Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures Capturing a Real-World Adventure in VR to Share With Travel Trade
A REAL-WORLD ATTRACTION CAPTURED IN VR: POWERED BY STARMARK
The Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures team tapped into Starmark’s virtual reality expertise to re-create the experience that Boggy Creek offers in a semi-scripted experience, sharing the breathtaking beauty of nature, including wetlands and wildlife, in an immersive VR experience.
Virtual reality can create entirely new worlds. But it can also bring the real world into a virtual one, making it possible to share unique, real-world places and geographies with those who have not been there in person.
With a compelling and innovative way to share the spirit of adventure they provide their guests even before their guests arrive in the Everglades, the Boggy Creek team gained a new sense of confidence and a new way to grow their business.
SHARING A REAL-WORLD ADVENTURE, ANY TIME, ANYWHERE
Tour operators and the travel trade are an important audience for Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures. They book entire buses of guests and recommend the park to hundreds of people traveling from all over the world. Most of these professionals have never been to the park, including many located in Europe, making it difficult to give them a familiarization tour. To help them understand the full Boggy Creek experience — and share the excitement and adventure with prospective guests — Boggy Creek sought a virtual experience that would bring it all to life by putting them right in the middle of the action. And to honor their time, we had to deliver it all in just a few minutes.
“The ability to give a tour operator in Germany or the UK a personalized tour while we are sitting in our office back in Florida is amazing.”
— Margie Bryan, Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures
The aim was to capture the thrill of whisking across the water as you spy turtles, birds and other wildlife in and around the sprawling walls of grass, encountering nature’s predators — including the American Alligator — from the safety of Boggy Creek’s U.S. Coast Guard-inspected airboats. Beyond the main attraction, Starmark showcases the breadth and depth of experiences visitors could choose. These included a seminole native village, gem and fossil mining, a baby alligator pond, the onsite barbeque restaurant, tiki bar, large pavilions, and the latest addition to the park, the butterfly encounter.
VIRTUAL REALITY AND 360° EXPERIENCES
Starmark created a VR experience that showcased the tours and activities Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures creates across the headwaters to the Florida Everglades.
Participants in VR can free roam explore the park, and hop on an airboat to enjoy a 2 minute scripted adventure showcasing everything the attraction has to offer.
In addition, the sales staff can meet with travel professionals in the UK and Germany in VR to give them a personalized tour of the property and explain everything a guest can do while in the park. These real-time interactive sales demos far exceed anything that Boggy Creek has done in the past with video or Zoom meetings alone.
“Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures is forward-thinking in their marketing and sales to the trade, and preparing for the metaverse now will give them a huge leg up on the competition in the future.”
— Brett Circe, Chief Digital Officer, Starmark
FUTURE WORLD-BUILDING
Phase one of the VR attraction was launched at the IPW trade show in Orlando, Florida. Future phases will continue to bring more Boggy Creek experiences into the virtual world. Prospective visitors will be able to explore, ask questions, buy tickets, and even be hosted as a metaworld in the Metaverse for guests around the world to enjoy 24×7.
