The term Virtual Tour may bring to mind Real Estate listings and buyers and sellers. While that is a major thrust and use of Virtual tours in today’s environment, it is by no means the be all and end all of the use of Virtual Tours in today’s lifestyle.

Let’s begin with what a virtual tour actually is. There are various definitions of Virtual Tours and many people have different ideas of just what it entails and how it is presented. A virtual tour by the very nature of the term indicates that you can take a tour of some physical place, be it a home, restaurant, hotel or any brick & mortar building to which there is a wish for people/customers to become familiar or acquainted with in the hopes that 1) they may wish to visit 2) they will know or be able to navigate their way around upon arrival 3) they wish to buy, eat, visit, etc. the highlighted place.

There are various ways of presenting these Virtual Tours. One way is to simply take still photographs and put them together into a slide show. True, you will see ‘virtually’ what you are not physically seeing in person, but that is no more than a picture. Useful, but not expansive.

Next is a video in which the viewer is taken on a tour that the videographer decides what the viewer will see and the amount of time spent in/on a particular area. While this does give an idea of the layout of a home, business, etc. it limits the viewers ability to interact and decide where they would like to go/or go back to see without having to rewind/search with stop/go on the video to revisit.

The ultimate Virtual Tour is totally interactive with the viewer being able to control where, when and how long they wish to view/remain/continue with the interactive virtual tour. Further, they can decide to return to a scene with just a click of the mouse instead of having to search/stop/go to find the scene.

You may be thinking ‘how this has anything to do with my organization in my life’.  With that said, please continue.

There is another very useful way of using virtual tours, and that is in the area of personal property, insurance, and organization.  Consider a fire or tornado or flood of your property/business. How many of you have a complete inventory of your possessions, to the degree that upon total loss you would have a list/remember all that was gone?  I doubt that many of you will answer in the affirmative. It is obvious the results of this omission when you are trying to get your insurance agency to agree to the amount of money/replacements that you lost.  So what can a virtual tour do for you?

1)    An actual virtual tour will
a.    Help you remember all the furniture that you have
b.    Help in giving value to that furniture/belongings
2)    A virtual slide show embedded in the virtual tour will
a.    Give high definition stills of individual items
i.    Silver Pattern & quantity
ii.    China patterns  & quantity
iii.    Clocks
iv.    Chairs
v.    Watches
vi.    Antique lamps
vii.    Jewelry
viii.    The list goes on and on and on

Considering what even one reasonably valuable item forgotten in trying to recoup losses is compared to the cost of an insurance virtual tour, and you will see the value of having this done and stored on a CD in an offsite venue such as a bank vault.

Alamo Area Virtual Tours, a San Antonio virtual tour company  provides this product at a very reasonable cost, especially when compared to the cost of not remembering, documenting your possessions/valuables. It is a way to feel peace of mind in the case of a catastrophe.  Insurance alone is simply not enough. The burden of proof is upon you to prove what you had. No better way than to have an Insurance Virtual Tour completed, put on a CD, sealed, dated, notarizing the date and storing off site.  Remember, even receipts can be photographed along with the item to better authenticate.

James Hoback
L’oeil L’esprit (Mind’s Eye)
San Antonio Virtual Tours
www.alamoareavirtualtours.com
Order a virtual tour: (210) 325-2675