the other hand, are a different kettle of fish. 360-degree photography and videos give prospective holidaymakers a much more accurate overview of their next destination, adding to the experience and increasing upsell opportunities. That is also what Center Parcs was after when it called on our Poppr team: extending the holiday feeling of the group’s 18 (so far, more coming) bungalow parks in Europe to an online immersive experience of everything they have on offer.

Center Parcs’ request was straightforward, but not necessarily simple: how to highlight the wide range of assets of the group’s holiday villages? And how to put different lodgings in the spotlight, showcasing their advantages to different target groups? Previous experience had shown that additional visual information increases upsells. Seeing is believing. That’s why our team set to work on a series of virtual tours.

For each holiday park shoot, a Poppr team of 360° photographers, camerapeople, project managers and models went on site for up to a week. We made sure to convert our own holiday home into a fully kitted-out temporary studio. This way, our team was able to view and process the first rough images on location. While one team took care of the interior registration of a cottage, another would be busy making 360-degree video recordings in the indoor waterpark. At the same time, one of the characteristic Center Parcs golf carts was converted into a Google Street View car. As a Google partner, we provide the ubiquitous Street View images for larger clients.

During the long summer days, we were up at the crack of dawn and often out until late to capture each outdoor location in the best possible light, taking into account the weather conditions. Sunny images make every location shine!

• 18 immersive, interactive web experiences in 360 degrees, powered by a standard framework and menu structure in the back-end.
• CTAs leading to the main website and the reservations call centre, in addition to direct-booking buttons on lodgings subpages.
• Monitoring of visitor behaviour through Google Tag Manager.
• Tracking of reservations through the booking module on the website and the call centre.
• High-resolution images with up to 150 photos and videos in 360 degrees, showcasing key advantages of every holiday village.

Thanks to smooth cooperation between our Poppr image specialists on site and the developers in Ghent, we were able to achieve an average turnaround time per park of just eight weeks. This way, we transformed Center Parcs into the only network of holiday villages with such an unparallelled series of virtual tours. Website visitors are now able to experience the park as if they were there, adding to the fun. At the same time, the tours help Center Parcs to generate plenty of additional turnover. Visitors now stay on the website four times longer, they book faster, and they spend on average 25% more per booking.

The virtual tours can be updated continuously with new content and design features. If the stats show that particular scenes sell particularly well, we highlight them to ensure maximum online sales. The overwhelmingly positive response and increase in turnover have led Center Parcs to incorporate virtual tours into its global sales and marketing strategy for the next six years. This way, virtual tours will be rolled out step-by-step to all of the group’s holiday villages.

• Allgäu
• Bostalsee
• Hochsauerland
• Les Ardennes
• De Vossemeren
• De Haan
• De Eemhof
• Het Heijderbos
• Port Zélande
• Villages Nature Paris
• Les Trois Forêts
• Le Bois aux Daims
• Les Bois Francs
• Le Lac d’Ailette
• De Kempervennen
• Terhills
• Bispinger Heide
• Erperheide