The tourism sector is seeing a surge in travel requests after unprecedented global lockdowns. The planet got greener during restrictions and presented an opportunity to enjoy and understand the sustainable use of biodiversity. Virtual discoveries have become an interesting model to explore destinations at one’s convenience.

The destinations took the shape of ‘meta places’ by integrating virtual environments offering sensory experiences for travellers' indulgence. As explained by many theorists and researchers’ Meta as a word was used by ancient Greeks which meant “beyond,” “after,” or “behind.” The “beyond” sense of meta still lingers in words like metaphysics or meta-economy. Future travellers will adopt immersive settings to celebrate human connection and embrace unprecedented change to nurture relationships.

There is a market shift for selling and buying travel as technology has bridged the gaps of perceiving the destination by first consuming experiences virtually and then in real life. The tours and activity sector offers visually immersive destination content to encourage the sale of tourism products. The user transactions have been seamless too with e-wallets and QR codes linked with advertising formats appealing to all genres.

The representation of quality is defined by social interactions and feedback taken through virtual meetings supersedes the digital clutter of star-rated itineraries. The travel businesses are in extended resilient mode hoping to become successful in the dynamic mix of competition driven by customer demands. Blockchain interface (digital ledgers) becomes a useful enabler for ‘Meta Places’ because customer engagement within web environments increases the competitive advantage for on-ground operators, who align their digital visibility for virtual tourists.

‘Meta Places’ are navigated with virtual reality gadgets, adrenaline high videos and life-transforming motivational bytes to acquire potential users to explore advertised regions as travellers. The digital consumption of the virtual tourism content is enjoyed by any generation based on the entertainment and engagement factors. Selling travel in past was on the basis of query and visually rich itineraries but with ‘Virtual Escort’ at ‘Meta Places’ the visitor can create self-paced discovery tours which further create an intention to get real-life experience during the actual trip on-ground and connect with local communities. Tourism products are the essential component which needs to become intensely consumer-focused with ‘Meta’ as a motivation trigger. There is an ongoing paradigm shift for acquiring customers by integrating VR, and AI technology brings limitless options for social interactions from aspirational and educational perspectives.

Tourism flourishes with new ideas and ‘Meta Places’ maximise possibilities with assumed scenarios while nullifying tragic consequences. This further creates opportunities for expecting relevant tourism behaviours that shape the destination’s economy. The destination marketing opportunity is all about integrating digital assets such as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as souvenirs which become more than a keepsake and give opportunity for owners to resell. Virtual exploration creates possibilities to stir the imagination becoming a reason to travel to experience and learn.

The metaverse is an interactive virtual world that offers users to move freely between virtual worlds on different platforms and explore using their personalised avatars. There are now deeper instances of destination marketing which are being explored for digital engagement. Meta clubbed with AI and blockchain has emerged as mainstream technology (web 3.0) to promote real-world human communication and could bring benefits in form of saleable collectables designed by local communities. The socio-economic ways to drive the metaverse engagement largely depend upon stakeholders' perspectives for offering services and products for future travellers. Alongside, the regions have to create opportunities for locals to generate enough income in terms of employment, wealth and available resources.

Skill development and community management could bring ‘Meta Places’ to the forefront by offering situation-based guidance delivered by locals based on travellers' needs and desires. Connecting tourism at the neighbourhood level is important as the stories shared by locals will provide immersion.

The academia could become the primary beneficiary of the META revolution and enhance learning mechanisms by combining virtual reality apps and avatars in learners’ own virtual world. Digital literacy is a much sought after stream to address the skill mitigation issue of the gig economy. Education can bring a paradigm shift in the interconnected society by helping learners create distinctions among their target audience. The future discipline of the workforce will be driven by freedom from bonds and contracts. This is where tourism studies can set up ‘Meta Places’ for recreational teachings where learners’ can traverse through situations and interact with applications that they stumble upon. The destination managers and academia together can become game-changers in imparting practical sessions around real-life scenarios full of sensory understandings. Foresight in education is very important as it will enable students to learn about future technologies.

The ‘Meta Places’ could contribute to future innovation and development by offering locals within the region to adopt edtech and learn to maximise their potential. Education will become effective with decentralised applications, and marketplace models led by communities and will enhance employment, social protection and trade policies.

The smart destinations encourage smart tourism with e-mobility and offer ‘interactive city discoveries’ driven by augmented reality, gamified ‘culture display’ with incredible scenes transacted through varied digital currencies. The open spaces hosts events keeping ‘Meta Places’ busy with tours & activities for everyone’s consumption. The role of guides as ‘virtual escorts’ is relevant when travellers indulge in gamified interactions among participants and applications. The ‘Meta Place’ content distribution advancements in form of unique itineraries give the advantage of geo-tagged access formats.

There are more educated travellers than skilled delivery personnel and this has resulted in visitors booking their experiences not at the attraction but on their own. The future of tour guiding also is in the dark as guiding services are yet to get aligned with new technologies which have to be adopted by facilitators for seamless customer centricity in a new reality. The most important element of tour guiding strategy is to effectively position interactions for customers and solidify expectations. The destinations have to evolve as ‘Meta Places’ and adopt marketing through virtual games & digital collectables.

Moreover, the inclusive economic growth linked with purposes such as climate change will drive sustainability for ‘Meta Places’. The successful use cases in this area will bring ‘shared experiences’ to engage the target audience in the new social economy. The future will belong to tourism intermediaries who will engage in intuitive product development and embed design thinking to drive purchase behaviours with superior value propositions.

The creation of destination loyalty is the foremost objective of a ‘Meta Place’. This will give residents take first-mover advantage by creating experiences that could encourage innovation, influence the intention and attitude of the travellers, drive new business models and boost demand by user-generated content.

*The author is Dr. Sachin Bansal, Founder and Chief Explorer® of ‘City Explorers