Google and Singapore deepen their collaboration on AR tours
Google and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) are extending their partnership to include Augmented Reality (AR) tours of the city-state. The two announced last year that the Visit Singapore Travel Guide app would include augmented reality tours, which will be live in January 2024. Now, improved experiences may be found all around the city immediately on Google Maps.
Later this summer, STB will be one of two universities worldwide to be a part of a test programme that will integrate immersive AR experiences straight into Google Maps in Singapore. The choice was made in response to Merli’s Immersive Adventure, the popular AR tour that visited six fascinating locations in Singapore and was released on STB’s app in January. The tour follows Merli, Singapore’s tourism mascot, as he leads tourists to famous locations including the Maxwell Food Centre, Fullerton Hotel, and Victoria Theatre & Concert Hall.
As part of the new experiment, STB will keep creating new location-based augmented reality experiences straight on Google Maps using ARCore and Geospatial Creator from Google. Additionally, more than a dozen additional Singaporean tourist partners have been included to the pilot by STB, and they will be creating their own location-based augmented reality experiences. These stakeholders include well-known museums and tourist destinations, local heritage companies in Chinatown, and retail centres along Singapore’s Orchard Road shopping district.
Local businesses stand to gain a great deal from this experiment as they can use augmented reality (AR) to convey multiple stories in the same venues and have their material easily found and accessed on Google Maps. Travellers get a greater knowledge of Singapore’s rich history and culture via interactive storytelling, which enhances their discovery of new sites of interest, according to Simon Ang, Director of STB. He said that STB is dedicated to utilising technology to improve the traveller experience and set Singapore apart from other locations.
In total, thirty locations in four major tourist areas will soon provide augmented reality experiences. These include Chinatown, Sentosa Sensoryscape, and the Supertree Grove at Gardens by the Bay, which provide a distinctive fusion of ethnic districts, famous architecture, and mouthwatering food. There are several AR experiences available to take visitors on an immersive tour across the city, whether they wish to see the traditional dragon dance in Chinatown or browse the local cuisine that can be sampled at the Maxwell Food Centre.
When users are in close proximity to the landmarks, they may use Lens in Maps to scan their surroundings and find AR content on their mobile devices that overlays the actual world. In addition, the experiences will be accessible from a distance via Street View on the Google Maps mobile app, allowing inquisitive individuals to access them from anywhere.
We’re making it easier for over a billion consumers to explore this historic city in a manner that has never been possible before using location-based augmented reality experiences. This is just the start of an adventure that will change the way people discover the world, said Eric Lai, Google’s Group Product Manager for Augmented Reality.
Later this summer, the whole experience will be accessible on Google Maps. In order to achieve its objective of becoming Singapore the first AR City in the world, STB intends to increase the number of location-based augmented reality experiences on Google Maps beyond thirty.
