Agents to get cruise training in 3D virtual world Second Life
Travel Technology Initiative Special Report: Costa Cruises plans to use virtual world Second Life to host ship tours and training sessions for UK travel agents.
The Italian cruise operator has already launched Costa Serena on Second Life and has created a room within the ship for online classrooms, customer presentations and press conferences.
Costa corporate e-business director Daniele Mancini said Costa would use Second Life to train agents on its trade booking tool Costaclick as well as take them on virtual ship tours.
The company, which is part of Carnival Corporation, has also experimented with blogs as a way of getting the brand talked about and picked up by the search engines.
Mancini said: “Second Life is a medium, a social network and it does not cost a lot. It’s a few thousand Euros which is very cheap compared with newspaper advertising.”
He added that agents get to see the ship as it is and to the same scale as in the real world.
In May Costa inaugurated Costa Serena while simultaneously launching the ship and a cruise terminal on Second Life.
by Linda Fox
Linda Fox
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