Looking at the stats Google provides, I can safely say, users do end up seeing 360 photographs. By delivering an immersive experience, 360 photographs help position your property extremely well.
As you can see from the screenshots above, these 360 photographs are from 2 properties that sit diagonally opposite in terms of their offering. 1 is a 4 star luxury resort catering to weekend destination crowds. The other one is a 2 star hotel based in a very crowded area in the heart of the city. 360 photographs generated over 300+ views in under 3 days of uploading them for the resort. The 2 star hotel was viewed 184 times. These stats was generated in just under 3 days.
360 Virtual experiences for hotels and resorts
I had written an article few days back about a use case why hotels and resorts should be utilising 360 virtual experiences to show their property and amenities.
Even if you are not able to find budget to create full 360 immersive experiences, it is absolutely essential to have your Google Maps listing contain a set of 360 immersive photographs which allow potential guest to virtually walk through your property, enjoy how the room feels like, experience the serene sunset that one can enjoy, if they book your luxury king presidential suite.
When not to bother about getting a 360 virtual tour for your hotel and resort?
The other day I was having a conversation with my wife. She explained, “a 360 immersive virtual tour is not be required for hotel and resorts that employ Word of Mouth Marketing strategy”.
She is absolutely correct in making the aforementioned statement. If your hotel has great word of mouth going on for you, please do not bother on such marketing activities. Rather that budget is better utilised to enhance customer experience.
At what stage does a hotel or resort require 360 photographs?
If you are a property that needs marketing.
Suppose you are a new property. Or may be you’ve gone through a renovation. New decor, new room interiors, enhanced offerings and amenities. At these stages, it is wise for your property to invest in such 360 photographs because when a potential guest is at the final consideration stages, they want to know all the details about your property.
There’s also another very important reason for you to have your own 360 photographs uploaded on Google Maps listings. When you want to control the narrative in the online world. You see, anyone who visits your property can take 360 photographs and upload them on your Google Maps or Google Business profile listing. Google allows anyone to upload photographs and tag your property.
User generated 360 content is not in your control
At that time, you really do not control what a guest may shoot and upload on Google. May be they take a 360 photographs of your garden area, where there’s a stockpile of garbage bags that was kept when the photograph was being taken by the guest. If the guest takes a snapshot and uploads them on your Google Maps profile, what is shown to other users who are looking at these photographs. That your garden area looks nice, but there were garbage bags kept in the garden.
Is that something as the General Manager for the property want uploaded on Google? No right?
Instead if you yourself take the decision to control the narrative (i learnt this concept from a friend and colleague), you can get in touch with a Virtual Tour service provider, schedule a shoot and upload the best of the 360 imagery on your Google Business Profile, that would show your property in the best way possible.
I am not for once saying, guests still cannot upload their own 360 photographs. They can always do that. Google allows UGC (user generated content) to be uploaded at any point in time. But at least when you’ve got your own photographs already uploaded, at least you know chances of potential future guests seeing the user generated (i.e. guest who took a 360 photograph with garbage bag) is reduced since you’ve got a 360 photograph of the same place (i.e. the garden area) professionally shot and already uploaded on your hotels Google Maps profile/Google Business Page.
360 photographs for your hotel and resort uploaded in Google Street View
Google automatically uploads street view images every now and then for your property entrances if and only if your property entrance is situated on the main road. When the Google Maps car circumvents the various city street it captures and shares on your Google Maps/Google Business profile. But it is not able to generate 360 photographs for the interiors of your property.
For highlighting the interiors you’d need to take a step forward and get them done.
I would love to hear from hoteliers if they already have 360 photographs on their Google Business Page. Are you able to see a positive ROI on the investment made? Let’s get the conversation going in the comments section.
Till next time,
Thanks
DB
June 4th 2026