The City Of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia: 3D Virtual Tours for City of Sydney Venues

01/03/2023

Total 200 words used.

Problem
The City of Sydney has a community venues portfolio of 81 spaces, worth $40 million. These venues see thousands of bookings annually, however the booking experience is not optimal. It can sometimes take up to 14 days to book a venue – involving multiple in-person tours and many emails exchanged. This process is time consuming for the venues team and is not an optimal user experience for the community.
Solution
We introduced 3D virtual tours of our community venues with an aim to save the venues team time and increase community confidence in booking venues.
Objectives
1. Business objective: Save the venues team time
2. Community objective: Increase community confidence in booking venues 
Results
Since launch, these 3D virtual experiences have met both objectives:
#1 Business objectives: staff time saved, unlocked for higher-value tasks. 

• 50% reduction in requests for in-person tours
• 44% reduction in space related enquiries
• 35% reduction in staff time

#2 Community objectives: a better experience. Increased engagement and community confidence. 

• 100% of community members surveyed said they felt more confident in booking their venue
• 44% increase in business profile interactions. Over 1000+ unique virtual tour visits in the first two months

See a tour demo here. 

Bernard de Broglio – Web Manager
Chris Sipidias – Community Venues Manager
Hannah Harris – Marketing Communications Manager
Lisa Casey – Web Analyst 
Mark Mitchell – Digital Innovation Service Designer
Michaela Upton – Digital Innovation Program Manager
Tom Gao – Chief Technology and Digital Services Officer