KEYSTONE — Beginning today, visitors will be able to travel to Keystone without ever leaving their desks by tapping into a website that provides a virtual tour — including interiors of buildings.
Massachusetts-based EveryScape offers visitors a chance to “walk” through the town’s public areas through a video game-like control, similar to ground-level images provided by GoogleEarth.
“Keystone is not a place a lot of people have seen before, so this is a great visual tool,” said Tim Inthikaroth, EveryScape’s public relations representative.
“EveryScape is trying to offer a free-entrance, parent resource to evaluate places.”
In the second phase, which is what makes EveryScape unique from GoogleEarth, the website will add displays of interiors, private businesses and local landmarks that have paid a promotional fee.
EveryScape began its look into Colorado resort areas with Aspen a little more than two years ago. It now also features Breckenridge, Steamboat Springs and Snowmass Village.
The process for putting an area on EveryScape begins with taking 360-degree video footage of the public areas, which didn’t take very long to complete in Keystone.
“There doesn’t tend to be a lot of traffic in a town like Keystone. … My familiarity tells me it took a day or two, max, to gather the public information,” said Jeff Brandes, EveryScape’s vice-president of business development.
In the second phase, EveryScape will dispatch a local ambassador to work with local businesses or chambers of commerce to capture interiors of tourist-oriented spots such as hotels and restaurants.
Keystone does not have an ambassador yet, but EveryScape is in the process of finding one, Brandes said.
“There is value in the streets and the public areas, but the real value of EveryScape is having clients where you can go inside, because that’s really what we can showcase very well,” Brandes said.
EveryScape does not plan on stopping with just Keystone. They are hoping to continue adding other local areas to their site.
“We look forward to continuing to enhance our content all over Summit County, but specifically building out Keystone,” Brandes said.
