Member Article

Visiting the region's beauty from anywhere in the world

The natural beauty of Northumberland can now be experienced all over the world thanks to a new web project.

In a bid to improve tourism for the region, North Shields-based The Virtual Tour Group has created 20 interactive ‘virtual tours’ which showcase the regions most popular landscape locations via a computer and the internet.

To create the tours, The Virtual Tour Group took hundreds of photographs of the area using immersive imaging technology, and the resulting tours, are designed to make users feel like they are actually inside the scene, and also give them total control within it – they can pan, tilt, zoom and even look up or down in order to fully experience the various sights.

National Parks are designated to conserve the natural beauty and cultural heritage of areas of outstanding landscape value. Northumberland National Park, which was designated in 1956, spans more than 1,000 square kilometres from Hadrian’s Wall to the Cheviot Hills. The park currently gets around 1.5 million visitors per year, compared to around 22 million to the Lake District and 19 million to the Peak District.

The VR tours available include Thirlwall Castle, Hareshaw Bridge, Peel Crags and Bellingham, a peaceful village that overlooks the North Tyne Valley.

Managing Director of The Virtual Tour Group, Dawn Burton says: “It’s not every day that you get an opportunity to work on a project with such a forward-thinking organisation as the Northumberland National Park Authority. But added to that, I visited some beautiful locations in the National Park that I never even knew existed, some of which literally took my breath away.”

The Virtual Tour Group is a member of Codeworks Connect, the trade association for the North East’s digital industries. Herbert Kim, CEO of Codeworks, says: “The VR tours that The Virtual Tour Group have created not only demonstrate the tremendous natural beauty of Northumberland National Park, but also the power of technology as a marketing tool. It’s yet another terrific example of how the North East’s booming technology companies are having a positive impact on other industries.”

The stunning sights can now be seen by anyone with a computer via the National Park’s website www.northumberland-national-park.org.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .