Virtual reality is here to transform travel marketing

Finnair, Finavia and Visit Finland have collaborated with partners in Canada to create a high-calibre VR game. The game allows users to travel around Finland in virtual reality and experience Lapland, Helsinki and the Finnish Archipelago.Last year, MinorityVR, a Canadian VR game studio, and the Canada Media Fund (CMF), which supports audiovisual productions in Canada, were searching for travel industry partners to develop a cutting-edge VR experience. Finnair, Finavia and Business Finland’s Visit Finland unit seized the opportunity to join a top-level project which would allow anyone to experience a magical journey in Finland, no matter their physical location.

“Finland is known for technology, innovation and our heritage of Nordic design – as well as currently being one of the hottest travel destinations in the world. This project combines all these factors in a fascinating, unprecedented way”, says Johanna Jäkälä, Vice President, Brand & Marketing at Finnair.

Virtual reality harnesses the magic of Finland

In Trek: Travel Around the World, the adventure starts from a stylish Helsinki apartment. From here, players can enter different worlds: fishing under the Northern Lights in Lapland, tracing constellations in the Finnish Archipelago at Åland islands and stomping around Helsinki’s Market Square as a giant.

“As we explored the idea of travel in VR, we realized that a destination is never a place, but always a new way of seeing things, an emotional experience. We used VR to infuse the magic of Finnish destinations into a captivating experience. We will add more locations to the Trek concept later this year”, says Michael Zaidan, Creative Director of MinorityVR.

KLOK, a Finnish creative agency, facilitated the collaboration and helped create the virtual reality experience.

Virtual reality is perfect for travel marketing

The idea of reaching new audiences through immersive VR content was received well at Visit Finland, who work to promote Finland as a global destination.

“Visit Finland wants to actively develop new avenues for digital services. Virtual reality can be surprisingly engaging, even immersive, which makes the technology perfect for enticing travellers and welcoming them to Finland”, says Heli Jimenez, Head of Marketing at Business Finland.

Trek: Travel Around the World

Trek: Travel Around the World can be downloaded on the Steam and Viveport platforms and played all around the world with VR game equipment.

Watch the official trailer on YouTube

INQUIRIES

Sara Terho
Digital Marketing Specialist, Business Finland | Visit Finland
+358 50 407 1579, sara.terho@businessfinland.fi

Finnair specialises in flights between Europe and Asia, offering direct connections from Helsinki to more than 100 destinations in Europe and 19 in Asia. Finnair carries more than 10 million passengers annually on their modern fleet and pioneers environmental initiatives. The only Nordic carrier with a 4-star Skytrax ranking, Finnair has also won the World Airline Award for Best Airline Northern Europe for the past eight years running. Finnair has been a member of the oneworld alliance since it was founded in 1999. www.finnair.com/ and https://company.finnair.com/ Finavia provides and develops airport services with a focus on safety, customer-orientation and cost efficiency. Finavia’s comprehensive network of 21 airports facilitates international connections from Finland and to destinations throughout Finland. Helsinki Airport is the leading transit airport for long-haul traffic in Northern Europe. Finavia’s turnover for 2017 was €374 million with a staff of 2,700. www.finavia.fi Visit Finland, a part of Business Finland, works to develop Finland’s travel destination brand, market Finland to travelers abroad and help companies in the travel industry go global. Visit Finland cooperates with travel destination regions, businesses in the travel industry and other export promoters and embassies. To be inspired by Finland, please visit: www.visitfinland.com KLOK is a specialised creative agency focusing on film and video. Our job is to make modern moving images for audiences on every platform. www.klok.fi MinorityVR is a pioneering studio in the development of virtual reality (VR) games located in Canada. Founded in 2010 in Montreal, MinorityVR develops innovative, high-quality VR games to create engaging and memorable immersive experiences. We currently offer a VR gaming platform for arcades, entertainment centres (FECs), high-end arcades and amusement parks around the world. www.weareminority.com The Canada Media Fund (CMF) fosters, develops, finances and promotes the production of Canadian content for all audiovisual media platforms. The CMF guides Canadian content towards a competitive global environment by fostering industry innovation, rewarding success, enabling a diversity of voice and promoting access to content through public and private sector partnerships. The CMF receives financial contributions from the Government of Canada and Canada’s cable, satellite and IPTV distributors. www.cmf-fmc.ca