graubünden play – App development for Oculus Go

This is of course a legitimate question, for which there is a simple answer: graubünden play.

In collaboration with Graubünden Ferien, we developed an Oculus app linked to a CMS in which videos can be exchanged easily and across devices. Thanks to the new platform, every tourism manager can create their own content, upload it to a CMS and organize it in playlists. This makes the regional and seasonal use of 360° videos suddenly very easy.

Our blog post shows you what we thought about during the app development process and what our priorities were.

Graubünden Ferien is the tourism marketing organization of the canton, which consists of 17 independently operating destinations. In order to reduce complexity in this respect and to provide the regional tourism managers with a common marketing tool, Graubünden Ferien was looking for a jointly usable application

The aim of the application was to enable customers and interested parties to immerse themselves in the beautiful Grisons mountains. However, the envisaged use cases are diverse:

• Interested parties can watch 360-degree videos at tourism trade fairs
• Local tourism managers can present seasonally changing regional offers
• Hotels can make possible daytime activities appealing to their guests

In plain language, this means that every local marketing manager must be able to create content independently, organize it in playlists and make it available to their customers. The question of the optimal type of content distribution therefore arose at the beginning.

In order to ensure multiplicability to all possible tourism stakeholders as well as simple and intuitive use, Bitforge used a VR content management system specially developed for this project by Graubünden Ferien itself, via which 360° videos can be uploaded and downloaded from a cloud library to the respective hardware (Oculus Go). This ensures the greatest possible flexibility for all stakeholders.

The application, which can be used independently by the various tourism destinations, provides those responsible with a tool with which they can launch new campaigns easily and cost-effectively. This results in an enormous increase in the efficiency of individual campaigns.

In addition, a paradigm shift in cooperation between the individual destinations is being initiated: The platform is a “semi-public” media library for all destinations. This should lead to an even more active exchange of content in the future and thus eliminate “duplicate” efforts in the long term.

Another benefit of content sharing is the advantage in terms of reach: Produced videos are no longer only used in the local micro-cosmos but support communication campaigns throughout the canton.

The strength of “graubünden play” lies in simplifying the complex interdependence in marketing issues between Graubünden Ferien and the individual tourist destinations. The VR application with attached CMS combines two well-known technologies (CMS and VR) to simplify a complicated process (regional and seasonally changing marketing campaigns) in an intelligent way.

With “graubünden play”, it is not the VR experience that is the star of the show, but the well-considered architecture of the platform. The familiar 360° video experience has thus been given a rarely seen versatility.

The design is deliberately kept as minimalist as possible in order to keep the core functionalities as intuitive to use as possible. In addition, operating an Oculus Go is something new for most users. The design, which is strongly focused on functionality, provides clear assistance here.

“graubünden play” is a simple, minimalist application whose strength clearly lies in its architecture, which is designed to maximize efficiency. Without a lot of bells and whistles, it is a great help to the customer in realizing individual campaigns for a variety of use cases.

It is also important that tourism managers can switch off the remote control before visitors use it, which ensures that only trained and authorized personnel can make changes to the settings. Visitors select and start the desired 360° videos by eye control.

“graubünden play” was awarded bronze in the “Innovation” and “Enterprise” categories at the Best of Swiss Apps Awards 2019. The application was also shortlisted in the categories “Mixed, Augmented and Virtual Reality”, “Functionality” and “Design”.

At vacation exhibitions, interested parties can be given an immersive insight into the Graubünden vacation region. Depending on the theme and season, content can be exchanged at will.

Local tourism offices can offer their guests an insight into local activities, exclusive hotels or events.

“Should I book the sledging tour tomorrow or the horse trekking?” To help their guests answer this question, hotels can offer their guests unique experience insights.