Yigit Yigiter, Chief Executive of virtual reality app Timelooper, has won a prestigious World Travel Market London 2016 World Travel Leaders Award in recognition of how the innovation helps tourists “travel back in time”.
The company received the coveted award today (7 November) at the WTM World Travel Leaders Award ceremony. Timelooper, General Manager Europe, Nick Larson collected the award from Hazel Lyons, Associate Publisher, Travel Weekly US.
The Awards give WTM London’s Official Media Partners – which represent key travel industry media around the world – an excellent platform to congratulate and recognise those companies and individuals that have made significant and ground-breaking contributions to travel and tourism in their region or sector.
Three nominations from each of WTM London’s media partners were judged in September by a panel of three, consisting of an independent body, a representative of WTM London and the relevant media partner.
Timelooper is an app that combines augmented and virtual reality to enhance travellers’ experiences. The app can bring additional levels of “edutainment” to destinations around the world. It uses geolocation in smartphones to trigger a virtual reality video featuring that exact spot during a time of historic importance.
For instance, visitors in Trafalgar Square can see a virtual reality recreation of the blitz in the Second World War on their phone. It also features the Tower of London in medieval times and the Great Fire of London in 1666. Visitors in New York can see significant moments in the history in Times Square and Rockefeller Center, and many more locations are being developed.
The judges at the WTM World Travel Leaders Award said: “This innovation can fundamentally change the way a destination is experienced by engaging people in the destination past and present.”
Every year, World Travel Leaders Awards are presented at WTM London. The full list of 2016 winners is:
Canada: Destination Canada
Italy: Grimaldi Lines
India: SpiceJet Airlines
Spain: LogiTravel
Brazil: Serra Verdo Express
Portugal: The Azores Tourism Board
China: UTour Group Co. Ltd
Travel Weekly US: Yigit Yigiter (Timelooper)
Travolution: GLH Hotels
Middle East: Dubai Parks & Resorts
TTG: Holiday Extras
WTM London is the event where the travel and tourism industry conducts its business deals. Buyers from the WTM Buyers’ Club have a combined purchasing responsibility of $22.6 billion (£15.8bn) and sign deals at the event worth $3.6 billion (£2.5bn).
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World Travel Market London
WTM London, the leading global event for the travel industry, is the must-attend three-day business-to-business exhibition for the worldwide travel and tourism industry.
Almost 50,000 senior travel industry professionals, government ministers and international press, embark on ExCeL – London every November to network, negotiate and discover the latest industry opinion and trends at WTM London.
WTM London is the event where the travel industry conducts and concludes its deals. WTM London will generate around £2.5 billion of travel industry contracts.
WTM London is part of Reed Travel Exhibition’s World Travel Market events, which also includes Arabian Travel Market, World Travel Market Latin America and World Travel Market Africa. www.wtmworld.com
Reed Travel Exhibitions
Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE) is the world’s leading provider of exhibitions in the travel and tourism industry. Its wide-ranging portfolio of events around the globe covers leisure travel, luxury travel, meetings, incentives and business travel, as well as golf, ski and spa travel.
RTE, which organises more than 22 events around the world, includes three divisions; World Travel Market, IBTM Events and International Luxury Travel Market.
RTE is a business unit of Reed Exhibitions.
About Reed Exhibitions
Reed Exhibitions is the world’s leading events organiser, with more than 500 events in 43 countries. In 2014 Reed brought together more than seven million event participants from around the world generating billions of dollars in business. Today Reed events are held throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa and organised by 41 fully staffed offices. Reed Exhibitions serves 43 industry sectors with trade and consumer events. It is part of the RELX Group plc, a world-leading provider of information solutions for professional customers across industries.