Oculus Explore

Tourism is one of the most important sectors in the global economy, it represents 10% of the world GDP and it has growth for ten consecutive years.

As tourism numbers climb to new records every year, destinations are being overwhelmed by massive crowds, air and water pollution , and the rising price of housing.

VR Tourism is a reality, and is here to stay. We want to harness the potential of Oculus to better educate and create higher empathy between potential tourists and local destinations

MY ROLE

Design Strategist

Researcher

Ideation

Concept Development

Weeks

7 Design for Sustainability

PROJECT TYPE

TEAM MEMBERS

Het Patel

Kaitlin Westbrook

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BranD Research

We started our journey by exploring diverse aspects of Oculus value constellation. We analyzed its history, its value proposition, it's current challenges, and its position in the VR industry,

Glow

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Their Stand toward Sustainability

Corporate environmental strategic tools like the AUUDIO and the sSWOT were used for assessing key environmental challenges that can shape strategic risks and opportunities. With the help of these tools, we found out that the major environmental challenges of Oculus are related to excessive energy consumption, the use of harmful plastics and minerals for the manufacturing process, and potential air and ocean pollution generated by their distribution activities.

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Main Opportunities

Oculus should make its manufacturing process and product specifications way more sustainable.

However, we believe that major opportunities reside in using VR to foster sustainable behaviors in the physical world to offset their carbon emissions. In addition, they can use the unique advantages of Facebook's powerful Social Media Ecosystem to boost their VR impact.

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VR for Sustainable Tourism

Our research on tourism revealed great opportunities for Virtual Reality and Social Media to foster sustainable behavioral change. Tourism is a major economic activity for the world, and it is an important source of revenue for developing nations. However, when mismanaged it can have significant negative environmental and social impacts. We want to use VR to foster sustainable growth and provide development opportunities at all levels of society and the environment.

Tourism Worldwide

Impacts of Tourism

Social Media and Tourism

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We want to bridge VR and social media and tourism to foster sustainable growth and enable holistic development, at all levels of society and the environment

We believe we can do so by

- Promoting local communities and businesses.

- Promoting sustainable activities and NGOs.

- Discourage harmful practices.

- Increasing tourist etiquette.

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Primary Research

With our initial idea in mind, we conducted evaluative research to test some of our assumptions and measure people's attitudes toward sustainable tourism. We found that people feel that as tourists they have contributed to environmental and social harm, and they want better ways to educate themselves and be mindful and helpful with their travel destinations.

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OCULUS EXPLORE